Self Effacement Quotes

“Anyone can have an off decade.”
― Larry Cole

“I dislike that kind of man. He has the Chaplin Disease; that particular combination of arrogance and timidity sets my teeth on edge. Like all people with timid personalities his arrogance is unlimited. Anybody who speaks quietly and shrivels up in company is unbelievably arrogant. He acts shy, but he loves himself; a very tense situation. It's people like me who have to carry on and pretend to be modest. To me, it's the most embarrassing thing in the world - a man who presents himself at his worst to get laughs, in order to free himself from his hang-ups.”
― Orson Welles, My Lunches with Orson

“One of the ladies asked about that awful Bobby Kennedy, and Goldwater responded by speaking about the attorney general with touching affection. (Mary) McGrory recalled how Jack Kennedy behaved at a similar stage in his campaign: spouting statistics, attacking carefully chosen enemies and puffing all the right friends, quoting dead Greeks, never cracking a joke lest he remind the voters how young he was.”
― Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus

“She is flooded with heat and warmth, alive with a pleasure both utterly familiar but completely new. She wants to weep with happiness, and to laugh with the uncomplicated joy of life. If she has ever felt happier, she cannot immediately bring it to mind. If the angels were to carry her away this very moment--and if her heart rate was anything to go by that was a possibility--she would have let them scoop her up, while she thanked the heavens for a life well lived.
"How was it?" asks Bogdan, his hand stroking her hair.
"It was OK," says Donna. "For a first time.”
― Richard Osman, The Bullet That Missed