It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.
Stephen FryTags: books laughter philosophy literature language shame isolation self-image depression social-anxiety self-loathing body-image self-consciousness insecurity
Masquerades disclose the reality of souls. As long as no one sees who we are, we can tell the most intimate details of our life. I sometimes muse over this sketch of a story about a man afflicted by one of those personal tragedies born of extreme shyness who one day, while wearing a mask I don’t know where, told another mask all the most personal, most secret, most unthinkable things that could be told about his tragic and serene life. And since no outward detail would give him away, he having disguised even his voice, and since he didn’t take careful note of whoever had listened to him, he could enjoy the ample sensation of knowing that somewhere in the world there was someone who knew him as not even his closest and finest friend did. When he walked down the street he would ask himself if this person, or that one, or that person over there might not be the one to whom he’d once, wearing a mask, told his most private life. Thus would be born in him a new interest in each person, since each person might be his only, unknown confidant.
Fernando PessoaTags: social-anxiety masks
I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside. Because how do you meet a new person? I was very stunned by this for many years. And then I realized, you just say, "Hi." They may ignore you. Or you may marry them. And that possibility is worth that one word.
Augusten BurroughsTags: bravery risk opportunity lonliness social-anxiety
Driven by a wish to save Tomás from a life of penury and misunderstanding, Fermin had decided that he needed to develop my friend's latent conversational and social skills.
Like the good ape he is, man is a social animal, characterized by cronyism, nepotism, corruption, and gossip. That's the intrinsic blueprint for our ethical behavior.
Tags: people social-anxiety
I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.
Charlotte BrontëTags: self-esteem confidence social-anxiety cage
does a society exist where it's become acceptable to wear 'helmets' enclosing one's entire head when in public to preempt social interaction
Tao LinTags: future social-anxiety helmets
In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it... She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt.
Nathaniel HawthorneTags: society solitude social-anxiety
When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial.
Fernando PessoaTags: social-anxiety
I've spent most of my life and most of my friendships holding my breath and hoping that when people get close enough they won't leave, and fearing that it's a matter of time before they figure me out and go.
Shauna NiequistTags: friendships social-anxiety anxiety
I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.
Daphne du MaurierTags: truth social-anxiety shyness
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