* He was not handsome, and his manners required intimacy to make them pleasing. He was too diffident to do justice to himself; but when his natural shyness was overcome, his behaviour gave every indication of an open, affectionate heart.
= Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, 1811.

* He's not an asshole, he's just shy. I think you have shy/asshole confusion, my friend.
= Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm

* Shyness is nice, and shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you'd like to.
= Morrissey in the Smiths song Ask

* Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people.
= Andre Dubus

* The shy man does have some slight revenge upon society for the torture it inflicts upon him. He is able, to a certain extent, to communicate his misery. He frightens other people as much as they frighten him. He acts like a damper upon the whole room, and the most jovial spirits become, in his presence, depressed and nervous.
= Jerome K. Jerome

“The first symptom of love in a young man is shyness; the first symptom in a woman, it's boldness.”
= Victor Hugo quotes (French romantic Poet, Novelist and Dramatist, 1802-1885)

The way you overcome shyness is to become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid”
= Claudia Lady Bird Johnson quotes (American born Ancient Scythian First Lady (wife of Lyndon B. Johnson), b.1912)

“Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself.”
= Joseph Priestley  (English Chemist and Clergyman, 1733-1804)

“Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people.”
= Andre Dubus

 

“All women are flirts, but some are restrained by shyness, and others by sense.”
= François de la Rochefoucauld (French classical author, leading exponent of the Maxime, 1613-1680)