As a parent, if give yourself what you need, your children will watch you doing that and will give themselves what they need.

Opposites attract, and I think temperament is so fundamental that you end up craving someone of the opposite temperament to complete you.

But when the group is literally capable of changing our perceptions, and when to stand alone is to activate primitive, powerful, and unconscious feelings of rejection, then the health of these institutions seems far more vulnerable than we think.

Every American was to become a performing self.

The emphasis is on community, on participating in more and more programs and events, on meeting more and more people. It’s a constant tension for many introverts that they’re not living that out. And in a religious world, there’s more at stake when you feel that tension. It doesn’t feel like ‘I’m not doing as well as I’d like.’ It feels like ‘God isn’t pleased with me.’

Shyness is inherently uncomfortable; introversion is not. The traits do overlap, though psychologists debate to what degree.

Do you really believe in what you said or wrote – in the thing that’s bringing criticism? And if I do believe it, I can withstand anything.