Quotes & Sayings About Shutting Out The World

You didn't mind someone shutting out the world as long as they were happy to take you inside with them. — Lauren Henderson

The question may well be raised, however, whether we could have a community or a society based on this hypothesis of multiple realities. Might not such a society be a completely individualistic anarchy? That is not my opinion. Suppose my grudging tolerance of your separate world view became a full acceptance of you and your right to have such a view. Suppose that instead of shutting out the realities of others as absurd or dangerous or heretical or stupid, I was willing to explore and learn about those realities? Suppose you were willing to do the same. What would be the social result? I think that our society would be based not on a blind commitment to a cause or creed or view of reality, but on a common commitment to each other as rightfully separate persons, with separate realities. The natural human tendency to care for another would no longer be "I care for you because you are the same as I," but, instead, "I prize and treasure you because you are different from me. — Carl R. Rogers

the harmful strategies used to avoid and escape those uncomfortable sensations vary depending on the content of the deceptive brain messages and the patterns you have developed to attempt to deal with distress. The range of possible responses is endless and includes feeding an addiction, getting into an argument, avoiding a situation, shutting out the world, or endlessly checking something. — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

It's Curt Schilling and his bloody sock staring down the Yankees in the Bronx. It's Derek Lowe taking the mound the very next night to complete the most improbable comeback in baseball history - and then seven days later clinching the World Series. It's Pedro Martinez and his six hitless innings of postseason relief against the Indians. Yes, it is also Cy Young and Roger Clemens, and the 192 wins in a Red Sox uniform that they share - the perfect game for Young, the 20 strikeout games for Clemens - but it is also Bill Dinneen clinching the 1903 World Series with a busted, bloody hand, and Jose Santiago shutting down Minnesota with two games left in the season to keep the 1967 Impossible Dream alive, and Jim Lonborg clinching the Impossible Dream the very next day, and Jim Lonborg again, tossing a one-hitter and a three-hitter in the 1967 World Series, and Luis Tiant in the 1975 postseason, shutting out Oakland and Cincinnati in back-to-back starts. They are all winners. — Tucker Elliot

I feel so intensely the delights of shutting oneself up in a little world of one's own, with pictures and music and everything beautiful. — Virginia Woolf

Men may sail the seas for a lifetime and seldom, if ever, come in contact with the nightmare monsters that inhabit the caves and cliffs of the ocean floor. Gazing down at the slightly muddy water, the men of The Unicorn saw a squirming mass of interwoven tentacles resembling enormous snakes, immensely thick and long and tapering at their free ends to the size of a man's thumb. It was a foul sight, an obscene growth from the dark places of the world, where incessant hunger is the driving force. At one place, down near the bulge of the hull, appeared a staring gorgon face with great lidless eyes and a huge parrot beak that moved slightly, opening and shutting as though it had just crunched and swallowed a meal of warm flesh.
("Fire In The Galley Stove") — William Outerson

I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and silencing them forever. — Sinclair Lewis

For soon, the dark millenium will fall, and the world will be a different place, requiring different species. Cataracts will occlude the Sun, shutting out its hateful light, and fabulous new life-forms shall flourish and struggle beneath the perpetual stars. — Alan Moore

The idea that the United States of American might shut down its government over abortion and funding to an organization that is 0.01% of the U.S. budget seems completely insane. Anyone looking at this debate around the world is thinking 'What is this country doing? They have three wars going on, they're trying to manage major problems and they're thinking of shutting down their government over abortion?' — Katty Kay

We - each of us - are intricately, irremovably connected to the larger universe. It is our true home, and thinking that this physical world is all that matters is like shutting oneself up in a small closet and imagining that there is nothing else out beyond it. — Eben Alexander

If you squeeze and squeeze, and you don't allow the Iranians to sell any oil, then what do they have to lose by shutting the Strait of Hormuz down? And if they do that, that's 35% of all the world's oil that comes through the strait and 20% of the liquefied natural gas in the world. — Steve Hanke

I had to go back and reread the page a few times. As I read it, I kept drifting out of the book, out of the booth, and coasting on the green crest of the song, to the momentary idea that any point on Earth was mine for the visiting, that I'd lucked out living in the reality I was in. And I also got the feeling I was souring and damaging that luck by enjoying the contentment of pulling the shades on the sun, and shutting out my fellow employees and the world, and folding myself up in the construct of a brilliant novel like The Man in the High Castle, that all the reading I'd been doing up to this point hadn't enhanced my life, but rather had replaced and delayed it. — Patton Oswalt

Every day I strive to get to a place where I'm not effected by the external world, and I don't use the external world to define or tell me who I am. I strive for a state of equanimity and calm and a state of grace, so I can be free of definitions. If you are free, then you can create beautiful things. It's really just shutting out the noise. — Laurel Holloman

You could help me by shutting up, Eddie said, and the grill spoke no more. He found himself wondering if he had offended it, then wondered if perhaps he should kill himself and spare the world a problem. — Stephen King

Israel is shutting out the Arab world and shutting itself in. — Richard Engel

By shutting out the real world we can live peacefully in ours. We know that a world without pain is a world without feeling ... But a world without feeling is a world without pain. — Daniel Keyes

For that matter, you might also try watching less TV in general; studies have shown that the less negative TV we watch, specifically violent media, the happier we are. This doesn't mean shutting ourselves off from the real world or ignoring problems. Psychologists have found that people who watch less TV are actually more accurate judges of life's risks and rewards than those who subject themselves to the tales of crime, tragedy, and death that appear night after night on the ten o'clock news.32 That's because these people are less likely to see sensationalized or one-sided sources of information, and thus see reality more clearly. Exercise — Shawn Achor

Galen sprints to the back sliding-glass door and bangs on it. There's no time for etiquette. He motions for Rayna and Toraf to stay back. He can tell Rayna would rather eat her own than obey, but Toraf restrains her.
Emma comes to the door, a brilliant smile on her face. "You in a hurry for some reason?" she says, excitement lighting up those huge violet eyes.
"He must have missed me," Emma's mom calls from the kitchen. She winks at Galen, completely oblivious to how her world is about to shift.
"Mom. Ew," Emma says, handing Galen a towel and shutting the door. — Anna Banks

In fact we do not try to picture the afterlife, nor is it our selves in our nervous tics and optical flecks that we wish to perpetuate; it is the self as the window on the world that we can't bear to thinkof shutting. My mind when I was a boy of ten or eleven sent up its silent scream at the thought of future aeons
at the thought of the cosmic party going on without me. The yearning for an afterlife is the opposite of selfish: it is love and praise of the world that we are privileged, in this complex interval of light, to witness and experience. — John Updike

He tried to remember Moon Child's eyes, but was no longer able to. He was sure of only one thing: that her glance had passed through his eyes and down into his heart. He could still feel the burning trail it had left behind. That glance, he felt, was embedded in his heart, and there it glittered like a mysterious jewel. And in a strange and wonderful way it hurt.
Even if Bastian had wanted to, he couldn't have defended himself against this thing that had happened to him. However, he didn't want to. Oh no, not for anything in the world would he have parted with that jewel. All he wanted was to go on reading, to see Moon Child again, to be with her.
IT never occurred to him that he was getting into the most unusual and perhaps the most dangerous of adventures. But even if he had known this, he wouldn't have dreamed of shutting the book. — Michael Ende

The world has been busy for some centuries in shutting and locking every door through which a woman could step into wealth, except the door of marriage. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

A good memory is surely a compost heap that converts experience to wisdom, creativity, or dottiness; not that these things are of much earthly value, but at least they may keep you amused when the world is keeping you locked away or shutting you out. — Michael Leunig

Father monks, why do you fast! Why do you expect reward in heaven for that? ... No, saintly monk, you try being virtuous in the world, do good to society, without shutting yourself up in a monastery at other people's expense, and without expecting a reward up aloft for it
you'll find that a bit harder. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

But that, in shutting out the light of day, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker, I knew equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world? — Charles Dickens

Let the business of the world take care of itself ... My business is to get the world saved; if this involves the standing still of the looms and the shutting up of the factories, and the staying of the sailing of the ships, let them all stand still. When we have got everybody converted they can go on again, and we shall be able to keep things going then by working half time and have the rest to spend in loving one another and worshipping God. — William Booth

If there is such a thing as sin in this world, I think it must be shutting oneself up against hope. — Gail Godwin

These times are hard, but I won't walk away jaded, darker, different. I feel. I cry to heal. If you saw me in those moments, maybe you'd think I was a mess. But I don't call it a mess. I call it strength.

Real strength isn't about building walls. Real strength is about staying open, no matter what. It's about taking life - with all the pleasures that fade and all the pain that sticks around for too long - and not shutting down, not closing down, not building up those walls.

Resilience isn't hard, impenetrable, iron. Resilience is flexible, soft, warm.

Stay strong. The real kind of strong. Don't let your automatic mind reflexes make you jump away from pain and towards pleasure. Make choices. See clearly. And never, ever, stop feeling.

Don't go numb. The world, even with all its horror, is too beautiful to miss. — Vironika Tugaleva

When good people come into your life, it's not by accident. Troubles may arise, and the world seems to divide, and you may feel like walking away. Be Careful whom you close the door on, if they were meant to be in your life, you may be shutting the door to your own blessings and happiness. Live, love, and be happy.
~Gail Parker — Gail Parker

But big people's illnesses are always made to sound big. The simple shutting and opening of the royal arse-hole was made to sound as if the world was coming to an end. — Khushwant Singh

There's nothing quite as good as folding up into a book and shutting the world outside.If I pick the right one I can be beautiful, or fall in love, or live happily ever after. Maybe even all three. — Bill Condon

There are more quarrels smothered by just shutting your mouth, and holding it shut, than by all the wisdom in the world. — Henry Ward Beecher

The earth was quiet around him, but alive. He felt it through the soles of his feet when he walked. The vibrancy of the forest streamed into him, strengthening him. But there was less of it than there should be. The world had changed, and was still changing. It was being tamed, losing its feral wildness and strength. Alongside it, his power was dimming as well. He was still unmatched, but there were blind spots in his communion with the earth, and those blind spots were growing, shutting him off bit by bit, reducing him. The realms of men were expanding, scouring the earth, parsing it into meaningless plots and fields, breaking up the magic polarities of the wilderness... That which made him so powerful, his connection to the earth, was also becoming his only weakness. In a cold rage, he walked. As he passed, the trees spoke to him, but even the woodsy voices of the naiads and the dryads was dimming. Their echo was confused and broken, divided. — G. Norman Lippert

I think it is because I have a habit, when I am bored or disgusted with people of stepping suddenly into my own world and shutting the door. People resent this
I suppose it is only natural to resent a door being shut in your face. They call it slyness when it is only self-defense. — L.M. Montgomery

Dr Victoria Kahn, Chief Medical Officer, Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, from her article The Virus: Humanity's Natural Archenemy The most successful virus in the world will be one that keeps its host alive while simultaneously shutting down the body's self-defences. It won't be long before we have such a specimen on our hands. — Perrin Briar

The white noise from the old Walkman enveloped them both; like a blanket of new snow, it draped itself over them, shutting out all the curious looks.
And the world under the blanket was - surprisingly, wonderfully - absolutely, quiet. — Antonia Michaelis

The difference in their age had begun to matter, she had just turned forty and Jack was in his sixties, no longer the 'Brooding Heathcliff' that used to sign birthday cards to her. He wanted less and less to meet people, keeping her to himself, shutting the world out, drawing the heavy velvet curtains too early on a bright evening. If she announced that they might invite a few friends, he worried, began to wonder what time these friends might arrive and more importantly, what time they would leave. — Edna O'Brien

Meditation is a mysterious method of self-restoration.
It involves "shutting" out the outside world, and by that means sensing the universal "presence" which is, incidentally, absolute perfect peace.
It is basically an existential "time-out" - a way to "come up for a breath of air" out of the noisy clutter of the world.
But don't be afraid, there is nothing arcane or supernatural or creepy about the notion of taking a time-out. Ball players do it. Kids do it, when prompted by their parents. Heck, even your computer does it (and sometimes not when you want it to).
So, why not you?
A meditation can be as simple as taking a series of easy breaths, and slowly, gently counting to ten in your mind. — Vera Nazarian

He told me once that the devil dwells in you." "No doubt he does believe it. And what do you think, Mariana Farr?" He did look faintly devilish, smiling down at me with his dark clothes and his dark hair and those glinting eyes the color of the forest that surrounded us, shutting us off together from the wider world. I studied him closely, and shrugged in my turn. "I am no simple chit in hanging sleeves, my lord. I have eyes of my own to judge with, and I see no horns. — Susanna Kearsley

... it was as if she'd shut out the outside world.
No, actually, thought Anna-Maria, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. She isn't shutting out the outside world. She's shutting herself in. — Asa Larsson