Quotes About Doubt

I love proving myself wrong. A lot of actors lack confidence - even if you're doing really well, you kind of feel like this might be your last job.

The men couldn't understand how I could be so successful and so insecure at the same time - because it doesn't really exist in the same way in the male psyche.

I don't believe in psychology.

I feel really ambiguous about the psychology of people trying to do good in the world.

Psychology which explains everything explains nothing, and we are still in doubt.

Privately, I believe in none of them. Neither do you. Publicly, I believe in them all.

I never thought my ideas would actually get published.

There's still, even now, a part of me that can't believe that I got published. That part of me has never gone away.

When I wrote my first book, I was too scared to find out how people got books published. I was convinced that you needed some sort of magical potion that I didn't have.

Every writer, no matter published, unpublished, award-winning, or bestselling, faces insecurity. It crops up everywhere and, in my personal experience, nearly every day. It's just a part of the process.

I had a very high-grade publisher tell me I was incapable of writing a memoir.

I had never done Shakespeare before, but I don't think you can be an actor and not do it. There were moments when I thought, I'm just not going to be able to pull this off.

Because I've got an AFI award, I feel there is a certain expectation when I walk into a room, you know, that 'That Deb Mailman must know something!' But I'm just as nervous with every experience. I still doubt whether or not I can pull something off. I still think, 'When is the review going to come along that says Deb Mailman's not very good?'

People are always ready to pull you down.

After Brown, I went to Duke, to a Ph.D. program in American literature. My dad's an English professor. After a year there, I was like, 'Jesus. I don't want to do this. I don't want to be in the library.' So I pulled the ripcord, and that was it.

I doubt there's anything you could say to Donald Rumsfeld that would puncture the armor of his narcissism.

Dad was a keen Roman Catholic, but I left the church when I was 17, not because I'd stopped believing - it was more doctrinal stuff, like that there was no biblical mention of purgatory. I went back when I was 28, just before I gave up drink.

My high school career counsellor said I shouldn't pursue music as a career.

In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.

At a certain point in the writing of any book, you become absolutely certain that it's terrible and is only getting more terrible with every word you write. This is normal. You just have to keep going, push your way through, and have faith that, through practice and experience and determination, you will get to the end.

I knew no matter how good I did, no matter everything that I pushed for, there's always gonna be some type of doubt. Some people want to put limitations on what I can do.

There was a lot of procrastination on Cameron's part because of the personal nature of 'Almost Famous.' There was a lot of deep, dark doubt about even doing it. I don't mind being a cheerleader, but I did reach my limit quite a few times. I do my own writing, so I understand, but I was pushed to the point of anger with the insecurity of it.

Growing up, my religious identity was primarily one of confusion. Nothing was pushed on me; nothing was overtly offered.

The scariest thing in my life is the first morning of production on all my movies. It's the fear of failing, the loss of face, and a sense of guilt that everybody puts their faith in you and not coming through.