Quotes & Sayings About Being Shy

The hardest thing about being an actor, for me, is that if you are the 0.00001% of individuals who wants to do it, you're a freak. And you're an assertive freak. Though actors are often shy, there's this tremendous assertive extroversion in you somewhere. — Janel Moloney

She did not look anything like a horned horse, as unicorns are often pictured, being smaller and cloven-hoofed, and possessing that oldest, wildest grace that horses have never had, that deer have only in a shy, thin imitation and goats in dancing mockery. — Peter S. Beagle

I was terribly shy when I was growing up, I really wasn't confident with other people and I think I was always afraid of up or not being this very cool, amazing person that I wanted to be. — Emily Mortimer

Without a bellyful of liquor, all I am is a woman who cracks stupid jokes to make up for being shy. — Katie Crouch

When I was little, I had a feeling that I was going to end up being an actress. I spent a lot of time alone, I was a very shy girl, and I would pretend I was telling someone about this new role that I got. — Summer Glau

I see myself being a father, hopefully a husband, but I'm very gun-shy. The older I get, the further the goalpost. — Esai Morales

You're either a rationalist, or you're not. And the good news is a recent poll found 20% of adults under 30 say they are rationalists, and have figured out that Santa Claus and Jesus are really the same guy. Now, 20% is hardly a majority. But it's a bigger minority than blacks, jews, homosexuals, NRA members, teachers, or seniors ... and it's certainly enough to stop being shy about expressing the opinion that we're not the crazy ones! — Bill Maher

It may, at first sight, be matter of surprise to the thoughtless few that Mr Brass, being a professional gentleman, should not have legally indicted some party or parties, active in the promotion of the nuisance, but they will be good enough to remember, that as Doctors seldom take their own prescriptions, and Divines do not always practise what they preach, so lawyers are shy of meddling with the Law on their own account: knowing it to be an edged tool of uncertain application, very expensive in the working, and rather remarkable for its properties of close shaving, than for its always shaving the right person. — Charles Dickens

Memories are like Teek." said Pixie Pan, "You never can tell." (Teek being a compulsive lying and commitment-shy poltergeist.) — Stacey Lane

I become irritated when I am being written off as aloof or stand-offish when I'm shy and don't know what to say. — Trent Reznor

Laughing, I took her hand back in mine. "I don't like seeing someone as hot as you bruised up, but I don't judge you fighting for money. We all do what we can. Look at me and my work. Not exactly a dream job, but I'm big, strong, and don't mind hurting people. Not a lot of jobs for a guy with my skill set. I was never good at school. I hate computers and have no patience with fixing things. I had the choice of being an enforcer or a gigolo."
Raven smacked my hand away. "Stop being charming, you dipshit."
"I'll try, but it just comes so naturally for me."
"Why not a gigolo?"
"I'm too shy."
Raven laughed. "That's too bad. I'd pay to fuck you."
"Of course, you would. I'd totally pay to have you give me a lap dance."
"You couldn't afford me."
"I don't know. I've been saving up for something special. This could be it. — Bijou Hunter

Miracles don't have to be big, and they can happen in the unlikeliest places. Sometimes they are so small people don't notice. Sometimes miracles are shy. They brush against your sleeve, they settle on your eyelashes. They wait for you to notice, then melt away. Lots of things start by being small. It's a good way to begin, because no one takes any notice of you. You're just a little thing beetling along, minding your own business. Then you grow. — Grace McCleen

Misa: Hey, Light. Wanna come sleep with me tonight?
Light: Wh-what are you talking about ... ?
Misa: Ha ha ha! Just kidding! You're saving me for after we catch Kira, right? You don't have to be shy about it!
L: Yes, Light. There's no need to be shy.
Light: I'm not being shy!
L: No need to be so serious either — Tsugumi Ohba

I hate the word shy. I don't ever use that word. Shy was when I was seven and my one Princess signature got smeared across the pastel yellow page because I dripped tears all over it, because I was afraid and couldn't lift my head no matter how much I wanted to. That's how the shyness works. You want to talk, but you can't. People look at you with scorn. Being ice princess is infinitely better, even if some people think you're a total bitch. A snob. Reserved. Those are choices a person makes, to be reserved, to be quiet, or to be a snob. Shy isn't a choice. — Bethany Griffin

I have social anxiety. It's easier up on stage because there's security in being there. When I'm off stage I'm trying not to be a manic freak. I'm quite shy. — Sia Furler

I can hardly remember her being shy anymore. Well, her version of shy. Even though she's always been a very eager semi-submissive and semi-Domme. — Ella Dominguez

And I was very shy as a kid; if you sang me 'Happy Birthday,' I would cry. Quite shy. So the idea of being an actor, much less a model, was just out of this world. — Cody Horn

The reason I feel like I act is because you get to live a million different lives in one. I don't have to go about my life, just being easy-going New Zealander Rose. Sometimes I can inhabit a feisty, vicious character. Sometimes I can inhabit a painfully shy British girl, or whatever it might be. — Rose McIver

It didn't help matters that I was shy and wore glasses. I was never one to stand out in the crowd. I liked to stay in corners. And I was happiest when I was alone reading. That and the good grades I got in school had doomed any chance of being popular with my peers. So it was a foregone conclusion that boys like Hardy were never going to take notice of me. — Lisa Kleypas

I was always shy and had a huge fear of being onstage. — Colbie Caillat

Is it ok to sometimes be shy?Yes, of course. The point is,that being that way all the time and using it as an excuse to never be the opposite of shy,it's not good. It's not good for your life, your interactions,strenght of character and how diverse and interesting you can be. You are MORE than shy. Don't be labeled, be what you wanna be in any given moment. And DO what WORKS, not what you think you are. — Matthew Hussey

I'm a shy human being. — Ang Lee

I'm actually a very shy person, which is why I always chose to be in the kitchen. You can make people happy and entertain them, without really being there. You can make a very short appearance and then say, 'I've got something on the stove, gotta go!' — Giada De Laurentiis

I'm not extremely outgoing, but I'm average, I think. When people meet me they'll say, 'Oh you're not that shy ... ' I never said I was! I see where they're coming from because my biggest single was about being shy at a party - I get it. But it's not 100% accurate. — Alessia Cara

In real life I'm very low-key. A wallflower. One of the reasons I went into comedy and acting was that I was sick of being shy. — Jemaine Clement

I was always really shy. That's why being in front of cameras like this is uncomfortable. I found that when I was a kid, I would hide behind playing pretend. That's when I would come out of my shell. I would dress up as an old man or something and go out onto the street with my mom. I would come out of my shell that way. So I ended up stumbling into acting. It was the one thing that I found a passion for. — Austin Butler

Even now I can't stand being recognized in the street. I just hate it when strangers come up and try to talk to me. I'm pathologically shy. — Jimmy Nail

She felt shy, like a precious gift being gloatingly unwrapped, but she didn't resent his moment of purely masculine triumph. The glory of the moment was also hers, this beautiful man hers. He was giving himself to her and asking nothing but what she was willing to give in return. — Susan Napier

So where did these cravings come from? I concluded it's the baby ordering in. Prenatal takeout. Even without ever being in a restaurant, fetuses develop remarkably discerning palates, and they are not shy about demanding what they want. If they get a hankering, they just pick up the umbilical cord and call. 'You know what would taste good right now? A cheeseburger, large fries, and a vanilla shake. And if you could, hurry it up, because I'm supposed to grow a lung in a half hour.' — Paul Reiser

She's tall - maybe a mite too tall for some folks' notions - and mid-Victorian mamas would never have approved of her, because she's no more coy, or shy, or artful than the blue sky overhead. She has violet eyes, riotous hair of a shade between brown and gold, a straight, shapely little nose, a mouth that is all laughter, and a way of carrying herself that puts you in mind of all out-doors. I've seen her in evening dress with diamonds on; and much more frequently in riding-breeches and a soft felt hat; but there's always the same effect of natural-born honesty, and laughter, and love of trees and things and people. She's not a woman who wants to ape men, but a woman who can mix with men without being soiled or spoiled. For the rest, she's not married yet, so there's a chance for all of us except me. She turned me down long ago. — Talbot Mundy

It's not that I'm being shy. It's just that
well, for one, I don't even remember the event. It's a blank: a white slate, a black hole. I have vague images, half-impressions: of being, or having been
or, more precisely, being about to be
hit; blue light; railings; lights of other colours; being held above some kind of tray or bed. But who's to say that these are genuine memories? Who's to say my traumatized mind didn't just make them up, or pull them out from somewhere else, some other slot, and stick them there to plug the gap
the crater
that the accident had blown? Minds are versatile and wily things. Real chancers. — Tom McCarthy

My best business decision is always to have been unembarrassed about negotiating a decent deal. Not being coy or shy about money is second nature to me. — Anne Robinson

There isn't a performer on earth that isn't an exhibitionist. There isn't any point in being in this business if you're not an exhibitionist. And, by the way, you can be an exhibitionist and be very shy as well. — Madonna Ciccone

One, a shy girl with brown braids and thick glasses, had confessed that her world was at a nexus between two minor compass directions, being High Rhyme and High Linearity. Nancy hadn't known what to say to that, and so she hadn't said anything at all. Increasingly, that felt like the safest option she had. — Seanan McGuire

Being an actress, I find myself people-watching and I can be quite shy. — Emma Watson

She could not remember ever being truly happy in her adult life; her years with her mother had been built up devotedly around small guilts and small reproaches, constant weariness, and unending despair. Without ever wanting to become reserved and shy, she had spent so long alone, with no one to love, that it was difficult for her to talk, even casually, to another person without self-consciousness and an awkward inability to find words. — Shirley Jackson

I'm actually a really shy person. I just really enjoy being in studio; I don't go out much. — Lykke Li

Caitlin." Hawkins touched her cheek. "That wasn't quite what I had in mind." "Oh, for heaven's sake," she burst out, "do you not see how silly you're being?" "It's only silly if you continue to shy from me like a maiden. You're the MacBride. You've done worse than kiss an Englishman." His hands held her fast at the arms, and he bent to whisper in her ear. "I won the forfeit." His breath caressed the curve of her ear. "I want to feel the fullness of your lips with my own. I want to slide them open with my tongue and taste the sweetness of your mouth. I want to feel your body pressed to - " Summoning the last of her composure, she said, "You've made your point." His hands lifted to her shoulders. "Well? I'm waiting. — Susan Wiggs

The burden of being intelligent and shy and young is that you will always know, cannot not know; have grown up in a fiction of perpetual responsibility, believing that whatever cracks in life you find must be your cracks, that anything at all can be your fault. — John Burnham Schwartz

It was like that for the first six months after 'E.T.' was in cinemas. I'd go out and get mobbed. I was a shy kid, and being approached by adults all the time just freaked me out. — Henry Thomas

Alysandir is a fine horseman," Isobella said. He was about to dismount, and she stepped upon a stool to get a better view. Just as she did so, he glanced toward the window in her direction. Sybilla gasped and brought her hand to her chest with an open-mouthed amazement. "Did ye see that?" Isobella did not want to be singled out, so she replied, "He was just being courteous." "Nae. He recognized ye in front of all and sundry," she said, with a shy smile that made her lovely grey-blue eyes shine as brilliantly as the golden locks of her hair braided on top of her hair. " I don't know why. I've been nothing but a thorn in his side." "That isn't what Alysandri said," Sybilla replied. "He was most full praise about ye." Isobella glanced at Sybilla, who smiled innocently, which was her way of letting her visitor know that that was all she was going to say on the subject. — Elaine Coffman

I was 17 when it was being filmed and so I was at an age where you are learning a lot about yourself. I came out of school to film it, and I hadn't been having a good time in school before that. I get quite shy around big groups of people. If I meet people, especially my peers and people my own age, I always struggle because I've always worked with adults and they have a tendency to molly coddle you a bit when you're the youngest on-set. — Yasmin Paige

He liked being big and strong. It gave him an identity. He'd been a shy, quiet, bookish kid, and that had been painful; now he was a big dumb guy, and nobody expected him to be able to do anything more than move a sofa into the next room on his own. Nobody until Laura, anyway. — Neil Gaiman

Someone with a low degree of epistemic arrogance is not too visible, like a shy person at a cocktail party. We are not predisposed to respect humble people, those who try to suspend judgement. Now contemplate epistemic humility. Think of someone heavily introspective, tortured by the awareness of his own ignorance. He lacks the courage of the idiot, yet has the rare guts to say "I don't know." He does not mind looking like a fool or, worse, an ignoramus. He hesitates, he will not commit, and he agonizes over the consequences of being wrong. He introspects, introspects, and introspects until he reaches physical and nervous exhaustion.
This does not necessarily mean he lacks confidence, only that he holds his own knowledge to be suspect. I will call such a person an epistemocrat; the province where the laws are structured with this kind of human fallibility in mind I will can an epistemocracy. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

No one leaves his or her world without being transfixed by its roots, or with a vacuum for a soul. We carry with us the memory of many fabrics, a self soaked in our history, our culture; a memory, sometimes scattered, sometimes sharp and clear, of the streets of our childhood, of our adolescence; the reminiscence of something distant that suddenly stands out before us, in us, a shy gesture, an open hand, a smile lost in time and misunderstanding, a sentence, a simple sentence, possibly now forgotten by the one who said it. A word for so long a time attempted and never spoken, always stifled in inhibition, in the fear of being rejected- which as it implies a lack of confidence in ourselves, also means refusal to risk. — Paulo Freire

I spent my whole life being very shy and introverted and I kind of found my release and therapy in the gym. I became this big, menacing physical stature of a man but internally I'm still kind of insecure. Warm, fuzzy and gooey. — Dave Bautista

Greta knows that for me there are no good parties. I'm okay with one or two people, but more than that and I turn into a naked mole rat. That's what being shy feels like. Like my skin is too thin, the light too bright. Like the best place I could possibly be is in a tunnel far under the cool, dark earth. Someone asks me a question and I stare at them, empty-faced, my brain jammed up with how hard I'm trying to find something interesting to say. And in the end, all I can do is nod or shrug, because the light of their eyes looking at me, waiting for me, is just too much to take. And then it's over and there's one more person in the world who thinks I'm a complete and total waste of space. — Carol Rifka Brunt

I'm quite shy. Television presents an amplified version of yourself. When I'm on camera I'm pumping more adrenaline, I'm being a bit more engaging than I am in everyday conversation, but that's normal, isn't it? Otherwise nobody would want to watch. — Kevin McCloud

From the core, I'm a shy person, but when I'm on stage, I know how to put it aside. Of course, I'm not perfect, but I've definitely grown as far as being comfortable on stage. — Leon Bridges

I am essentially very shy. Which, I guess, is why I'm very good at not being shy. — Rhys Ifans

You each have the same energy and it sings within you. You need not be shy of it, it is your own. You need not look to gurus, or Gods, or Seths. It dwells within your own being. — Jane Roberts

I was really shy when I was a child, very self-conscious about taking up space or being an attention seeker. I was the kind of kid who was really good at homework. — Mickey Sumner

The one good thing about being kind of shy is that nobody bugs you when you want to be left alone. — Laurie Halse Anderson

Jessica Trent was a thin, freckled redhead who had more fire in her hair than her demeanor. Caroline had spoken to the mother of two on several occasions, but being that she and Jessica were both fairly shy, they hadn't managed to connect. Shy people, in Caroline's experience, rarely forged successful friendships because they need an extrovert to make things happen. Someone to take the first step, make the first phone call, and assume the initial risk. Shy people like Caroline and Jessica require a facilitator of sorts to get things started, and there had been no one to bring the women together. It was a shame. Caroline suspected that she and Jessica Trent had a lot in common. — Matthew Dicks

I loved to make people laugh in high school, and then I found I loved being on stage in front of people. I'm sure that's some kind of ego trip or a way to overcome shyness. I was very kind of shy and reserved, so there's a way to be on stage and be performing and balance your life out. — Steve Martin

You get stared at the whole time. I first noticed that when I was about 13. I was very shy. Being considered beautiful, I always felt that people were waiting for something more. I imagined you were supposed to have an intellectual ability - and I'm making no claims here - proportional to your supposed good looks. — Carole Bouquet

The good thing about being shy though as a child is that you become very observant because you're not really actively participating. You're sitting back watching everyone. I think that's really helped me as an actress because I'm good at observing people and then copying them for comic effect. — Rebel Wilson

I hate being shy. I hate it. — Kristan Higgins

I have been a frequent air traveler since I was a few months shy of my sixth birthday, when my parents packed me off to boarding school two plane rides away from home. Those days of being willingly handed from air hostess to air hostess as an 'unaccompanied minor' made me blase about the rigors of air travel. — Shashi Tharoor

Being an introvert doesn't mean you're shy. It means you enjoy being alone. Not just enjoy it - you need it. If you're a true introvert, other people are basically energy vampires. You don't hate them; you just have to be strategic about when you expose yourself to them - like the sun. They give you life, sure, but they can also burn you and — Amy Schumer

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

Do you know why people like me are shy about being capitalists? Well, its because we, for as long as we have known you, were capital, like bales of cotton and sacks of sugar, and you were commanding, cruel capitalists, and the memory of this so strong, the experience so recent, that we can't quite bring ourselves to embrace this idea that you think so much of. As for hat we were like before we met you, I no longer care. No periods of time over which my ancestors held sway, no documentation of complex civilisations, is any comfort to me. Even if I really came from people who were living like monkeys in trees, it was better to be that than what happened to me, what I became after I met you. — Jamaica Kincaid

I think I'm a shy, self-conscious person who thinks he's being looked at and tries to look okay. Not in a hottie, narcissistic way necessarily. — Mark Leyner

I always had difficulty as a model just being myself. I can be very shy, and I used to have a lot of anxiety about working on set. — Stephanie Seymour

I'm a serial monogamist and would never dream of being as predatory as some of the women I've played. I can actually be a bit shy. — Natalie Dormer

I think if I were a college professor, no one would say I was uncomfortable about being shy because that might be expected. But I think because of people's stereotypes, they think of a football player as someone who is very outgoing and I'm not. — Ricky Williams

I have never been able to make out," I began, "why women are so shy about being caught reading poetry.
We men--lawyers, mechanics, or what not--may well feel ashamed. If we must read poetry, it should be at dead of night, within closed doors. But you women are so akin to poesy. The Creator Himself is a lyric poet, and Jayadeva must have practised the divine art seated at His feet. — Rabindranath Tagore

You get used to being naked, that's the first thing that Ivan discovered. Crashing through thick brush with branches snagging at your bare skin, you stop worrying about who's looking and and spend your time trying to keep yourself from being flayed alive. He got shy again when they entered the village, but once he decided simply to let the gawkers gawk, he found himself much more interested in what he was seeing than what they were. — Orson Scott Card

Being a shy person, I always felt strange outside with my camera. — Kim Weston

you cannot be friends either with boy or man unless you give yourself away in the process, and Mr. Pembroke did not commend this. He, for "personal intercourse," substituted the safer "personal influence," and gave his junior hints on the setting of kindly traps, in which the boy does give himself away and reveals his shy delicate thoughts, while the master, intact, commends or corrects them.
Originally Rickie had meant to help boys in the anxieties that they undergo when changing into men: at Cambridge he had numbered this among life's duties. But here is a subject in which we must
inevitably speak as one human being to another, not as one who has authority or the shadow of authority, and for this reason the elder school-master could suggest nothing but a few formulae. Formulae, like kindly traps, were not in Rickie's line, so he abandoned these
subjects altogether and confined himself to working hard at what was easy. — E. M. Forster

Among these contemptuous women, poor Germaine had the disadvantage of being young
and almost pretty, in a shy, mousy way. She possessed the nonspecific clumsiness of someone who makes such a constant effort to be inconspicuous that she is creatively awkward
without meaning to, Germaine hoarded attention to herself; her almost electric nervousness disturbed the atmosphere surrounding her. — John Irving

My eyes widened in disbelief," Wow,I never took you as a one night stand, player type of guy, Reece."
"No, idiot."Reece snapped. "I mean, I've never even been with a girl. Ever."
And with that, I died and went to happy land, with rainbow unicorns and -
Wait. Hold up.
"But that means that your first kiss..."
I trailed, not being able to believe this.

"Was with you." Reece finished, looking away, shy all of a sudden — Hasti Williams

To be political means to speak out, to risk being called 'catty', or worse. I don't hear men worrying about whether they may be right or not. They enjoy the fight, whether it is with words or fists. Women still tend to shy away from controversy, to be uncomfortable with competition. — Madeleine M. Kunin

One of the risks of being quiet is that the other people can fill your silence with their own interpretation: You're bored. You're depressed. You're shy. You're stuck up. You're judgemental. When others can't read us, they write their own story - not always one we choose or that's true to who we are. — Sophia Dembling

Don't be so anxious about it,' she laughed. 'I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do; I never got the trick of it.' She looked down at him, shy and fatigued. 'So here we are. I told you years ago that I had the makings of Cinderella.'
He took her hand; she drew it back instinctively and then replaced it in his. 'Beg your pardon. Not even used to being touched. But I'm not afraid of you, if you stay quiet and don't move suddenly. — F Scott Fitzgerald

It is awkward to listen to oneself being praised, and I was always a shy man. — H. Rider Haggard

Being chronically shy I needed to create a persona for myself and be involved with a band where I could be ruler of my own kingdom. Then Pulp became hugely popular and I lost control of it, which is when it all went wrong. — Jarvis Cocker

And eventually there is no one left in the world except people who don't look at other people's faces and who don't know what these pictures mean and these people are all special people like me. And they like being on their own and I hardly ever see them because they are like okapi in the jungle in the Congo, which are a kind of antelope and very shy and rare. And I can go anywhere in the world and I know that no one is going to talk to me or touch me or ask me a question. But if I don't want to go anywhere I don't have to, and I can stay at home and eat broccoli and oranges and licorice laces all the time, or I can play computer games for a whole week, or I can just sit in the corner of the room and rub £1 coin back and forward over the ripple shapes on the surface of the radiator. And I wouldn't have to go to France. — Mark Haddon

The British tend to shy away from the spotlight. We don't like being singled out in any way, and I think that is something which is important for me to learn to do. — Damon Hill

Stage-persona notwithstanding, I'm extremely shy and quiet. Almost painfully shy. People misinterpret that as being above it all or not interested. — J. Michael Straczynski

I just feel my sexuality is private. I'm very shy about being sexy. That part of me has been so closed to the public eye. I've sold millions of records with my clothes on. — Brandy Norwood

A strange night, he thought. Somewhere now there is shooting and men are being hunted and imprisoned and tortured and murdered, some corner of a peaceful world is being trampled upon, and one knows it, helplessly, and life buzzes on in the bright bistros of the city, no one cares, and people go calmly to sleep, and I am sitting here with a woman between pale chrysanthemums and a bottle of calvados, and the shadow of love rises, trembling, lonesome, strange and sad, it too an exile from the safe gardens of the past, shy and wild and quick as if it had no right — Erich Maria Remarque

The music is key. It has the power to transport you. I go from being a slightly insecure, shy kind of a person offstage, to this super-confident, motivated, entity onstage. — Neil Diamond

I was very, very nervous about the naked scenes. I'm very shy and reserved. But it was Bertolucci and I have seen Last Tango. It's not pornographic. He's a master of eroticism. I stopped being self-conscious. You have to forget everything. — Eva Green

But, being that I have always been rather awkward and shy around girls, especially those I liked, whenever I tried talking to them, it's hardly any wonder that I never got very far. I would simply start to stammer and stutter even before I could properly say hello. In fact, it's of my opinion that, to them, I must have come across seeming a bit retarded. — Andrew James Pritchard

I always felt there was something wrong with me, even when I was a child, a discomfort with my own being. I had an urge to be mean to people. I was too shy to do it properly but now I know the reasons for the faults in my character. I'm the devil. — Rhys Hughes

A day of dappled seaborne clouds.
The phrase and the day and the scene harmonised in a chord. Words. Was it their colours? He allowed them to glow and fade, hue after hue: sunrise gold, the russet and green of apple orchards, azure of waves, the greyfringed fleece of clouds. No, it was not their colours: it was the poise and balance of the period itself. Did he then love the rhythmic rise and fall of words better than their associations of legend and colour? Or was it that, being as weak of sight as he was shy of mind, he drew less pleasure from the reflection of the glowing sensible world through the prism of a language manycoloured and richly storied than from the contemplation of an inner world of individual emotions mirrored perfectly in a lucid supple periodic prose? — James Joyce

It's true, I used to be so shy. I used to never talk, just sit back and do my thing. I was never bullied, though, and it was never like it was something that needed to be 'fixed', like being shy is a bad thing. — Kendall Jenner

I was a very shy child. I remember being in a kindergarten open house with my mother and children saying 'Hi' to me, and I still remember feeling this way - but I don't know why - but I wouldn't even say 'Hi' back. I was that shy. — Jim Parsons

I don't think it's necessary to shout if you have a good story. But I also don't think you should shy away from being bold in the statement that you're making. — Nancy Gibbs

That's what being shy feels like. Like my skin is too thin, the light too bright. Like the best place I could possibly be is in a tunnel far under the cool, dark earth. Someone asks me a question and I stare at them, empty-faced, my brain jammed up with how hard I'm trying to find something interesting to say. And in the end, all I can do is nod or shrug, because the light of their eyes looking at me, waiting for me, is just too much to take. And then it's over and there's one more person in the world who thinks I'm a complete and total waste of space.
The worst thing is the stupid hopefulness. Every new party, every new bunch of people, and I start thinking that maybe this is my chance. That I'm going to be normal this time. A new leaf. A fresh start. But then I find myself at the party, thinking, Oh, yeah. This again.
So I stand on the edge of things, crossing my fingers, praying nobody will try to look me in the eye. And the good thing is, they usually don't. — Carol Rifka Brunt

Our personal identities are socially situated. We are where we live, eat, work, and make love. [ ... ]
Our sense of identity is in large measure conferred on us by others in the ways they treat or mistreat us, recognize or ignore us, praise us or punish us. Some people make us timid and shy; others elicit our sex appeal and dominance. In some groups we are made leaders, while in others we are reduced to being followers. We come to live up to or down to the expectations others have of us. The expectations of others often become self-fulfilling prophecies. Without realizing it, we often behave in ways that confirm the beliefs others have about us. Those subjective beliefs create new realities for us. We often become who other people think we are, in their eyes and in our behavior. — Philip G. Zimbardo

As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn't really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage, and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn't have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself. — David Bowie

Derek and the Wolf both watched Aubree through the one pair of eyes, the Human watching with pity while the Beast made a disdainful assessment of a weaker being.
Once Bitten Twice Shy (WIP) — Phoenix Johnson

Portia remembered her interview in the small office upstairs ... in which she had been so shy, so terrified about not being good enough, not getting this thing, this chance, which she had only just discovered she wanted very badly. — Jean Hanff Korelitz

I'm somewhat shy about the brutal facts of being a carnivore. I don't like meat to look like animals. I prefer it in the form of sausages, hamburger and meat loaf, far removed from the living thing. — John Updike

I was obsessed with movies, and it ended up being the tool with which I could make friends. Because I was too painfully shy in other circumstances, I would say, 'Hey, do you want to make a movie?' And that's how I made friends, and it was also my escape. — Matt Reeves

I sense from people that they get frustrated with me for not being out and about. But I guess I'm a shy boy. — Christopher Lloyd

Now the spectacle was before him in its glory, and as he looked out on it he felt shy, old-fashioned, inadequate: a mere grey speck of a man compared with the ruthless magnificent fellow he had dreamed of being ... — Edith Wharton

Cowards can't be faulted for being shy. They can't be held responsible for anything. — Koushun Takami