Quotes about Self-Consciousness

Since that day, I have slowly acquired the uneasiness about my clothes that characterizes the poor who are ashamed. I was no longer at my ease in any suit: I felt that I was badly dressed and that I attracted the attention of all. I feared, even when wearing a new suit, the mockery of others at my unsuccessful attempts. That is how I became what is known as careful of my clothes.

Why were there an infinite number of ways to feel awkward? He believed this was a theological question having to do with man's place in the universe. But when he felt the true force of the question, he was always in the middle of an embarrassing emergency of some kind that paralyzed reflection.

How embarrassing to be human.

We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.

When I feel ashamed, it means I feel there isn’t just something wrong with what I’ve done, there is something wrong with who I am. Shame is often a hidden emotion and it can be paralyzing in its power.

Most of the time, if you’re uncomfortable with something, it’s because it isn’t right. Discomfort is the human response to a questionable or bad situation,

I think everyone sometimes feels intimidated by themselves when they see themselves on the screen.

I felt ashamed, because we’re not supposed to, and there’s something unprofessional about it.

Part of life is learning what to be ashamed of and what to be proud of.

This is what you should experience in your own pursuit of “good.” If you’re not uncomfortable, then you’re probably stuck at an “acceptable level.

Knowing that his audiences are capable of forming bad impressions of him, the individual may come to feel ashamed of a well-intentioned honest act merely because the context of its performance provides false impressions that are bad. Feeling this unwarranted shame, he may feel that his feelings can be seen; feeling that he is thus seen, he may feel that his appearance confirms these false conclusions concerning him. He may then add to the precariousness of his position by engaging in just those defensive maneuvers that he would employ were he really guilty. In this way it is possible for all of us to become fleetingly for ourselves the worst person we can imagine that others might imagine us to be.

There are times I feel my performance wasn’t the best. Sometimes, I feel embarrassed either by the role or the way I interpreted the role. I sincerely must accept that roles were not put across perfectly.

This is a period of their lives filled with awkwardness and bodily insecurity. In engaging with them, we can explore resistance and resolution through those bodies.

I was embarrassed by it and racked by middle-class guilt. But when you're on stage, if you're trying to be something you're not, it becomes so much harder. It's better to be honest and take every vulnerability and flaw you have, and mock them and deal with them.

"I felt ashamed."

"But of what? Psyche, they hadn't stripped you naked or anything?"

"No, no, Maia. Ashamed of looking like a mortal — of being a mortal."

"But how could you help that?"

"Don't you think the things people are most ashamed of are things they can't help?"