Why the world needs introverts

Shy, unconfident, solitary: there are many popular conceptions of introversion – most of them negative – but the reality is far more complicated

If you're an introvert, you also know that the bias against quiet can cause deep psychic pain. As a child you might have overheard your parents apologise for your shyness. Or at school you might have been prodded to come "out of your shell" – that noxious expression that fails to appreciate that some animals naturally carry shelter everywhere they go, and that some humans are just the same. "All the comments from childhood still ring in my ears, that I was lazy, stupid, slow, boring," writes a member of an email list called Introvert Retreat. "By the time I was old enough to figure out that I was simply introverted, it was a part of my being, the assumption that there is something inherently wrong with me. I wish I could find that little vestige of doubt and remove it."

Now that you're an adult, you might still feel a pang of guilt when you decline a dinner invitation in favour 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.

Of course, there's another word for such people: thinkers.

Extracted from Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain, to be published by Viking on 29 March at GBP 20.00.

There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” (Susan Cain)

Solitude and Leadership

If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughtsBy William Deresiewicz