Quotes About Introspection

There is no help, except what you dig out of your own self; and if I could make you see that I would have shown you all the secrets of life.

All I want is to read quietly the books that I at present prefer.

remembered how I was only a speck after all in uncomfortably limitless space, of no account whatever in the general scheme of things, but with a horrid private capacity for being often and easily hurt; and how specks have a trick of dying, which I in my turn would presently do, and a fresh speck, not nearly so nice, as I hoped and believed, would immediately start up and fill my vacancy, perhaps so exactly my vacancy that it would even wear my gloves and stockings.

It was all quite easy and simple. No need to hustle, as she had been doing till dinner. An immense leisure was now to be hers for ever, and it was entirely her own silly fault if she upset it by rushing at things.

When Michael Frere came to see Elizabeth about her autobiography All the Dogs of My Life she found him 'such a boring little man. But it is because we are all growing old, and the bones of our inadequate minds come through the flesh that hid them.' She hadn't always found him boring, and Love, one of her best novels, is largely based on their romance.

Put out? My dear Gertrud, I have been thinking of very serious things. You cannot expect me to frolic along paths of thought that lead to mighty and unpleasant truths. Why should I always smile? I am not a Cheshire cat.

After being all day with people, how blessed a thing it is not to be with them.

even now, after years of study in the art of holding my tongue, some stray fragment of what I feel does occasionally come out, and then I am at once pulled up and brought to my senses by the well-known cold stare of utter incomprehension, or the look of indulgent superiority that awaits any exposure of a feeling not in the least understood.

Sitting there in the dark, I felt very small, and solitary, and defenceless, alone in a great, big, black world.

She was just staring; and her face, as usual, was the face of a patient and disappointed Madonna.

I start to get the feeling that something is really wrong.

I wasn't just the madwoman in the attic--I was the attic itself. The past was all over me, all under me, all inside me.

As soon as I was out in the street, I realized I didn't want to be alone after all, I realized I didn't want to be anything at all.

And she keeps saying, how can you do this to me? And i want to scream, what do you mean, how can I do this to you? Aren't we confusing our pronouns here? The question, really, is How could I do this to myself?

I sit there in my bed staring at the wall, feeling happy, enjoying the way the wall looks, how pink and how white it is. Pink and white, as far as I'm concerned, have never looked quite so pink and white before.

When things get unbearable, I wrap myself into a tight ball and shut my eyes. Every muscle in my body is tense. I open my eyes and I'm still where I was when I closed them to escape. Nothing's changed.

One morning you wake up and are afraid you are going to live. In my case, I was not frightened in the least bit at the thought that I might live because I was certain, quite certain, that I was already dead.

I know by now, only too well, that you can never get away from yourself because you never go away.

And then I think of the Velvet Underground's doleful song Jesus, from their third and least renowned or appreciated album. It is my favorite. Jesus / Help me find my proper place / Help me in my weakness / 'Cause I'm falling out of grace. The only words in the song, repeated repeatedly, composed by Lou Reed, a Jew. You see, in the hour of darkness, it is easier to turn to the Son of God than to God Himself, for some reason. I'm not sure why.

I faded into abstraction. A self-generated narcosis created a painful blank where my mind used to be.

Depression is a very narcissistic thing, it's a self involvement that is so deep and intense that it means the sufferer cannot get out of her own head long enough to see what real good, what genuine loveliness, there is in the world around her.

I'm not crying because you're mean. I just can't imagine how incredibly painful it must be to be you.

Pass the pills and fancy plants/ Give us this day our daily trance.

I was scared of the way I felt as I ran away, knowing that if I stopped, I might have to confront the reason I was always running - and I'd have to admit that there was no reason. Run, run, run. Was it toward something or away from something else?