Top 35 Adam S. McHugh Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Because introverts are typically good listeners and, at least, have the appearance of calmness, we are attractive to emotionally needy people. Introverts, gratified that other people are initiating with them, can easily get caught in these exhausting and unsatisfying relationships.”

— Adam S. McHugh

2. “Introverts are rarely content with surface-level relationships and do not generally consider our acquaintances to be friends. We may find small talk to be disagreeable and tiring. Because we often prefer to spend time in one-on-one interactions, rather than group socializing, our relationships can run deeper.”

— Adam S. McHugh

3. “The listening life is based less on the content heard and more on relationship with the One who speaks. Like Elijah, we can even come to listen for the silences, because God’s silences have a different texture to them. His silences are full. When they come, we know that the story is not over.”

— Adam S. McHugh

4. “Introverts treasure the close relationships they have stretched so much to make.”

— Adam S. McHugh

5. “Hearing is an act of the senses, but listening is an act of the will.”

— Adam S. McHugh

6. “While extroverts commonly feel loneliness when others are absent, introverts can feel most lonely when others are present, because ours is the aching loneliness of not being known or understood.”

— Adam S. McHugh

7. “Introverted seekers need introverted evangelists. It’s not that extroverts can’t communicate the gospel, either verbally or nonverbally, in ways that introverts find appealing, it’s that introverted seekers need to know and see that it’s possible to lead the Christian life as themselves. It’s imperative for them to understand that becoming a Christian is not tantamount with becoming an extrovert.”

— Adam S. McHugh

8. “A hurting person is in a storm. They are cold, wet, shivering, and scared. Preaching, platitudes, and advice will not get them out of the storm. Don’t tell a person in a storm that it’s a sunny day. There will likely come a day when the clouds part, but it is not today. It’s not your job to pull them out of the storm. It’s your job to get wet with them.”

— Adam S. McHugh

9. “Other voices will try to categorize us and tell us what is wrong with us, but true identity is discovered as we meet the One who created us and as we allow him to identify us. We are never strangers or outsiders to Jesus.”

— Adam S. McHugh

10. “I’d like to think that the work of God might be displayed through my introversion, and not in spite of it.”

— Adam S. McHugh

11. “We seek healing both from the internal wounds of distorted self-understandings and feelings of inadequacy, and from the outward wounds of alienation from others and exclusion from our communities. We desire the freedom to be ourselves and to love others as ourselves.”

— Adam S. McHugh

12. “When introverts go to church, we crave sanctuary in every sense of the word, as we flee from the disorienting distractions of twenty-first-century life. We desire to escape from superficial relationships, trivial communications and the constant noise that pervade our world, and find rest in the probing depths of God’s love.”

— Adam S. McHugh

13. “A church that is self-focused and insular is a social club, not a church.”

— Adam S. McHugh

14. “Psychology professor David Benner says that a major obstacle to growth in our listening abilities is that most of us already think that we’re good listeners.”

— Adam S. McHugh

15. “It signaled a big shift in my approach to the Bible when I started calling it not “reading” but “listening.” In listening to the Bible, I remind myself that behind all the words, there is a voice. I aim to listen to a person before I dissect a text. McKnight calls this a “relational” approach to the Bible, one that “invites us to listen to God speak in the Bible and to engage God as we listen.”

— Adam S. McHugh

16. “Introverts have a constant internal monologue rushing through our heads.”

— Adam S. McHugh

17. “As introverts who are followers of Jesus, we must remember that our introversion does not ultimately determine our thoughts and behaviors.”

— Adam S. McHugh

18. “Long periods without quiet refueling leave introverts feeling physically exhausted and emotionally hollow.”

— Adam S. McHugh

19. “In community, introverts follow a rhythm of engage, then retreat. Too much time in social interaction, no matter how satisfying, is disruptive and disorienting for introverts, and they need to step back to rediscover a sense of identity. They can lose themselves in community and need to retreat into solitude in order to be restored into shape and to find the power to give themselves fully to others when they reengage.”

— Adam S. McHugh

20. “Listening and silence are not necessarily the same thing, but silence is a really good start.”

— Adam S. McHugh

21. “The combination of solitude and internal processing means that many introverts are more oriented toward ideas than they are interacting with people.”

— Adam S. McHugh

22. “We who follow a crucified Messiah know that love will sometimes compel us to willingly choose things that make us uncomfortable, to surrender our rights for the blessing of others.”

— Adam S. McHugh

23. “Though introverts look calm on the surface, our brains are bubbling with activity, and thus we require less external stimulation than extroverts.”

— Adam S. McHugh

24. “Listening to people in pain is about giving them room to grieve and weep and rage and doubt. We’re not there to spiritualize their pain or theologize their experience. Our talk... takes space, when instead we want to give space.”

— Adam S. McHugh

25. “Introverts’ wounds usually begin in childhood. Our families of origin convey to us messages about introversion, which set us on a path of either self-acceptance or self-criticism.”

— Adam S. McHugh

26. “People sometimes think of introverts as listless or despondent, the Eeyores of the social scene. But it’s not that we have less energy, it’s that we lose it through interaction.”

— Adam S. McHugh

27. “Introverts often prefer writing to speaking, because writing uses a different neurological pathway in the brain than speaking does.”

— Adam S. McHugh

28. “Introverted wounds bleed in our minds and hearts, and bleed out in our behaviors, actions and relationships.”

— Adam S. McHugh

29. “By no means are introverts against intimate relationships; indeed we are motivated by depth in our relationships. And while the emphasis on intimacy with Jesus is welcome, in community we prefer interactions with smaller numbers of people with whom we feel comfortable.”

— Adam S. McHugh

30. “This is one of the greatest challenges for a listener: to delay your response so that others can express their present emotions and unresolved tensions.”

— Adam S. McHugh

31. “Pain is too serious for pat answers and glib God-talk.”

— Adam S. McHugh

32. “The Bible should never close us to hearing God’s voice in other venues; rather it ought to open us to recognize it whenever we hear it. In a sense, the Scriptures are a tuning fork for adjusting our ears to the tone of God’s voice. It attunes us to the quality, the pitch and the cadence of God’s voice, and to the character that his voice expresses, so that we can identify his true voice over false ones.”

— Adam S. McHugh

33. “Many evangelical megachurches, in their hope to create comfortable environments for seekers, have stripped their sanctuaries and worship services of any sense of mystery and the sacred. Their fast-moving, high production events may entertain us and their avid employment of modern technology may dazzle us, but many times, they cannot help us hear the still, small voice of God.”

— Adam S. McHugh

34. “Introverts have layered personalities, and they prefer to slowly unpeel the layers as they bond with people over time.”

— Adam S. McHugh

35. “Introverts are energized by solitude. We are recharged from the inside out, from the forces of our internal world of ideas and feelings.”

— Adam S. McHugh

36. “By no means are introverts against intimate relationships; indeed we are motivated by depth in our relationships.”

— Adam S. McHugh