Quotes About Introspection

What was she, after all, except the memory of all she had done, telling her the sort of person she was and guiding her next act consistently? Without that, what was left but blind chance and leaves blown meaninglessly through the trees?

She turned to John to share the joke, and he was transfixed, looking into the catastrophe of her sagging, bleary-eyed face.

But lately I have learned what it is to be human. Learned, but not understood. It seems to involve a great deal of misery crammed into a very short lifetime." His

I discover that waiting may be accomplished in divers ways. And stillness has many . . . appearances, as does warmth.

There's this thing that I like to call the RC Sproul principle of hermenutics. When you're reading the bible and you come across someone doing something really stupid, don't say to yourself "I'm glad I'm not him". Ask yourself "How am I that stupid?

If I say, "You are wrong for judging people" then by my own standard I am wrong for judging you.

Surely He does not give us hearts so we may spend our lives ignoring them.

Sometimes I really hate being right.

Sometimes it helps to scold yourself, to give yourself advice.

Seated at table - no need for the fracture of the room's silence; noiselessly they conversed.

Be absolutely aware that you are self-righteous and that this is the root of your problem.

He warmed to his own wounds as others warm themselves beside a fire

God is like a mirror. The mirror never changes, but everybody who looks at it sees something different.

I believe one has to escape oneself to discover oneself.

How can I expect readers to know who I am if I do not tell them about my family, my friends, the relationships in my life? Who am I if not where I fit in the world, where I fit in the lives of the people dear to me?

I long ago abandoned myself to a blind lust for the written word. Literature is my sandbox. In it I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time. It is the world outside that box that gives me trouble. I have adapted tamely, though not conventionally, to this visible world so I can retreat without much inconvenience into my inner world of books.

I slipped into art to escape life. I sneaked off into literature.

To write is to know that you are not at home.

I was a lonely boy. I spent all my time reading books and watching the world. [some] tried to draw me out at first, but their hearts weren't in it. And after all, they had enough troubles of their own.

I was always alone, Doc, solitary whether I wished to be or not, ever since I could remember I wished to be lost in another, thought that somehow I could disappear into that heart of yours, take walks within your veins, wander through the bones of you. You had friends, Satan said, you loved and were loved, you must not forget that, at least not that. But did I allow anyone in, I asked Satan, and he said, Did you, does anyone?

The cure for loneliness is solitude. —Marianne Moore, from the essay "If I Were Sixteen Today

I prefer slow conversations where words are counted like pearls, conversation with many pauses, pauses replacing words. An Unnecessary Woman

I thought I'd be reading a new book today, but it doesn't feel right, or I don't feel like it. Some days are not new-book days. After

Mine is a face that would have trouble launching a canoe.