Shy Children Quotes & Sayings

I was always shy. Writing was my only outlet. Because I always hid in a room, I spent a lot of time watching people. When I was a small child I could detect hidden body language in others only I could see. People's emotions rub off on me. When I told this to my therapist she said, "Well, you're an empath." I thought, "No way. Like Star Trek?" And she clarified: because I am so socially uncomfortable, I have compassion for others who I recognize are also struggling. People with anxiety are acutely aware. — Jenny Lawson

Being a shy child, I always longed for a mask. Even in my adult life, I have glasses, they are my mask. — Edwidge Danticat

I've always been very shy and sheltered; I think it was a good way of starting to communicate with people. I was taught as a child never to talk about myself, never to talk about my emotions. Of course, now I talk about myself constantly. Now I have to take reverse est. — Sigourney Weaver

I was not ambitious as a child. My father encouraged me to enter competitions and contests, which became very much part of my life. I was not the typical teenager. I was very closed, shy and didn't hangout with my friends at disco's. My parents wanted me at home. Singing became my life, I traveled a lot on the job, and my job became my dream. — Laura Pausini

Children, even the most shy and tongue-tied, spill all their vibrancy out into the world. There are no reserves, no deep wells where emotion sinks and is buried. — Katy Simpson Smith

When I was a child, I was very shy, and there's still a part of me that's very shy. — Sandra Cisneros

Education is like Christmas. We're all just opening our gifts, one at a time. And it is a fact that each and every child has a bright shiny present with her name on it, waiting there underneath the tree. God wrapped it up, and he'll let us know when it's time to unwrap it. In the meantime, we must believe that our children are okay. Every last one of them. The straight-A ones and the ones with autism and the naughty ones and the chunky ones and the shy ones and the loud ones and the so-far-behind ones. — Glennon Doyle Melton

I was shy as a child. Now I'm not really shy any more, unless I'm with shy people. I find it contagious and I don't know what to say. But I don't think shyness is something one should feel apologetic about. — Nigella Lawson

Why should I keep myself so safe?" he asked her, but he was almost asking himself. What is there in my life worth preserving? With a good wife back there in the mountains, serviceable as an old spoon, dry in the heart from having been scared of marriage since she was six? With three children so shy of their father, the Prince of the Arjikis, that they will hardly come near him? With a careworn clan moving here, moving there, going through th same disputes, herding the same herds, as thy have done for five hundred years? And me, with a shallow and undirected mind, no artfulness in word or habit, no especial kindness toward the world? What is there that makes my life worth preserving?
"I love you," said Elphaba.
"So that's that then, and that's it," he answered her and himself. "And I love you. So I promise to be careful. — Gregory Maguire

As a shy, introverted, scholarly child (long ago) I don't know what I would have done without libraries! My family moved often. I was always the new kid in town. The library always offered me my first and most important friendship: the place where I felt right at home. I still feel that way today, about libraries. — Lois Lowry

Children learn what they live.
If a child lives with criticism ... he learns to condemn.
If he lives with hostility ... he learns to fight.
If he lives with ridicule ... he learns to be shy.
If he lives with shame ... he learns to be guilty.
If he lives with tolerance ... he learns confidence.
If he lives with praise ... he learns to appreciate.
If he lives with fairness ... he learns about justice — Dorothy Nolte

I wonder. If I had you wear that mask today, Anne, would you find the courage to tell me what is troubling you?"
Anne would very much have liked to confide in her father, but where in the world would she begin?
He leaned over and whispered in her ear. "I will tell you a secret, my dear. All of my children are shy. They have simply learned the art of wearing masks. — Lena Coakley

No one goes anywhere alone, least of all into exile - not even those who arrive physically alone, unaccompanied by family, spouse, children, parents, or siblings. No one leaves his or her world without having been 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 a time of misunderstanding, a sentence, a simple sentence possibly now forgotten by the one who had said it. — Paulo Freire

I've always been shy, I was a quiet child. I didn't start speaking until uh, last year. — Craig Nicholls

Where are the ethical concerns, that so many people called animal lovers invoke, when you steal the children of wild dog mothers and other family members from right before their eyes? Do ethics always refer only to what people think appropriate for purely subjective reasons?
Ultimately, our long-term research resulted in a very sad picture: With the exception of the random puppy, who today as an adult actually is interested in people, neither male Maccia nor the most of the other "rescued" dogs are socially and environmentally secure, but had remained shy and partly vegetate in kennels with empty eyes. Such dogs are neither fish nor fowl, although taken from the wild population in the early age of about eight to twelve weeks (except Maccia, whom Funny "rescued" at the age of four months, which is even more irresponsible). — Gunther Bloch

I'm still shy - I'm no good at my children's parent-teacher conferences, and I'm slowly learning how to ask for what I want. But I now know that I have a reserve of courage to draw upon when I really need it. There's nothing that I'm too scared to have a go at. — Emily Mortimer

My ex-student, Idit Harel, who wrote a book, "Children Designs," has a documented story of a kid who was very shy, isolated and didn't talk much to other kids. She was a little overweight, and the other kids looked down on her for that reason.But then she made a discovery about how to do something on the computer. The discovery was picked up by other kids, and within a few weeks there was a total transformation. This kid was now in demand. And that changed her feeling about herself. — Seymour Papert

This is exactly the message that fairy tales get across to the child in manifold form: that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence
but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious. — Bruno Bettelheim

As a child, I was very shy. Painfully, excruciatingly shy. I hid a lot in my room. I was so terrified to read out loud in school that I had to have my mother ask my reading teacher not to call on me in class. — Kim Basinger

Children are just different from one another, especially in temperament. Some are shy, others bold; some active, others quiet; some confident, others less so. Respect for individual differences is in my view the cornerstone of good parent-child relationships. — Sandra Scarr

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

In fact, not only have a good many formerly abused children grown into nonabusing adults, but a number of these parents have great difficulty with even modest, nonphysical methods of disciplining their children. In rebellion against the pain of their own childhoods, these parents shy away both from setting limits and from enforcing them. This, too, can have a negative impact on a child's development, because children need the security of boundaries. But — Susan Forward

I always say that comedians and actors were all kind of shy when they were young. I was very, believe it or not, kind of embarrassed as a child. But my mother was a very strong lady and she was the one that kept it going when I thought it would be over for me as a performer. She was always my inspiration and she was a big influence on me. — Don Rickles

I am convinced that most people do not grow up ... We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias. — Maya Angelou

Although adults have a role to play in teaching social skills to children, it is often best that they play it unobtrusively. In particular, adults must guard against embarrassing unskilled children by correcting them too publicly and against labeling children as shy in ways that may lead the children to see themselves in just that way. — Zick Rubin

I'm not good at talking to strangers, whether they're sick children or they're - I'm just not good. I'm shy with it. — Sean Penn

Sick children, if not too shy to speak, will always express this wish. They invariably prefer a story to be told to them, rather than read to them. — Florence Nightingale

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

My brother, whom I adored, typed out a children's book illustrated by himself ... at the age of 14. My sister, with whom I always shared a double bed, had that effortless superiority of someone six years older and anxious to show it. But we were each as shy as voles. It seemed safer to keep to each other's company. — Geraldine McCaughrean

children whose parents talk with them about their experiences tend to have better access to the memories of those experiences. Parents who speak with their children about their feelings have children who develop emotional intelligence and can understand their own and other people's feelings more fully. Shy children whose parents nurture a sense of courage by offering supportive explorations of the world tend to lose their behavioral inhibition, — Daniel J. Siegel

Nick turned out to be a shy boy, uncertain in groups and in new situations, but also very brave, determined to overcome his fear. - Will, as a parent describing his son — Lisa Goldstein

She knew nothing about children. After it was settled that Philip should come down to Blackstable, Mrs. Carey had thought much how she should treat him; she was anxious to do her duty; but now he was there she found herself just as shy of him as he was of her. She — William Somerset Maugham