Shyness Quotes

“Whereas before I had been an open, outgoing, and inquisitive child, suddenly, I was quiet—almost shy.”
― Lin Wilder, My Name is Saul: A Novel of the Ancient World

“When I had almost reached him he turned and smiled at me. Then, with a strangely gauche and still hesitant movement, he shook my trembling hand. "Hello, Hans", he said, and suddenly I realised to my joy and relief and amazement that he was as shy and as much in need of a friend as I.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Silence is your best friend.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“How would he in all his glory ever be able to understand my shyness, my suspicious pride and my fear of being hurt?”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“The mere thought of having to enter into contact with someone else makes me nervous. A simple invitation to have dinner with a friend produces an anguish in me that’s hard to define. The idea of any social obligation whatsoever – attending a funeral, dealing with someone about an office matter, going to the station to wait for someone I know or don’t know – the very idea disturbs my thoughts for an entire day, and sometimes I even start worrying the night before, so that I sleep badly. When it takes place, the dreaded encounter is utterly insignificant, justifying none of my anxiety, but the next time is no different: I never learn to learn.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“So, what's up with you and Damian?" Helena asks.

"What do you mean?" I can feel the hear of a blush coloring on my cheeks. I can't ever seem to not show how I feel. It's becoming pretty annoying.”
― Lisa Ann Sandell, A Map of the Known World

“A fragrance is the essence of a flower that influences everyone; likewise, shyness is a pretty jewellery of a female figure that attracts every male person.”
― Ehsan Sehgal

“If we fear people who can shadow us, we will stay with those who do not give off any light.”
― Luigina Sgarro

“I’m afraid I don’t really have a clear understanding of the psychology of the powerful- particularly the absolutely invincible variety, which I’ve never met or known to exist. I’m a story writer with such feeble imaginative powers that unless I myself have experienced something, I can’t write one line- I can’t write a word- about it.”
― Osamu Dazai, Otogizōshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu

“I can't remember much of what Konradin said to me that day or what I said to him. All I know is that we walked up and down for an hour, like two young lovers, still nervous, still afraid of each other; but somehow I knew that this was only a beginning and that from now on my life would no longer be empty and dull but full of hope and richness for us both.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“My first prayer was into a purple plastic toy megaphone. I even went into the closet to do it in case God was shy like me.”
― Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us

“Henry was a bit surprised that the owl was concerned about him, and he began to think about what the owl had said. He decided that he didn't want to be a fearful little prickly ball his whole life.”
― Nienke Witteveen, Het Bange Egeltje

“She was, [Wilfrid Riley] recalled, "a very clever person, but you couldn't be at ease with her some way. She wasn't with you. She was up in the clouds, always studying poetry, what have you . . . You couldn't sit with her and converse with her like you can normal people." It wasn't pride, he thought, that made her this way. "Shyness came into it. She couldn't lend herself to people. She was a little bit aloof from people, and I don't think she intended to be.”
― Heather Clark, Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

“A part of him did not want to disrupt her—she was so with herself that stopping her rhythm would be like interrupting a play or telling a healthy sea animal to stop swimming. But greater than the need to admire was his need to follow that admiration—which meant talking to the stranger.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, A Happy Ghost

“Hey, I get you, man,” assured Officer Villalobos. “And what you feel is totally valid—”

“—for Christ’s sake, can you stop saying what you think you should say?” said Gonzales.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, A Happy Ghost

“Where shyness should be shown, it should be shown. Or there will be a situation where you will regret it later.”
― Sithi Fathima

“Could Stephen have met men on equal terms, she would always have chosen them as her companions; she preferred them because of their blunt, open outlook, and with men she had much in common—sport for instance. But men found her too clever if she ventured to expand, and too dull if she suddenly subsided into shyness. In addition to this there was something about her that antagonized slightly, an unconscious presumption. Shy though she might be, they sensed this presumption; it annoyed them, it made them feel on the defensive. She was handsome but much too large and unyielding both in body and mind, and they liked clinging women. They were oak-trees, preferring the feminine ivy. It might cling rather close, it might finally strangle, it frequently did, and yet they preferred it, and this being so, they resented Stephen, suspecting something of the acorn about her.”
― Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness

“I'd never recited poetry to anyone before; I've never done it since. I have a highly sensitive mechanism, a circuit breaker of reticence, that keeps me from opening up too far, from revealing my feelings; and reciting verse seems to me more than just talking about my feelings, it is as if I were standing on one leg at the same time; a certain unnaturalness in the very principle of rhythm and rhyme embarrasses me when I think of indulging in it in anything but solitude. But Lucie had the magical power (no one after her has ever had it) to bypass the circuit breaker and rid me of the burden of my shyness.”
― Milan Kundera, The Joke

“Who was I to dare to talk to him? In which of Europe's ghettos had my ancestor been huddled when Frederick von Hohenstaufen gave Anno von Hohenfels his bejewelled hand?”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“People had tried to reel Raphael in from his silence. Their attempts were precisely why he felt so uncomfortable. He did not want to be saved or included. He liked to listen. When he asked a question, it was because he wanted to know the answer. But then they turned it around to ask, “What about you?” and this bothered Raphael, who believed the speaker only returned the question out of manners and so was never a real inquiry. Raphael would be pressured to respond and endure the painful seconds of saying something someone did not want to hear. He would trace their faltering eyes, then his words would crumble into sand, and his listener would never notice because they were not interested in the first place.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, A Happy Ghost

“For Christ’s sake! Can you stop saying what you think you should say?” he said.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, A Happy Ghost

“Bambi schien das eine wie das andere überaus hochmütig, die Art, wie der Hirsch ihn angeblickt hatte, und die Art, wie er jetzt vor sich hin sah, als sei niemand sonst zugegen.
Bambi wußte nicht, was er tun sollte. Er war mit der festen Absicht herausgekommen, den Hirsch anzusprechen. Guten Morgen, hatte er sagen wollen, ich heiße Bambi... darf ich um Ihren werten Namen bitten?
Jawohl! Er hatte sich das sehr einfach vorgestellt, und nun zeigte es sich, daß die Sache doch nicht so einfach war. Was half da die beste Absicht? Bambi wollte nicht gerne ungezogen sein, und das war er, wenn er hier herauskam, ohne ein Wort zu sagen. Er wollte auch nicht zudringlich sein, und das war er, wenn er zu reden anfing.
Der Hirsch stand empörend majestätisch da. Bambi war hingerissen und fühlte sich gedemütigt. Vergebens suchte er sich aufzurütteln und wiederholte immer wieder nur den einen Gedanken: Warum lasse ich mich denn einschüchtern..? Ich bin gerade so viel wie er... gerade so viel wie er!
Es half nichts. Bambi blieb eingeschüchtert und spürte es im Grunde seines Wesens, daß er doch nicht gerade so viel sei. Lange nicht. Ihm war jämmerlich zumut, und er brauchte seine ganze Kraft, um einigermaßen Haltung zu bewahren.
Der Hirsch sah ihn an und dachte: Er ist reizend... er ist wirklich entzückend... so hübsch... so zierlich... so fein in seinem ganzen Benehmen... Aber ich darf ihn nicht so anstarren. Das schickt sich wirklich nicht. Außerdem könnte es ihn auch in Verlegenheit bringen.
Und er schaute wieder über Bambi weg ins Leere.
Dieser hochmütige Blick! stellte Bambi fest. Es ist unerträglich, was so einer sich einbildet!
Der Hirsch dachte: Ich möchte gerne mit ihm sprechen... er ist so sympathisch... wie dumm, daß man nie miteinander redet! Und er blickte nachdenklich vor sich hin.
Ich bin Luft für ihn, sagte Bambi, diese Sippe tut immer, als sei sie ganz allein auf der Welt!
Aber was soll ich zu ihm sagen..? überlegte der Hirsch, ... ich habe keine Übung... ich werde eine Dummheit sagen und mich lächerlich machen... denn er ist gewiß sehr klug.
Bambi nahm sich zusammen und sah den Hirsch fest an. Wie prächtig er ist! dachte er verzweifelt.
Nun... vielleicht ein andermal... entschloß sich schließlich der Hirsch und ging unzufrieden, aber herrlich davon.
Bambi blieb verbittert zurück.”
― Felix Salten, Bambi: A Life in the Woods

“An introvert is a person who spends a minute with people, and an eternity with themself.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Stamerenophobia

“Then she realised that Levy had been silent for some time, and, like most shy people, she was afraid of silence.”
― Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, The Blank Wall

“You can't change the world with your words if NOBODY knows who you are.”
― Pat J. Wheeler, Winnie Acts Up: A Kid's Introduction to Theater

“Amane tried to tear his eyes away and bring his soaring heart back down to earth, but in the end, he kept staring at her until she noticed and hid her face in a cushion.”
― Saekisan, The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten, Vol. 2

“Maybe the girls were right about me having no place else to go, about there being nothing fun about my life.”
― Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night

“That was when I finally got to it. This is just the way it was going to be. I could lose fifty pounds and be beautiful. I could write my Book of Books, and have it an underground success. I could even die and be reborn. But no matter what, I would always be as painfully shy and as bewildered by the social talk that brings people together, as shy and as bewildered as I had been since I was a kid. Without knowing what you say to leave without hurting, I pushed back my chair, stood up awkwardly, and silently wandered away. When I awoke I knew, for the first time again, that nothing ever really changes. The shyness is mine, like it or not. It's the best of me and the worst of me, and only the covering it up, the hiding it, and the running from it is not me. And for better or for worse, all of that that is not me is me, too.”
― Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients

“who wish for more and less / who never know how to dress / shy and talkative / insecure and ugly and beautiful”
― Arabella Leyla

“His shyness was quickly mistaken for arrogant aloofness, and his schoolmates began to shun him which simply added to his shyness.”
― Stanislas M Yassukovich, Summertime and Short Stories