{He} had wanted friends, but he had not wanted to be the kind of friend people settled for, because they could not get any better. Except he was, as he had always secretly feared, tedious and poor company. He did not know why books had not taught him how to talk so other people wanted to listen.

— Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy: Nothing but Shadows

"I do care what other people think," he said with a surprising intensity, staring into the flames. "It's all I think about—what others think, what they feel about me, and I about them; it drives me mad. I wanted escape..."

— The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Prince

{They} looked over and saw that {he} had begun to rock back and forth, his eyes closed. It was something he did when things were too much: too loud, too harsh or hard or painful. The world was extra intense for {him}, {they} had always said. It was as if his ears could hear more clearly, his eyes see more, and sometimes it was too much for him. He needed to cover noise, to feel something in his hand to distract him. He needed to rock back and forth to soothe himself. Everyone processed stress in a different way, {they} had said. This was {his}, and it hurt nobody.

— The Dark Artifices: Lady Midnight

He was conscientious, the kind of person who believed that the others around him were so much more important than he was, who already believed that he was letting everybody down. And he was honest, the kind of person who was naturally open about all he felt and all he wanted. {His} virtues had made a trap for him: these two good qualities had collided painfully. He felt that he could not be honest without disappointing everybody he loved. It was a hideous conundrum for him. It was as if the world had been designed to make him unhappy.

— The Bane Chronicles: What to But the Shadowhunter Who Has Everything )And Who You're Not Officially Dating Anyway)

As a girl, walking alone through these streets at night in {his} fine clothes, {he} would have been the object of stares and jeers. As a boy {he} was—invisible. {He} never realized what it was like to be invisible before. How light and free {he} felt.

— The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Prince

"Sometime she thought {he} had been sent to her by the Angel specifically to try her patience. He was bitter, he had a tongue like the lash of a whip, and he met her every attempt to show him love and affection with venom or contempt. And still, when she looked at him, she saw the boy he'd been at twelve, curled in the corner of his bedroom with his hands over his ears as his parents called his name from the steps below, entreating him to come out, to come back to them." — The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Prince

They were sitting on the edge of the roof, their legs dangling into empty space. This was probably the way he was supposed to live his high school years, {he} thought, climbing up onto high places, doing dumb and dangerous things that would worry his parents.

— The Dark Artifices: Queen of Air and Darkness

He opened his mouth. The words were there. He was about to say them when a jolt of terror went through him, the terror of someone who, wandering through the mist, pauses only to realize that they have stopped inches from the edge of a gaping abyss.

— The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel