When you’re socially awkward, you’re isolated more than usual, and when you’re isolated more than usual, your creativity is less compromised by what has already been said and done. All your hope in life starts...

Although she was gregarious, she inadvertently separated herself from people because she was so often inside her own head, focusing on her creativity.

When psychologists Catherine Caldwell-Harris and Ayse Ayçiçegi compared U.S. and Turkish samples, they found that having “an orientation inconsistent with societal values” is a risk factor for poor mental health. The findings support what the...

Because loners are born everywhere, we end up living everywhere. We do not, have not, tended to single ourselves out as special, elite, requiring rarefied environments. Too often we have done the opposite; lived where...

It’s as if they have thinner boundaries separating them from other people’s emotions and from the tragedies and cruelties of the world.

I would say that introverts make some of the best international philosophers. The less common attribute of the introverted lifestyle – a close societal connection, as such a connection disappears or changes in relevance as...

In other people’s company I felt I was dull, gloomy, unwelcome, at once bored and boring…

I’m going inside of myself and never coming out.

We do not require company. In varying degrees, it bores us, drains us, makes our eyes glaze over. Overcomes us like a steamroller. Of course, the rest of the world doesn’t understand.

There’s nothing more exciting than ideas.

I talked to a calzone for fifteen minutes last night before I realized it was just an introverted pizza. I wish all my acquaintances were so tasty.

How intense can be the longing to escape from the emptiness and dullness of human verbosity, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labour, of sound sleep,...

At least a third of the world’s population are introverts. While they can pretend to be extroverts for a while, frankly, the task is exhausting. I hope Charlotte accurately portrayed the complexities of this personality....

I was beginning to realize that what I wanted was the noise of people living near me, but not near enough to cause any inaudible noises to show up because I knew that those sorts...

But when the group is literally capable of changing our perceptions, and when to stand alone is to activate primitive, powerful, and unconscious feelings of rejection, then the health of these institutions seems far more...

the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.” Thanks, Wikipedia!

…And tonight—Geryon? You okay?Yes fine, I’m listening. Tonight—?Why do you have your jacket over your head?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Can’t hear...

Potential was a red herring to plot a life of wandering curiosity.

During relaxation we drop our guard. Particularly in conversation. Relaxed conversation leads to openness. And in openness we often reveal what should never be revealed.

…I also believe that introversion is my greatest strength. I have such a strong inner life that I’m never bored and only occasionally lonely. No matter what mayhem is happening around me, I know I...

Já jsem uctivý a zdvořilý ke každému, ale kdyby lidi věděli, jak těžká mi je tato uctivost a zdvořilost, utíkali by ode mne a prosili by mne, abych jim odpustil, že jejich stín padl na...

When you fail to tap into your wellsprings of inner strength due totoxic habits, environments or people, you wind up feeling trapped, stranded and unhappy. You end up in soulless jobs, destructive relationships and empty...

I’ll be honest with you. I’m a little bit of a loner. It’s been a big part of my maturing process to learn to allow people to support me. I tend to be very self-reliant...

Telling an introvert to go to a party is like telling a saint to go to Hell.

We have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionally.

Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other.We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a...

It is, in truth, our responsibility to understand our needs and to adjust our perceptions,thoughts, decisions, behaviors, and environments to reflect these needs. We can’t force others to change, but we can change ourselves.

It is a frightful satire and an epigram on the modern age that the only use it knows for solitude is to make it a punishment, a jail sentence.

you once said to would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing one self to excess; that utmost of self-revelation...

the idea of being invisibly alone in a crowd of strangers is so tempting for a number of introverts…or maybe for loneliness?

To develop understanding and compassion for who we are as introverts, we must be able to explore who we are, what makes us happy, what makes us unhappy, and what oursubsequent needs are.

Introverts don’t like small talk conversation, but they typically don’t mind writing. The more people can “see” you on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or a blog, the more they will feel like they know you, even...

For I see not what there is desirable in publick esteeme, were I able to acquire & maintaine it. It would perhaps increase my acquaintance, the thing which I chiefly study to decline.

So the next time you see a person with a compose face and a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might,...

way out.” This is true of the entire scale of metaphors, from the resurrection of a man in his grave, to the sudden outburst of one who has long been silent. If we remain at...

When we take into consideration the needs of both ourselves and others, we communicate honestly, compassionately and effectively.

A Manifesto for Introverts1. There’s a word for ‘people who are in their heads too much’: thinkers.2. Solitude is a catalyst for innovation.3. The next generation of quiet kids can and must be raised to...

In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent.

Only a few have learned to savor the significance of solitude. Those who can glory in being alone on occasion are the saint or poet or explorer.

I went up on the hill and walked about until twilight had deepened into an autumn night with a benediction of starry quietude over it. I was alone but not lonely. I was a queen...

You are like an ocean: quietly ebbing and flowing to the rhythm of life, but wildly expansive and profoundly powerful. You are boundless. You are whole. Your quietness is your strength. Your depth is your...

If personal space is vital to creativity, so is freedom from “peer pressure”.

Companionship is a foreign concept to some people. They fear it as much as the majority of people fear loneliness.

The walls of books around him, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters.

Any human companionship, even the dearest and most perfect, would have been alien to her then. She was sufficient unto herself, needing not love nor comradeship nor any human emotion to round out her felicity....

My Solitude is my Treasure, the best thing I have. I hesitate to go out. If you opened the little gate, I would not hop away—but oh how I sing in my gold cage.

Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends,...

If I were to envy any persons on this planet, it would be mountain hermits. You often hear old platitudes such as, ‘Speak out. Be heard.’ On the contrary, a breath of fresh air would...

Even in a personal sense, after all, art is an intensified life. By art one is more deeply satisfied and more rapidly used up. It engraves on the countenance of its servant the traces of...

the comfort of reclusion, the poetry of hibernation