"One could argue that most of the trouble in the world is caused by introspection."
— Nick Hornby (A Long Way Down)

"But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in."
— Junot Díaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao)

"I stand in the mist and cry, thinking of myself standing in the mist and crying, and wondering if I will ever be able to use this experience in a book."
— Erica Jong (Fear of Flying)

"A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small parcel."
— John Ruskin

"Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens."
— Carl Gustav Jung

"Talking with Elaine like that, with no judgment from her or anything, seemed to bring my feelings more to the surface so I could look at them. I love times like that; you don't get many of them.
(Walker, in STOTAN!)"
— Chris Crutcher

"that's exactly the good thing about the Injun life--you don't have to stop and think about whether or not you're 'happy'--which in my opinionis a highly overrated human condition invented by white folks"
— Jim Fergus (One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd)

"So he explored, explored within himself, scanning himself with a lamp, as if it were not himself at all but some strange monster that he had been commanded to guard."
— Hermann Bahr

"Why does nothing change, even when you set out for a faraway place?"
— Young-ha Kim (I Have the Right to Destroy Myself)

"Novels are food for the leftover hours of life, the in-between times, the moments of waiting."
— Young-ha Kim (I Have the Right to Destroy Myself)

"I do feel that I’ve managed to make something I could maybe call my world…over time…little by little. And when I’m inside it, to some extent, I feel kind of relieved. But the very fact I felt I had to make such a world probably means that I’m a weak person, that I bruise easily, don’t you think? And in the eyes of society at large, that world of mine is a puny little thing. It’s like a cardboard house: a puff of wind might carry it off somewhere."
— Haruki Murakami (After Dark)