Shy Quotes

“My feelings are too loud for words and too shy for the world.”
― Dejan Stojanovic

“I was quiet, but I was not blind.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“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.”
― Victoria Erickson

“Just because you don't say much doesn't mean people don't notice you. It's actually the quiet ones who often draw the most attention. There's this constant whirlwind of motion and sound all around, and then there's the quiet one, the eye of the storm.”
― Amy Efaw, After

“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.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“Clearly she was expected to say something, but panic at having to speak stole the thoughts from her head.”
― Shannon Hale, The Goose Girl

“May feel like you're falling', Tabby, but remember, I'm at the bottom ready to catch you.”
― Kristen Ashley , Own the Wind

“One is always half mad when one is shy of people.”
― Robert Walser, Jakob von Gunten

“She holds herself with such reserve. She smiles, but the smile doesn't reach her eyes, even in the company of the girls she's chosen to eat with. Why?
I have no clue, and I really don't want to spend my time worrying about it. But my brain pushes at the question anyway.
Why are people aloof?
Because they don't want to let others in.
Why don't they want to let others in?
Well, sometimes because they're shy, and sometimes because they're convinced of their own superiority.
But those aren't the only reasons. Sometimes it's because thay have something to hide.”
― Lauren Myracle, Bliss

“I'm bored," he says.
"So go home."
"I don't want to. What do you do when you're bored? You don't have Internet or TV. Do you just sit around all day and think about how hot I am?”
― Colleen Hoover, Hopeless

“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.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“She looked at him, his soft brown eyes and tall form, and contemplated raising herself on her toes and kissing his ear, or his cheek...

Instead, impulsively before leaving, she reached up and smoothed his mussed hair.

Mr. Bradford beamed.”
― Heather Dixon, Entwined

“I had become awkward and tried my best to avoid everyone. I hated attention, people asking me questions or putting me in the spotlight; I preferred to blend into the background unnoticed. I felt safer that way”
― Giovanna Fletcher, Billy and Me

“Everybody wants to be somebody fancy. Even if they're shy.”
― Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

“Because there are hundreds of different ways to say one thing, I, being a writer, songwriter, and poet, speak childishly and incoherently. In speech there is so much to decide in so little time.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Once bitten twice shy? Sure, but... why not get a bigger dog and bite them back?”
― A.A. Bell , Hindsight

“The humble ones are always learning and improving, and their secret is always that it's a secret.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

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

“Being shy is a symptom of a low self-esteem.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Confessions of a Misfit

“Cavendish is a book in himself. Born into a life of sumptuous privilege- his grandfathers were dukes, respectively, of Devonshire and Kent- he was the most gifted English scientist of his age, but also the strangest. He suffered, in the words of one of his few biographers, from shyness to a "degree bordering on disease." Any human contact was for him a source of the deepest discomfort.

Once he opened his door to find an Austrian admirer, freshly arrived from Vienna, on the front step. Excitedly the Austrian began to babble out praise. For a few moments Cavendish received the compliments as if they were blows from a blunt object and then, unable to take any more, fled down the path and out the gate, leaving the front door wide open. It was some hours before he could be coaxed back to the property. Even his housekeeper communicated with him by letter.

Although he did sometimes venture into society- he was particularly devoted to the weekly scientific soirees of the great naturalist Sir Joseph Banks- it was always made clear to the other guests that Cavendish was on no account to be approached or even looked at. Those who sought his views were advised to wander into his vicinity as if by accident and to "talk as it were into vacancy." If their remarks were scientifically worthy they might receive a mumbled reply, but more often than not they would hear a peeved squeak (his voice appears to have been high pitched) and turn to find an actual vacancy and the sight of Cavendish fleeing for a more peaceful corner.”
― Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

“That’s the truth of the world, Jessica,” he says, casually full-naming me to let me know something big is coming. “Nobody waves—but everybody waves back."

I hear his mic drop all the way from Chicago.”
― Jessica Pan, Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: An Introvert's Year of Living Dangerously

“He was rather clumsy and shy and looked as if he'd spent the last ten years of his life locked up in a library - hardly the kind of man any girl your age dreams of ...”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Midnight Palace

“Having people in different optimal environments increases the chances of survival of the human race as a whole. It is nature's way to preserve her species.”
― Marti Olsen Laney, The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World

“There's a lot of beauty in quiet strength.”
― Debbie Tung, Quiet Girl in a Noisy World: An Introvert's Story

“If bitten by a dog so many times, any time shy!”
― DON SANTO

“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.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Why couldn't he feel things in secret like other people?”
― Juliette Rose Kerr, To Fill a Jar With Water

“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

“The more conscious you are of your stutter, the more likely you are to stutter.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Stamerenophobia