Introversion Quotes

“As an introvert, you can be your own best friend or your worst enemy. The good news is we generally like our own company, a quality that extroverts often envy. We find comfort in solitude and know how to soothe ourselves. Even our willingness to look at ourselves critically is often helpful.

But, we can go too far. We can hoard responsibility and overlook the role others play. We can kick ourselves when we’re down. How many times have you felt lousy about something, only to get mad at yourself for feeling lousy?”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“Though introverts are drained by interaction, we can take immense pleasure in watching the scene around us.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“While the introvert is reflecting on the question (thinking first), the extrovert takes this as an invitation to fill the void (talking first). As long as the introvert doesn’t interrupt, the extrovert continues to fill the interpersonal space with talk. But as long as the extrovert talks, the introvert can’t think and stays mute. Mute means the invitation is still open, and continued talk assures that the introvert remains mute. By the time the extrovert pauses to ask, the introvert’s head is pounding and he or she just wants to get out so she can think. The extrovert just assumes the introvert had nothing to say, and moves on.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“What we share as introverts is the love of ideas and the desire to explore them with minimal interruption. We want and need input, but we’d rather get it through reading, research, and rich conversation than through unfiltered talk.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“In “America the extroverted,” relationships are good, and even if they are very bad, they are better than no relationship. Introverts don’t think this way. Many of us want and have great relationships, but we generally prefer “no relationship” to a bad one. Quality matters. We conserve our relationship resources, because we know they are limited.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“I prefer to interact with people one-on-one. Any more than that, and the dynamic becomes competitive.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“It takes an extrovert to bring out my upbeat side. If it were up to me, everyone would probably just sit around talking about mysteries of the universe.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“I believed that if I had the whole story, if I had the opportunity to really know the person I was sitting with, there would be nobody I could not love.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“Online friends networks and dating sites, like the coffeehouse, are responding to the needs of introverts. We can write, not talk. We can get to the good stuff, and we can press delete as needed.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“For introverts, who have limited energy for interaction, we need to be more thoughtful and deliberate about whom we meet—which, happily, is what we do best.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“Though some of us like to get on stage, many introverts are content to put on their invisibility cloaks and watch. But well-meaning extroverts will have none of that! They need to draw us out, invite us to participate—repeatedly—and question why we are so depressed as to not want to join.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“We have an assumption here in America that the kind thing to do is to be “friendly,” which means being extroverted, even intrusive. The Japanese assume the opposite: being kind means holding back.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“For the introvert, as for the flâneur, observing is not a fallback position—something we do because we can’t participate. We watch because we want to. There is something wonderfully grounding about remaining still as others mull about—or mulling about while others remain still. Against the backdrop of the scene, the introvert feels more like an “I.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“For introverts, the best associations start with ideas. If you don’t feel a part of your neighborhood association or the happy hour regulars after work, don’t force it. The community that surrounds you may not be your community.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“Where else but cyberspace does the introvert have the opportunity to start in our comfort zone of written communication and talk later?”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“Our challenge as introverts is to adopt the attitude, based on the introversion assumption, that your need to retreat requires no explanation—it is self-evident.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“I heard, for the first time— nothing. I danced and did somersaults, lay down in a bed of grass, felt the breeze.

And for the first time, I heard my heart, and I knew who I was.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“I’m not so sure that live is always better. It is part of the extrovert assumption to value interaction over inner action. Most introverts savor live time with a close friend, because they know there will be plenty of inner action for both of them. But much of what we call “social” in America allows for very little inner action. Emailing a friend or posting a blog entry will probably feel much richer, and help us feel much closer, than being up close and impersonal.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“...if your friend knows you at all, she is being rude by pressuring you to do something that is bad for you. Yes, bad for you. Engaging in a painful activity that leaves you feeling crummy about yourself is self-destructive. But your friend is probably not a jerk—you wouldn’t have chosen her for a friend if she were. She’s just following the social rules. And you may be following them too.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“...according to the prevailing extroversion assumption, inviting you is a nice gesture, and pressuring you is a compliment—an indication that you are wanted. How many times have you equivocated on or even declined an invitation, only to be asked again—and again?”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“Most of us have had the experience of creating beauty, whether by cleaning a room, planting a bed of flowers or hanging a painting. Our first impulse is to say, “Come and see! Look what I did!” Though it may be a long time since mom or dad came to see, we still have the need to share—to be seen, acknowledged, appreciated. But it’s more than approval we seek; we want to extend the joy. We want someone to help us make it more real, to linger with us in the warmth.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“Similarly, a Solo Date is an outing with yourself to satisfy some of your introvert cravings. And it is a delicious treat.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“I’m one of those introverts with well-honed social skills, and I have even danced on the occasional table, but I have felt sheer panic when my exhaustion precedes my exit. It’s like the Cinderella story with a twist: I want to get out of there and into my duds before midnight—or ten, or eight.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“...efforts to make work fun only annoy most of us, especially the introvert.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“I talk with many Shadow Dwellers who are mystified by the fact that chatty workers are rarely reprimanded. Sit and gossip and you are fun; close the door (if you have one) and you are antisocial.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“If you retreat in response to desire rather than deprivation, the deprivation may never come.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“...ultimately I found my community by pursuing what I loved: writing, acting, art, coffeehouses.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“Though I may be efficient at the family table, I linger at the table for two.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“I will say that the socially oblivious extroverts do not represent the whole. As with introverts, social skills are independent of extroversion: some are skilled, some are not. The skilled ones know how to listen. But in contrast to socially unskilled introverts, who keep to themselves, socially unskilled extroverts insist on socializing.”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength

“Beware of extroverts in retreat center clothing!”
― Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength