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Shy Quotes

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Shy Quotes

“The less he says, the colder the concrete floor gets. The cold refrigerated air brushes over my feet and curls up my ankles. The coldness turns my toes inward, and I rock uneasily. Fear makes your body do things you can’t control. In battle, soldiers experience fight-or-flight, and their blood retreats into their core, their torso, depleting the extremities—which includes the brain.”

“It embarrasses me to admit this, but on the first day of school, I sat on a bench, next to one of the new kids. I crossed my fingers, hoping he’d talk to me. Either he didn’t notice me or thought I wasn’t very popular. I’m not. So, maybe the word has gotten out.”

“When they got to their hotel she went straight up to bed, but he paused to get a drink. There was, in the vestibule, a flower stall and he bought a handful of roses, stiffly wired into a bouquet, before proceeding to the oppressive gorgeousness of their bridal suite. The lift was lined with looking glass, so that as he shot upwards he got an endlessly duplicated version of himself, stout and nervous, a light cloak flung over his shoulder and flowers in his hand: an infinitely long row of gentlemen carrying offerings to an unforgiving past.”

“Of all individuals, the hated, the shunned, and the peculiar are arguably most themselves. They wear no masks whatsoever in order to be accepted and liked; they do seem most guarded, but only by their own hands: as compared to the populace, they are naked.”

“But don’t risk having children make a speech to the class unless you’ve provided them with the tools to know with reasonable confidence that it will go well. Have kids practice with a partner and in small groups, and if they’re still too terrified, don’t force it. Experts believe that negative public speaking experiences in childhood can leave children with a lifelong terror of the podium.”

“Half of me is filled with bursting words and half of me is painfully shy. I crave solitude yet also crave people. I want to pour life and love into everything yet also nurture my self-care and go gently. I want to live within the rush of primal, intuitive decision, yet also wish to sit and contemplate. This is the messiness of life - that we all carry multitudes, so must sit with the shifts. We are complicated creatures, and ultimately, the balance comes from this understanding. Be water. Flowing, flexible and soft. Subtly powerful and open. Wild and serene. Able to accept all changes, yet still led by the pull of steady tides. It is enough.”

“Quiet people always know more than they seem. Although very normal, their inner world is by default fronted mysterious and therefore assumed weird. Never underestimate the social awareness and sense of reality in a quiet person; they are some of the most observant, absorbent persons of all.”

“He swallowed nervously, but in a schoolboy crush kind of way. She was so beautiful. He had been admiring her beauty for the past few days, but it never seemed right to act on it. Somehow, things felt more normal being in his home. It was like the past few days were just a crazy nightmare that had finally ended, except it didn’t. It was only on hold for a while, but it was long enough to act on his feelings. He wanted this woman badly. Everything about her was absolutely perfect!”

“Greta knows that for me there are no good parties. I’m okay with one or two people, but more than that and I turn into a naked mole rat. That’s what being shy feels like. Like my skin is too thin, the light too bright. Like the best place I could possibly be is in a tunnel far under the cool, dark earth. Someone asks me a question and I stare at them, empty-faced, my brain jammed up with how hard I’m trying to find something interesting to say. And in the end, all I can do is nod or shrug, because the light of their eyes looking at me, waiting for me, is just too much to take. And then it’s over and there’s one more person in the world who thinks I’m a complete and total waste of time.”

“Nothing is as irritating to a shy man as a confident girl.”

“All my life, people have taken my shyness for sullenness, snobbery, bad temper of one sort or another. "Stop looking so superior!" my father sometimes used to shout at me when I was eating, watching television, or otherwise minding my own business. But this facial cast of mine (that's what I think it is, really, a way my mouth has of turning down at the corners, it has little to do with my actual moods) has worked as often to my favor as to my disadvantage.”

“Infants never learn to soothe themselves to sleep. They learn, abandoned in seclusion, that no matter the volume of their despondence, no matter the force of their tears, when they are alone and frightened, no-one will ever come to their rescue. Infants do not soothe themselves. They merely surrender. And it is caged in their cribs where the infants learn, in the face of their demons, to remain silent and submitting.”

“I wonder. If I had you wear that mask today, Anne, would you find the courage to tell me what is troubling you?" Anne would very much have liked to confide in her father, but where in the world would she begin? He leaned over and whispered in her ear. "I will tell you a secret, my dear. All of my children are shy. They have simply learned the art of wearing masks.”