Quotes About Fear

As a comic and as a nurse, it's important to look calm on the surface when you're absolutely crapping yourself inside. So, if someone is waving a machete at you, which has happened to me when I was a nurse, it's important to make that person feel that you're in control.

As a boy I used to go to the Chamber of Horrors at the annual fair, to look at the wax figures of Emperors and Kings, of heroes and murderers of the day. The dead now had that same unreality, which shocks without arousing pity.

American consumers have no problem with carcinogens, but they will not purchase any product, including floor wax, that has fat in it.

I'm not a blood and guts person. I remember seeing 'House of Wax' as a teenager in 3D. This was years ago, the original 'House of Wax', and that was scary enough for me that I thought I'd never see another one.

I can wax boringly about the role of comedy in mitigating pain. For so many comedians, comedy comes out of personal despair. I'm not a very despairing person myself, but I do fear despair and the death of loved ones.

Being brave isn't the absence of fear. Being brave is having that fear but finding a way through it.

In my opinion, the only way to conquer stage fright is to get up on stage and play. Every time you play another show, it gets better and better.

There's two sorts of fear: one you embrace and one you should listen to and turn the other way.

I don't run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run toward it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet.

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it... that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

I was in the sixth grade and living in Germany, when I was hanging out late with some friends. I turned around, and there's a dude dressed up as Michael Myers following us all the way home. It was the scariest thing ever, and it always reminds me of Halloween. In my mind, I was so young, so I really thought it was Mike Myers following me home.

I used to think the store detective had followed me all the way home and would knock on the door and go, 'Hello, is this your daughter? She's got three blue lipsticks and a moisturiser from Boots in her bag.' We just used to nick crap. Not even stuff we wanted.

You don't have a Batman without Bruce Wayne. Batman is the edge or scary image for Bruce to use.

I really believe that all of us have a lot of darkness in our souls. Anger, rage, fear, sadness. I don't think that's only reserved for people who have horrible upbringings. I think it really exists and is part of the human condition. I think in the course of your life you figure out ways to deal with that.

To be held back by fear is to miss out on challenging yourself in different ways.

We face fear many times a day, in many ways, and usually we turn away from it. It often hides itself behind laziness and complacency, which are its shadows and aliases. We accept the things-as-they-are world in which we are comfortable.

Nothing is really typical of my efforts... I'm simply casting about for better ways to crystallise and capture certain strong impressions (involving the elements of time, the unknown, cause and effect, fear, scenic and architectural beauty, and other seemingly ill-assorted things) which persist in clamouring for expression.

Underneath our nice, friendly facades there is great unease. If I were to scratch below the surface of anyone I would find fear, pain, and anxiety running amok. We all have ways to cover them up. We overeat, over-drink, overwork; we watch too much television.

The amygdala plays a crucial role in processing fear, and minus her two amygdalae, S.M. became unflappable. Studies of her are actually a hoot to read, since they basically consist of scientists concocting ever-more-elaborate ways of trying to scare her.

After heart surgery you can go two ways, you can kind of get scared, shrink on to your sofa and keep yourself safe, or you can engage with life again. I probably was in danger of taking the first option.

Although boxing is a sport, it's still entertainment. You've still got the fear, press conferences, the stare-downs. It's all an act in some ways. My whole life I've been doing it. I love this side of boxing - as much as the actual fight.

Most people have fallen by the wayside once or twice in their lives, and because the world is so transparent now, I think they're very fearful of running for office.

We cannot sacrifice our humanity in the name of security - or we risk losing both.

You cannot give up on the American dream. We cannot allow our fears and our disappointments to lead us into silence and into inaction.