Quotessence
Home / Topics / Awkwardness Quotes

Awkwardness Quotes

Browse 148 quotes about Awkwardness.

Related topics

Awkwardness Quotes

“The laces, untied, the socks won't match. I won't know what to wear and when to wear it and I am rubbish at the small talk required to fit into places I've never bothered to fit into. There are square pegs that spend their lives trying to squeeze into round holes, but I wasn't even given four straight sides, I am shapes when none are required, I am a million wrongs stuffed into something I never asked if it was right. I am this, and I've never been that, I've no plans to remedy the broken bits.”

“I lead a double life. I'm John Wayne Gacy. I present myself in potentially awkward social situations as a laughing, colorful clown to gain your regard. If you ask my friends and neighbors, they will tell you I'm "normal" and that I "keep to myself." Meanwhile, there's a crawlspace in the basement where I've buried my secrets. It's starting to get pretty crowded down there, but they are mine. And there they'll stay.”

“He hated walking. It was the most excruciating activity in his day; that was, because of the screaming. You see, passing strangers on a walk is terribly painful for people like Andrei, whose every muscle fights to pretend their mind is not yelling questions like: “DO YOU GO LEFT?! OR DO I? Do I know you? Are you looking at me? Do I look familiar to you? Look down! Peruse the floor, scan left now right. Where are your headphones? It would have been so much easier to look busy if you had just remembered to bring your headphones! They’re coming closer. Don’t look at them. Rub your eyes. Sniffle. Good. Good...We made it. OH GOD ANOTHER ONE.”

“Imagine a young Isaac Newton time-travelling from 1670s England to teach Harvard undergrads in 2017. After the time-jump, Newton still has an obsessive, paranoid personality, with Asperger’s syndrome, a bad stutter, unstable moods, and episodes of psychotic mania and depression. But now he’s subject to Harvard’s speech codes that prohibit any “disrespect for the dignity of others”; any violations will get him in trouble with Harvard’s Inquisition (the ‘Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion’). Newton also wants to publish Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, to explain the laws of motion governing the universe. But his literary agent explains that he can’t get a decent book deal until Newton builds his ‘author platform’ to include at least 20k Twitter followers – without provoking any backlash for airing his eccentric views on ancient Greek alchemy, Biblical cryptography, fiat currency, Jewish mysticism, or how to predict the exact date of the Apocalypse. Newton wouldn’t last long as a ‘public intellectual’ in modern American culture. Sooner or later, he would say ‘offensive’ things that get reported to Harvard and that get picked up by mainstream media as moral-outrage clickbait. His eccentric, ornery awkwardness would lead to swift expulsion from academia, social media, and publishing. Result? On the upside, he’d drive some traffic through Huffpost, Buzzfeed, and Jezebel, and people would have a fresh controversy to virtue-signal about on Facebook. On the downside, we wouldn’t have Newton’s Laws of Motion.”

“No one would call it beautiful, but that hardly mattered to Zofia. Beauty did not move her. But the Eiffel Tower did. It was immensely awkward. If the streets looked sewn together with a neat hand, la Tour Eiffel was the ungainly needle pinning it all into place. It lanced through the grand boulevards, elegant cupolas, and buildings draped in sculpted gods. It would never blend in, but always demand witnessing. Zofia suspected that if la Tour Eiffel could talk, they would understand each other perfectly.”

“For a moment, I tried to see myself through the eyes of the girl with the black hair, or even the boy in the cowboy hat, studying my features for a vibration under the skin. The effort was visible in my face, and I felt ashamed. No wonder the boy had seemed disgusted: He must have seen the longing in me. Seen how my face was blatant with need, like an orphan's empty dish. And that was the difference between me and the black-haired girl- her face answered all it's own questions.”

“When you said goodbye earlier, I wish there had been something more. It's too sharp of a turn. Endings are jarring. It doesn’t make any sense. 'Goodbyes' are the oldest thieves around. Because they steal all the credit of a moment. All the good out of a conversation. The lasting impression of goodbyes makes it seem as if no party ever cared to begin with. You know?”

“When we entered a classroom we always tossed our caps on the floor, to free our hands; as soon as we crossed the threshold we would throw them under the bench so hard that they struck the wall and raised a cloud of dust; this was "the way it should be done." But the new boy either failed to notice this maneuver or was too shy to perform it himself, for he was still holding his cap on his lap at the end of the prayer. It was a head-gear of composite nature, combining elements of the busby, the lancer cap, the round hat, the otter-skin cap and the cotton nightcap--one of those wretched things whose mute ugliness has great depths of expression, like an idiot's face. Egg-shaped and stiffened by whalebone, it began with three rounded bands, followed by alternating diamond-shaped patches of velvet and rabbit fur separated by a red stripe, and finally there was a kind of bag terminating in a cardboard-lined polygon covered with complicated braid. A network of gold wire was attached to the top of this polygon by a long, extremely thin cord, forming a kind of tassel. The cap was new; its visor was shiny. "Stand up," said the teacher. He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to laugh. He bent down and picked it up. A boy beside him knocked it down again with his elbow; he picked it up once again. "Will you please put your helmet away?" said the teacher, a witty man.”

“You saw him as disapproving of you. I thought him disapproving of me. Funny, isn't it?" Not only funny, but a strange relief. Why hadn't she seen it? Rhys felt like an impostor here, too. [...] Tilting her head to the twilight sky, she mused, "Do you know what I think? I have a feeling that dour look on Lord Corning's face had nothing to do with either of us. Perhaps he'd just tasted something unpleasant.”

“Still afraid of people, are you?" "Never afraid, Grand-mère, only distrusting. Have you ever had your face on the internet with the headline 'American Royalty Does the Director's Daughter' touting your previous night's adventure?" Cleo was glad neither of the Tremblays was looking at her. A hot blush covered her face at how cavalier Deacon was about his past escapades, not to mention his choice of words. Virgie gave a little snort. "No, because I never fooled around. In my day, we remained faithful for the sake of appearances, if not morality." "Mmm, good advice, but a tad too late for me, Grand-mère," Deacon said. Cleo's cheeks were blazing hot now. She studied the water in her glass as if it were a fascinating exhibit at an art museum.”