Famous Introverts

“I’m much more of an introvert [than my mother]. I’m much more inclined to want to not say anything in public. When I have to be in the spotlight, I think to myself, Mary [Streep] could do it. It’s a good thing, to imagine yourself doing something you think you can’t. I do that every day, because basically, if I had my way, I’d just stay home and think about what I’m having for supper.”
From vanityfair.com

Despite her public persona, the British actress identified as an introvert. She's often quoted as saying: "I'm an introvert ... I love being by myself, love being outdoors, love taking a long walk with my dogs and looking at the trees, flowers, the sky."
From huffingtonpost.com

The world-renowned physicist who developed the theory of relativity was often thought to be an introvert. Like many introverts, he did his best thinking alone: "The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind," he's widely quoted as saying.
From huffingtonpost.com

"I don't like public venues. I never know what to wear."

"I don't think the tabloids find me very interesting."

"I also wonder how I got this far in life. Growing up, I never knew what I wanted to do. I was not a terribly good student or a very vivacious, outgoing person. I was just kind of a backward kid. I grew up in various little towns and ended up in Oakland, California, going to a trade school. I didn't want to be an actor, because I thought an actor had to be an extrovert - somebody who loved to tell jokes and talk and be a raconteur. And I was something of an introvert. My mother used to say: "You have a little angel on your shoulder." I guess she was surprised I grew up at all, never mind that I got to where I am. The best I can do is quote a line from "Unforgiven": "Deserve's got nothing to do with it."

“I was the shyest human ever invented, but I had a lion inside me that wouldn’t shut up.”

"My first language was shy. It's only by having been thrust into the limelight that I have learned to cope with my shyness."

Grace Kelly was an introvert, but her presence was felt all over the world. Grace, as well as each of the previously mentioned famous introverts, is a prime example of the leadership abilities of introverted individuals.
From teenink.com

"I always felt a little like an outsider looking in."

"There are participants in life and there are observers, and I've always been an observer."

"I think it's a myth that actors are all extroverts. I don't think that's true. I think something happens in those five seconds before you walk on stage."

"[I am] observant of other people's emotional states."

"I don't exist in that world. I observe it."

“I think enough cannot be said for what you can discover through literature. So I think that was probably my most valued characteristic as a teenager.”

“E-mail is far more convenient than the telephone. As far as I’m concerned, I would throw my phone away if I could get away with it.”

"What a lovely surprise, discover how unlonely being alone can be."

"Our daily lives are so mundane, we get taken over by what is immediately in front of us and we don't see beyond that."

“I’m not the girl at the club on the table. I’m going to be the one in the corner, quiet and so I don’t call attention to myself.”

“I was the girl who cut school to go to the park, and the other kids would be smoking and drinking and I’d be reading Shakespeare.”

“As a child, I was very shy. Painfully, excruciatingly shy. I hid a lot in my room. I was so terrified to read out loud in school that I had to have my mother ask my reading teacher not to call on me in class.”

"He had a great career", says Hilton Green, "he was a genius of a director, he was not in the in crowd because he didn't go to parties, and I felt he was more of an introvert."
From Huffingtonpost.com

Harrison Ford has appeared in countless movies and has received the Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute. But even so, he is afraid to give a speech or talk in front of a group of people. According to Harrison Ford, public speaking is, "a mixed bag of terror and anxiety." Even when the character he is playing must make a speech, he experiences the same feelings.
From reddit.com

The Harry Potter creator, who was recently revealed as the author of The Cuckoo's Calling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, is frequently cited as an introvert. People who identify as introverts often report feeling most creative when they're alone with their own thoughts, rather than in groups. Indeed, Rowling recalls on her website that she first had the idea for Harry Potter in 1990 when she was traveling alone on a delayed train from Manchester to London.

"I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. To my immense frustration, I didn't have a pen that worked, and I was too shy to ask anybody if I could borrow one…," she writes. "I did not have a functioning pen with me, but I do think that this was probably a good thing. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, while all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me."
From huffingtonpost.com

Writer and introvert expert Susan Cain describes the Microsoft co-founder and chairman as an introvert. "We can stretch our personalities, but only up to a point," she wrote in her book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking, the Chicago Tribune reported. "Bill Gates is never going to be Bill Clinton, no matter how he polishes his social skills, and Bill Clinton can never be Bill Gates, no matter how much time he spends alone with a computer." He's also an example of someone who's introverted without being shy, Cain noted in a Psychology Today blog: "Bill Gates is quiet and bookish, but apparently unfazed by others’ opinions of him: he’s an introvert, but not shy."
From huffingtonpost.com

"I've always been sort of a loner. I am better one-on-one than in groups."

"I'm someone who overthinks everything and really needs to investigate every part of something before I'm ready to do it."

“I always try to be myself. Ever since I was an introverted kid, I’d get on stage and be able to break out of my shell.”

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower star has said she credits her introverted personality for her reputation as a non-party girl.

"It’s interesting, because people say things to me like, 'It’s really cool that you don’t go out and get drunk all the time and go to clubs,' and I’m just like, I mean, I appreciate that, but I’m kind of an introverted kind of person just by nature, it’s not like a conscious choice that I’m making necessarily. It’s genuinely who I am," she told Rookie earlier this year. "Have you seen Quiet by Susan Cain? ... It discusses how [extroverts] in our society are bigged up so much, and if you’re anything other than an [extrovert] you’re made to think there’s something wrong with you. That’s like the story of my life. Coming to realize that about myself was very empowering, because I had felt like Oh my god, there must be something wrong with me, because I don’t want to go out and do what all my friends want to do."
From huffingtonpost.com

"In the nation’s earlier years it was easier for introverts to earn respect," Cain said in a Q&A with Amazon.com. "America once embodied what the cultural historian Warren Susman called a 'Culture of Character,' which valued inner strength, integrity, and the good deeds you performed when no one was looking. You could cut an impressive figure by being quiet, reserved, and dignified. Abraham Lincoln was revered as a man who did not 'offend by superiority,' as Emerson put it."
From huffingtonpost.com

The former Friend cited personality differences as one of the reasons for her split with David Arquette. "I'm a homebody. I like to have people over, but I'm a little socially not -- I don't love it," she told Howard Stern in a 2011 radio interview, People reported. "David -- he doesn't drink anymore, he's completely sober -- but he likes to go out and dance. He really is a very gregarious guy. He's very outgoing. I'm much more of an introvert."
From huffingtonpost.com

The pop star and reality TV mentor might seem like the picture of an extrovert on stage, but in real life she identifies as the opposite. "If it weren’t for her bleach-blonde hair, I wouldn’t have recognized her," Gaby Wood wrote for Marie Claire about her interview for the magazine, published in early 2010. "Because, besides being petite, she is, it seems, shy. She tells me that she has always been 'intense and introverted' and that, as a result, she’s felt like an outsider her entire life."
From huffingtonpost.com