Quotes About Introspection

If you have value as an artist it's probably going to be in your capacity to let things inside you get past things that are placed there to keep you from telling the truth. The more you see things as clearly and coldly as you can, the more value you're going to have.

Who tells a finer tale than any of us. Silence does.

I think every artist's next work will reflect a new chapter in their autobiography. Each album tells a story about where they were at during a particular period and how they have evolved.

Many people come to self-help material because they feel like something is wrong with them or the way they are. The problem is that anything that tells you how to improve your life is also implying that there is something inherently wrong with you the way you are.

Anything where we're the butt of the joke, no one tells us about it.

Your face tells a story and it shouldn't be a story about your drive to the doctor's office.

We get so swept up in sort of what the media tells us to care about and all these other influences that we really have to dig down deep and figure out what is it that we as human beings really care about and want for ourselves. When you figure that out, you see who you really are.

I'm always looking for something that tells me a little bit about what it means to be human. That's how I measure the success of any artistic endeavor.

Just look at what is right in front of you. People don't do that. They see what they expect to see, what they want to see, what conventional wisdom tells them to see. They only hear the music and not the lyrics of human events.

In 'Dublinesque', Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas inverts the terms of Joyce's 'Ulysses' and tells the story of a man who, after living a hyperkinetic life like those of Odysseus and Leopold Bloom, resolves to never leave his room again and to reduce his mental activity to a minimum.

How a character hides his feelings tells us something about him.

I don't normally watch myself on the telly.

You know when you get into that thing where people want to discuss the relationship? I'd rather discuss what was on telly, avoid the issue, discuss anything other than the relationship.

I haven't really got much get up and go. I can't believe I'm on the telly. I'm so lazy.

You know, for years I used to read about myself. They'd say, 'He has a temper' or 'He's a bully' or something like that, and it always bothered me.

I have a temper, but I wouldn't call me abusive.

I used to be afraid of my temper, but it turns out I don't really have one.

With the Internet, we can communicate instantly across the globe, but the net also makes it possible for us to shrink ever further into our own skins - a state of being that neither suits the human temperament nor provides ground for further growth.

The physiological signs, of getting on in age, are enervatingly apparent. What creeps up on you insidiously are the changes of temperament.

In the modern world, the anxious temperament does offer certain benefits: caution, introspection, the capacity to work alone. These can be adaptive qualities.

I'm really honored that Bon Iver gives me a platform to do whatever I want, but there's only so much time you can spend digging through yourself before you become insular. I'm not in a hurry to go back to that temperature.

There was a solid year and a half, perhaps two years, after making 'Temple Grandin,' when I didn't do anything. I just didn't have much patience for roles that were silly, or light, or inconsequential.

I was an unusually private person - in a way, kind of insufferably so. I think I thought the celebrity thing when it happened was a temporary phenomenon, and I was above it.

We're all born strangers to ourselves and each other, and we're seldom formally introduced.