Sophia Dembling Quotes

I've been accused my whole life of being "too sensitive". This actually kind of pisses me off, but maybe that's just because I'm too sensitive.

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.

Introverts think carefully before they speak. We can be excellent public speakers because we prepare carefully.

Every introvert alive knows the exquisite pleasure of stepping from the clamor of a party into the bathroom and closing the door

What is a friend? We probably all have our own definitions. For me, it's someone I don't feel alone with. Who doesn't bore me. Whose life I connect with and who takes reciprocal interest in my life. It's someone I feel comfortable turning to when I need to be talked off the ledge, and for whom I am glad to return the favor. Just a few people in my life fit that bill.

Extroverts sparkle, introverts glow. Extroverts are fireworks, introverts are a fire in the hearth.

Nine out of ten introverts agree: The telephone is the tool of the devil.

Just because I’m quiet doesn’t mean I have nothing to say.

We didn't know you were an introvert, we thought you were just a bitch.

Jung was the first to propose the model of psychic energy, suggesting that for introverts, energy flows inward, while for extroverts, energy flows outward. Introverts tend to embrace this definition. It fels right for us because we know exactly what it feels like to have our energy depleted when we have sent too much flowing outward.

It's not that introverts aren't good team players. We just don't need to be in the same room as the rest of the team at all times. We would much prefer to have part of the project carved out for us to squirrel away with it in our offices, consulting as necessary but working independently.

Another explained, “I think I’d speak for any introvert when I say if you could hear all the thoughts running through an introvert’s mind at any given moment—you’d feel like you’d just had your ear talked off for the last hour.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with finding our own thoughts more interesting than a long story about someone’s husband’s niece’s gum surgery. Introverts

Introverts are actually a lot like Clark Kent-- mild and unassuming much of the time, but able to swoop in and turn on our Supercharm when we choose.

Just because you want to join the party does not mean you are required to stay until the last drunk passes out.

In one study, researchers used an iPhone app to check in on people at random points throughout the day and found that the more people were thinking about something other than what they were doing, the less happy they felt. Even when they weren’t thinking about anything particularly bad.

We know what it feels like to have our energy drained by too much interaction. It feels like my brain is tired, almost like a muscle would be tired. The more depleted my psychic energy is, the slower my thoughts come, the harder it is to speak full sentences or focus on what’s going on around me. My senses become even more sensitive; noise and fuss are more overwhelming. And I become tense, irritated, cranky. That’s when I know I need to stop, sit down, let my brain relax and put up its metaphorical feet.

Introverts don’t get lonely if they don’t socialize with a lot of people, but we do get lonely if we don’t have intimate interactions on a regular basis.

Brando said he'd noticed that powerful people spoke quietly, and Don Corleone's quiet calm and nearly inaudible speaking voice are key to the character. When Corleone speaks, you have to be quiet to hear him. What can we learn from Don Corleone (that doesn't involve killing people)? That quiet does have its own power, if we harness it.

We may have, she suggests, a thin boundary between our conscious and unconscious minds, living with one foot in the real world and one in the world inside our heads.

Being lucky in love might be less a matter of luck and more a matter of paying attention.

Not only has volume been ratcheted up but expectations have, too. Quiet success--painting a picture, writing a poem, writing an algorithm--is all well and good, but if you haven't become famous doing it, then did it really matter?

Historically, psychologists have looked at introversion as the absence of extroversion. They measure extroversion, and if you are low in it, then you are considered an introvert. This perpetuates the perception of introversion as negative space, and introverted activities as not really doing anything. We need to train ourselves, and others, out of this idea. We need to start seeing doing nothing (or reading, or working alone on projects, or whatever it is we do to recharge) as activities that are as valid as any social event.

The best job for an introvert is the job that calls you.

One reason listening can be exhausting for introverts is that we pay attention. We listen hard. Words enter our ears and then go straight to our busy, whirring brains to be processed, considered, and analyzed.

Small talk is the WD-40 of society. It has a purpose, perhaps many purposes. A few niceties with a sales clerk, a little joshing with your dentist’s receptionist, some light get-to-know-ya banter with a stranger at a party—it keeps the gears of society cranking smoothly, makes the world feel friendly, and protects our social muscles from atrophy.

The introvert's dilemma is that we might not get a lot of invitations for the kind of socializing we like best--small, mellow gatherings. In other words, the kind of socializing other introverts like to do. Because, let's face it: We're introverts. We're all at home waiting to be invited to do introvert things. Which means, of course, that none of us are getting the invitations we crave. It's an introvert standoff.

Hiding your introversion is a bad idea because introversion itself is not a problem. It only causes problems if different needs affect factored into a burgeoning relationship and handled with respect and understanding. No doubt introversion-related issues will come up over time in a long-term relationship--healthy relationships are fluid and ever changing--but if you start out being honest with yourself and the other person, you will have built a foundation for later adaptation, compromise, and mutual comfort and happinesses.

If you are rejected by someone who doesn’t really know you, then you are not being rejected for who you are. You are only being rejected for who that person thinks you are.

Many ultra-sensitive introverts have little mood radars constantly circulating, looking for cues and clues to others’ state of mind. When we pick something up, it goes into our brains to be cranked around and around and around as we try to extract whatever relevant meaning it might hold for us and the state of our relationship. As well as being absolutely exhausting, this can be counterproductive. Even the most sensitive people tend to be pretty bad at mind reading (as in, really terrible at mind reading—as in, can’t mind read at all, it’s impossible, forget about it), and all that thinking and guessing and ruminating—because that’s what it is—doesn’t do a relationship any good.

The reality is that you are not competing with extroverts for attention. Extroverts and introverts are apples and oranges. Extroverts sparkle, introverts glow. Extroverts are fireworks, introverts are a fire in the hearth. Extroverts attract people who like razzle-dazzle, introverts attract people who want to bask in your warmth.

When did simple sadness become an inadequate expression of grief?

Ah, yes, the mix tape. The mating call of the introvert.

Extroverts sparkle, introverts glow. Extroverts are fireworks, introverts are a fire in the hearth. SOPHIA DEMBLING, INTROVERTS IN LOVE