When you're more focused in getting your message across than you are worrying about how people are viewing you, that's huge.

Even when the attention focused on me is positive, I am uncomfortable being looked at by a lot of people - it's just not my natural state of being.

There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.

Every American was to become a performing self.

Some introverts are perfectly comfortable with public speaking; I'm not one of them.

Now that you're an adult, you might still feel a pang of guilt when you decline a dinner invitation in favor of a good book. Or maybe you like to eat alone in restaurants and could do without the pitying looks from fellow diners. Or you're told that you're "in your head too much", a phrase that's often deployed against the quiet and cerebral. Or maybe there's another word for such people: thinkers.

The pressure to entertain, to sell ourselves, and never to be visibly anxious keeps ratcheting up.