Nobody is thinking about you the way you are thinking about you. They’re all thinking about themselves.

Now I am depressed myself,' I said. 'That's why I never think about these things. I never think and yet when I begin to talk I say the things I have found out in my mind without thinking.

I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I've never met an ordinary man, woman or child.

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.

People understand me so little that they do not even understand when I complain of being misunderstood.

Nobody can say anything about you. Whatsoever people say is about themselves. But you become very shaky, because you are still clinging to a false center. That false center depends on others, so you are always looking to what people are saying about you. And you are always following other people, you are always trying to satisfy them. You are always trying to be respectable, you are always trying to decorate your ego. This is suicidal. Rather than being disturbed by what others say, you should start looking inside yourself…

Whenever you are self-conscious you are simply showing that you are not conscious of the self at all. You don’t know who you are. If you had known, then there would have been no problem — then you are not seeking opinions. Then you are not worried what others say about you — it is irrelevant!

When you are self-conscious you are in trouble. When you are self-conscious you are really showing symptoms that you don’t know who you are. Your very self-consciousness indicates that you have not come home yet.

the guilty think all talk is of themselves.

Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves - and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either.

You talk too damn much and too damn much of it is about you.

I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir. Because I am not myself, you see?

I feel almost physically ill in the presence of boring people who consider themselves especially interesting and who blow their own trumpets.

I realize now that people are not thinking about you and me or caring what is said about us. They are thinking about themselves — before breakfast, after breakfast, and right on until ten minutes past midnight. They would be a thousand times more concerned about a slight headache of their own than they would about the news of your death or mine.

Master, master, you obviously haven’t thought about this at all. We only ever feel sorry for ourselves, believe me.

It is by not always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you might somehow be happy. Until you can make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself, you will always be searching and lost....