Quotes About Insecurity

The women most readily drawn to Strike were, in Polworth's view, neurotic, chaotic and occasionally dangerous, and their fondness for the bent-nosed ex-boxer indicated a subconscious desire for something rocklike to which they could attach themselves like limpets.

She's like that, always shifting the goalposts. What was right one minute was wrong the next. You had to walk on eggshells, you really did.

Am I evil? Jago says I am. I used to think I couldn't be, because you loved me.

I wasn't safe. I wasn't permanent. My life was a fiction I had created, like an alien who comes to earth and tries to pass as human. The affections of my friends meant nothing to me, directed, as they were, toward a person who wasn't there. There was nobody home.

We all wanted to be somebody else. Somebody braver, or more handsome, or smarter. It's what children want. It's what you grow out of, if you're lucky. If you don't, it's a lifetime of agony.

Understand: people will constantly attack you in life. One of their main weapons will be to instill in you doubts about yourself – your worth, your abilities, your potential. They will often disguise this as their objective opinion, but invariably it has a political purpose – they want to keep you down.

The usual strategy for coping with the discomfort of knowing that others are superior in some way is to try to reduce the inequalities by bringing the more fortunate down or by preventing him from being more fortunate. This is the strategy of envy.

John Steinbeck wrote in East of Eden: "The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears.

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize." [ Modernism's Patriarch ( Time Magazine , June 10, 1996)]

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt.

A hallmark of petty tyrants—including many Rule Nazis—is that their power over a narrow domain is coupled with low prestige; they simmer and sulk about the lack of respect they get. This mix of power and low social status creates a deadly brew—it provokes them to take out their frustration and resentment on others.

Other studies suggest that some people are grumpy, insulting, or overbearing primarily because they are insecure about their abilities and prestige. This is a hallmark of petty tyrants, which

Love bombing" is a related and more extreme strategy for dealing with insecure assholes—you go beyond expressing empathy and holding your tongue, and respond to their nastiness with warmth and kindness. Your aim is to transform your oppressor into a friend and admirer.

Being liked was not much of a reward for being poor and disrespected. By the same token, money and respect were more than enough consolation for having a pack of insecure neurotics dislike me.

This time, as we went over the bridge on the way to the airport, my attorney asked me, "Well, how do you feel now?" I thought about it for a moment, then looked at him and answered, "Intimidating.

All bullies are cowards!

Not every man is so great a coward as he thinks he is—nor yet so good a Christian.

We all have tremendous potential, and we all are blessed with gifts. Yet the one thing that holds all of us back is some degree of self-doubt.

It is not so much the lack of technical information that holds us back, but more the lack of self-confidence.

I say the people exploit themselves. It's their fear, not mine.

The human dyad is so unstable that when two people who are important to each other develop a problem, which they invariably do, they automatically look around for a third person to include in the anxious situation in some way. The third person is brought into participation in the anxiety of the original twosome, and thus anxiety flows around the triangle.

The egotist is all surface; underneath is a pulpy mess and a lot of self-doubt. But the egoist may be yielding and even deferential in things he doesn't consider important; in anything that touches his core he is remorseless.

Fanaticism is ... compensation for doubt

You can be a really nasty, selfish little jerk when you're scared enough. I was scared enough.