#shyness

I'm never really comfortable at parties. Maybe I'm just not the partying type. ...I think it's because I'm never sure what to do with myself. I mean, there're drinks, but I don't like being drunk.... There's music, but I never really learned to dance to anything that involved an electric guitar. There are people to talk to...but once you put all the stupid things I do aside, I'm really not that interesting. I like reading, staying home, going on walks with my dog.... Who wants to hear about that? Especially when I would have to scream it over music to which no one dances. So I'm there but not drinking, listening to music but not dancing, and trying to have conversations with near-strangers about anything other than my own stupid life.... Leads to a lot of awkward pauses. And then I start wondering why I showed up in the first place." -- Cold Days (The Dresden Files Book 14), pg. 33 ↗

— Jim Butcher

#parties #shyness #life

I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural awkwardness ... Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy. ↗

— Jane Austen

#nature

My feelings are too loud for words and too shy for the world. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#feelings #literature #literature-quotes #loud #poetry-quotes

Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people. ↗

— Andre Dubus

#element #how #important #look #narcissism

I am uninterested in appearing in newspapers and on television. Many people think I am striking a pose - that I want to create a sense of shyness. But it's just not something I want to do. I overdosed. ↗

— Agnetha Faltskog

#appearing #create #i #i am #just

Part of why I started a band was due to feelings of shyness and social ineptitude. I saw it as some way of being able to interact with people from a safe distance. ↗

— Jarvis Cocker

#band #being #distance #due #feelings

I was living in New York City and flat broke. My next door neighbor was an actor and he always seemed to be having more fun than I was. He convinced me to give acting a shot, but because of my shyness I was sure it would be a lost cause. ↗

— Joe Flanigan

#actor #always #because #broke #cause

Although I'm not shy when I'm singing, I am whenever I hear applause. I don't know if you've noticed, but I giggle a lot on-stage. That's shyness. And the stage manager is always telling me to take a longer bow whenever I come off-stage. I still haven't learnt to do that properly. I see other artistes milking the applause, but I can't quite do it. ↗

— Katherine Jenkins

#always #am #applause #bow #come

Scientists have found the gene for shyness. They would have found it years ago, but it was hiding behind a couple of other genes. ↗

— Jonathan Katz

#behind #couple #found #gene #genes

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

#shy #shyness #age