introverts

People who are drawn to journalism are usually people who, because of their cynicism or emotional detachment or reserve or whatever, are incapable of being anything but witnesses to events. Something prevents them from becoming involved, committed, and allows them to remain separate.

The trick for introverts is to honor their styles instead of allowing themselves to be swept up by prevailing norms.

Life isn't about just talking, it's about thinking too.

The most introspective of souls are often those that have been hurt the most.

Introverts need to trust their gut and share their ideas as powerfully as they can.

I need a break after school," she told me later. "School is hard because a lot of people are in the room, so you get tired. I freak out if my mom plans a play date without telling me, because I don't want to hurt my friends' feelings. But I'd rather stay home. At a friend's house you have to do the things other people want to do. I like hanging out with my mom after school because I can learn from her. She's been alive longer than me. We have thoughtful conversations. I like having conversations because they make people happy.

It was words and reading that had made me quiet, and being quiet had made me a mark.

I love introverts. They don't waste words. Excessive extroverts can be very wasteful. I don't trust them in any kind of intricate or delicate matter.

We can't underestimate the value of silence. We need to create ourselves, need to spend time alone. If you don't, you risk not knowing yourself and not realizing your dreams.

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

Woe to him who offends a patient man who has just reached his limit.

God has always been about the business of shattering expectations, and in our culture, the standards of leadership are extroverted. It perfectly follows the biblical trend that God would choose the unexpected and the culturally "unfit" - like introverts - to lead his church for the sake of greater glory.

The limited circle is pure.

It needs strength to stay silent, but it needs courage to confide in somebody.

Now that you're an adult, you might still feel a pang of guilt when you decline a dinner invitation in favor of a good book. Or maybe you like to eat alone in restaurants and could do without the pitying looks from fellow diners. Or you're told that you're "in your head too much", a phrase that's often deployed against the quiet and cerebral.Or maybe there's another word for such people: thinkers.

He was always seeking for a meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was offered; but it was obscure and vague . . . He saw what looked like the truth as by flashes of lightening on a dark, stormy night you might see a mountain range. He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to chance, but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion; he seemed to see that the inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the life of one who conquered realms and explored unknown lands.

His habit of reading isolated him: it became such a need that after being in company for some time he grew tired and restless ...

He always thinks because I'm reading, I'm not doing anything. There is no greater plague to an introvert than the extroverted.