We need to do teacher training to educate them about what temperament means. Shyness is painful and you want to help a child with shyness - but the underlying temperament of being a careful, sensitive person is to be honoured, valued and respected.

Acting, for me, has never been about wanting attention or wanting to be seen. It's funny that I'm in a profession where that's where I am. There's so much I want to express; it's about connecting with another person and the intimacy of what that is, and so I have to overcome my shyness.

The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can't accept that.

When you're walking at the airport, you're expected to smile at people because they know you... I find that tough. I'm only trying to protect myself. So I don't take my eyes off the floor. People can take that as attitude. But it's actually shyness. Yes, it is a bad habit. But it's a defense mechanism.

It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical will live the relation to another as something alive.

I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.

I think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves whether it's shyness insecurity anxiety whether it's a physical block and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best self. It's truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that every day.

I was passionate. I found something that I loved. I could be all alone in a big old skating rink and nobody could get near me and I didn't have to talk to anybody because of my shyness. It was great. I was in my fantasy world.

What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution. Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone isolated on e-mail in chat rooms which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.