Quotes About Insecurity

The greatest of all weakness is the fear of appearing week.

The greatest of all weaknesses is the fear of appearing weak. • J. B. Bossuet, Politics from

The greatest of all weaknesses is the fear of appearing weak. • J. B. Bossuet, Politics from Holy Writ, 1709

Here, all this time, Less thought he was merely a bad writer. A bad lover, a bad friend, a bad son. Apparently the condition is worse; he is bad at being himself.

Name a day, name an hour, in which Arthur Less was not afraid. Of ordering a cocktail, taking a taxi, teaching a class, writing a book. Afraid of these and almost everything else in the world. Strange, though; because he is afraid of everything, nothing is harder than anything else. Taking a trip around the world is no more terrifying than buying a stick of gum. The daily dose of courage.

Maybe I'm a bad writer." "No. You're a very good writer. Kalipso was a chef d'oeuvre. So beautiful, Arthur. I admired it a lot." Now Less is stumped. He probes his weaknesses. Too magniloquent? Too spoony? "Too old?" he ventures. "We're all over fifty, Arthur. It's not that you're a bad writer." Finley pauses for effect. "It's that you're a bad gay.

Slowly, the impossible dawned on him, and with terror he was forced to look deep within himself, as we all someday must, and ask: Am I the only frigid homosexual in New York? It turned out he was. So he left. So: Bad gay?

Why this endless need for a man as a mirror? To see the Arthur Less reflected there?

What had Freddy mean, the bravest person I know? For Less, it is a mystery. Name a day, name an hour, in which Arthur Less was not afraid. Of ordering a cocktail, taking a taxi, teaching a class, writing a book. Afraid of these and almost everything else in the world. Strange, though; because he is afraid of everything, nothing is harder than anything else. Taking a trip around the world is no more terrifying than buying a stick of gum. The daily dose of courage.

blame. I was as terrified as anyone, knowing

What had Freddy meant, the bravest person I know? For Less, it is a mystery. Name a day, name an hour, in which Arthur Less was not afraid. Of ordering a cocktail, taking a taxi, teaching a class, writing a book. Afraid of these and almost everything else in the world. Strange, though; because he is afraid of everything, nothing is harder than anything else. Taking a trip around the world is no more terrifying than buying a stick of gum. The daily dose of courage.

Instead, we are our own jailers. We are prisoners of our own insecurity (Will I still have a job if I take two solid weeks of vacation?), pride (How can people get along without me?), fantasies (What if I miss an email telling me I've won the lottery?), and cultural capitulation (This is just how the world works now, isn't it?). For us, the door to a better life is only locked from the inside.

I'm really afraid to feel happy because it never lasts

I really look awful, and I never bother to primp up or try to be appealing because I just don't want anyone to get involved with me. And that's the truth. I play down my good features and play up the bad ones. So I look awful and I wear the wrong pants and the wrong shoes and I come at the wrong time with the wrong friends, and I say the wrong things and I talk to the wrong person, and then still sometimes somebody gets interested and I freak out and I wonder, What did I do wrong?

I never felt settled or calm. You can't really commit to life when you feel that.

Maybe I grew up too fast, maybe that's my trouble. I feel so lost out here...hung up between two worlds; half-kid and half-adult, half-boy and half-girl. And sometimes it seems like I get the dirty side of both.

She knew whose love she doubted. It wasn't her parents' and it wasn't her friends: It was her own.

Because she was raw and uncertain, and she liked to keep all the messy parts of herself to herself. ... As much as Lena liked to hide the mess and display the finished product, by this point she was all mess and no product.

She couldn't hide from everyone for the rest of her life… Well she could. That was the direction things were going. But she knew from long-ago experience that when you were uncertain and if you were courageous enough to let her in a real friend could do a world of good.

Polly was pretty good at dieting, all right, but she was beginning to wonder whether you ever lost the parts of your self that you wanted to lose.

Lena wished that love were something you could flip on and off. You could turn it on when you felt good about yourself and worthy of it and generous enough to return it. You could flip it off when you needed to hide or self-destruct ad had nothing at all to give.

I've always feared she would find completion without me, and I'd be around, stupid and unperfected, forever.

Barbara appraised her with critical eyes. 'Oh my. Well, this is going to need some work.' She went right to Carmen's hips and pulled the unfinished seams open. 'Yes, we'll have to take this way out. I'm not sure I have enough fabric. I'll check when I get back to my office.' You are a horrible witch, Carmen thought. She knew she looked absolutely awful in the dress. She was part Bourbon Street whore and part Latina first-communion spectacle.

Lena felt like a child. Worse than a child and less valuable. She felt like a mouse. No, smaller than a mouse and less alive. Her life seemed so small and crumpled you could shoot it through a straw like a spitball.