Quotes About Fear

My love of running developed when I got older. At school it filled me with dread and the idea of running around the sports pitches struck me with a nameless fear.

What the power structure is afraid of is that we're going to learn to recognize the truth when we hear it.

Even more than dying itself, I'm scared of the horror-movie changes that happen to the human body as it ages. I think of it as a sort of haunted-house effect, living inside a crumbling, creaking structure that is full of ghosts and will, some day, fall down.

Going into 'Details' magazine to pitch concepts for a potential photo shoot was one of the most nerve-wracking things I had ever done. I didn't really know what one did in a pitch, how they were structured, etc., and that freaked me out big time.

We need more courageous individuals who will defy the structures of power, whether political, economic, or intimate, but we also need it to be safe for people to feel their power and to be able to express their ideas and imagine without fear.

When I was in high school, my friends and I would drive out into the country to abandoned houses and structures... haha... to ghost hunt. We would scare each other so bad! We would sometimes camp out by the abandoned buildings just to scare ourselves! Such good times. The adrenaline of real fear is so cool!

But I'm the sort of person who, if certain structures topple, it could all go horribly wrong.

It's interesting when you read the debates in parliaments between MPs about whether they should give women a vote. It's a lot of fear; it is fear of change. It's fear if women get to vote, family structures will break down. Women will stop having children. Women won't vote for war.

My biggest fear is becoming a parody of myself. That's something I struggle with.

When I was in my 20s and kind of going through my own coming out process, I feared that I would lose my family. I feared that I would grow old alone. And that was a real part of my struggle.

Often, when you've reached a very high level of achievement, you almost become paralyzed by the idea that anything you might do might be imperfect. Perfection is just the striving, the effort, the struggle, but it's hard to remember that.

I really struggled with doing nine-to-five and just wanted to do something where it felt like I was in charge and I was doing something creative. I imagine if the first gig had gone badly I'd never have done it again. I imagine there's hundreds of people who could have been really great comedians and just had a bad first gig.

This is something I've struggled with a lot: how to relate to the fear in a constructive way. It's not that you eliminate the fear. We have all the fears. That's natural; that's human beings. But how do you deal with the fears, how do you engage with your fears in a way that's productive?

Especially for my first album, I struggled with even the thought of being a solo artist.

I have experienced loneliness at many, many points in my life and felt this profound sense of shame about it - all the years when I was a child that I struggled with feeling lonely when I was scared to go to school and petrified of walking into the elementary school cafeteria because I was worried I wouldn't have anyone to sit with.

Identifying and overcoming natural fear is one of the pleasing struggles intrinsic to climbing.

When I look back at my journey, it gives me a sense of confidence. I have been through an odd journey from Delhi to Mumbai, struggling, not having a job, shifting houses... Today, I am giving interviews. So it does give me gratitude and confidence. The fear is gone.

Of course there are always exceptions, but opinions are not to be feared.

In 1998, Vanity Fair asked me to write a big piece for them on the 50th anniversary of the New York City Ballet. My life, to a great extent, had been spent at and with the New York City Ballet, and I decided to try it. It was very scary, writing about something I loved so much and had such strong opinions about.

I always played my best when I respected my opponent and was a little scared of them because they could beat me. Every game I played in college, that was the case.

I am a passionate opponent of fox hunting because the fox runs in fear of its life over a prolonged period, hearing the hounds getting closer and closer. Barbarous does not even begin to describe such a sport.

Believe me, I'm more afraid of my mother than any opponent in the ring.

No, because as a fighter, we aren't really that intimated over other opponents.

Everybody said I was ducking opponents.