Quotes About Fear

It is scary to write - period - for me, but once you get past the idea that it's scary to write, I still can only be who I am. As a writer, my job, to me, is to expose myself - to really sort of dig in and find out who I am and then put it on the page.

I wanted to be a writer, but the idea of writing novels or movies seemed really intimidating. I never got more than a few pages into one.

It's easy to write a short story and frighten people for five pages, but to work at length, when you do it as in 'The Turn Of The Screw' or 'A Christmas Carol,' it's different; you have to build it and build it.

I was on stage and I was like I will pay someone to do my time, not only will I expect NOT to be paid, but I will pay someone if I can run off stage right now. It was so bad.

I do understand what it is to not want to commit to someone, knowing that might bring pain or commit to a life that has to do with being responsible to people other than myself. These things, I think, are normal things.

The most feared thing should be death, but after a lot of rumination, I have settled to fear incessant pain. It is not a 'screaming hysterically' kind of fear but a silently lurking one.

I've always been scared to death of pain - afraid, even, to think of it.

I saw things before they happened, and that scared me very much. The premonitions would always be accompanied by harsh and painful physical sensations.

I get so nervous, I get belly pains before I go on stage.

I like to write and draw and paint, and my mom's an artist, so I think I get caught up in thinking, 'I'm afraid it's gonna be bad,' and it's hard for me to start sometimes.

If you put a blank canvas in front of Matisse and say, 'This has to be a success,' who's going to pick up a paintbrush?

Blank paper always symbolizes the anxiety of the painter.

Strange story about Degas. He hated women, didn't want to be with them. Yet he spent much of his life painting them. He had seen his father maltreat his mother, must have had a deep fear that he'd do the same thing.

As a kid, there was a painting of 'Appeal to the Great Spirit' that I would see when I would get oatmeal bowls out of the cupboard. This painting, it was so real to me that it frightened me.

Sometimes people only see horrible, terrible things in my paintings.

I think I've always been afraid of painting, really. Right from the beginning. All my paintings are about painting without a painter. Like a kind of mechanical form of painting.

Daredevil was known as 'The Man Without Fear,' and I just thought, 'Well, I don't think that's very interesting.' I don't think it's very interesting to watch someone who's incapable of feeling fear. It also removes from the palate my favorite character attribute, which is courage. If you're not afraid, you can't exercise courage.

Fear is the main factor in Arab politics... There is no Arab who is not harmed by Jews' entry into Palestine.

My mere existence as a member of Congress as a Palestinian causes a lot of fear, because I'm here as a human being, as an American, that is saying to the world that we exist.

I think the notion of Sarah Palin being president of the United States is something that frightens me, frankly.

Most of the time - in 'Pan's Labyrinth' or 'Devil's Backbone' - I'm talking about my childhood.

Sometimes I pick parts because I think, 'OK, it scares me,' and that's an indication it's going to be a good movie for me to do. Sometimes that leaves me in a terrible... Well, it doesn't always pan out, you know?

From the time I was 18, I knew I wanted to be a comedian, but I was just scared to try it. And first I thought, 'Well, I should go to college and get a degree.' That didn't pan out.

I'm afraid of what happens if this career doesn't pan out, because I have so much invested in it that I can't turn back now.