Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

I've always thought it was arrogant to write about yourself, particularly when you're still alive.

It is awkward to listen to oneself being praised, and I was always a shy man.

There’s an assumption that if someone writes in the first person it’s self-indulgent and self-regarding. I just look at it as a tool to understand the world and my experience in it. It’s not a tool to understand myself.

I just hate talking about myself.

I feel shy when people are fussing on me.

I find just being on set embarrassing. Mortifying. And that's with all my clothes on.

It's always embarrassing when somebody does something praiseworthy of you.

All my works over the years have been autobiographical in the sense they reflect some part of my life, although I have fictionalised them to an extent.

I am very bad at taking compliments. Even in school, when people told me that I look good, I could just manage an awkward thank you and a smile.

It's an uncomfortable thing to talk about myself, in general.

I like autobiographies. I wouldn't mind making one of those.

It's kind of weird talking about yourself all the time.

I had many doubts while writing my autobiography. I wasn't sure if anyone would be interested to read about my life.

How do you tell a story that you're a part of without it being a big ego trip?

I pity bashful men, who feel the pain Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain, And bear the marks upon a blushing face, OF needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.

There is a part of me in every character, naturally. That's why novelists rarely write good autobiographies. You start one and it becomes another novel.

When you are lonely, writing can keep you company. It is also a form of self-compensation, a way of making up for things—as opposed to making things up—that did not quite happen.

I write in the first person because I have always wanted to make my life more interesting than it was.

I wear some of my stuff, but usually the less in-your-face designs. I get a little self conscious, there is a fine line between pride and ego.

All writers write about themselves, just as the old storytellers chose to tell stories that spoke to and about themselves. They call it the world, but it is themselves they portray. The world of which they write is like a mirror that reflects the inside of their hearts, often more truly than they know.

Writing mirrors the interior self. You know, any book is like the perfect blueprint of the psyche of the author.

One of the reasons I write in different genres is that I get to have the feeling - even fleetingly - that I'm not just writing like Baggott again. I can escape myself.

A writer, or a beginning writer, is faced by the huge walls of self-consciousness. Most people think, "What if I say the wrong thing? What if I don't sound erudite and sophisticated? I'll be considered a fool." In time, with a lot of practice, you realize that's your foolishness is your gift.

A writer is rarely so well inspired as when he talks about himself.

Many intelligent people, when about to write . . . , force on their minds a certain notion about style, just as they screw up their faces when they sit for their portraits.