Quotes About Fear

I think perfectionism is just a high-end, haute couture version of fear. I think perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat.

If there is one word, by the way, that triggers all the inherent terrors I have ever felt about the institution of marriage, it is coverture. This is exactly what the dancer Isadora Duncan was talking about when she wrote that "any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract and then goes into it deserves all the consequences.

I know every inch of fear, from head to toe.

Then he said, "Strange…," which is something you never want to hear from either your palm-reader or your dentist.

My earliest memories are of fear, as are pretty much all the memories that come after my earliest memories.

There is no old age like anxiety

I made a decision a long time ago that if I want creativity in my life—and I do—then I will have to make space for fear, too.

when courage dies, creativity dies with it.

your fear will always show up—especially when you're trying to be inventive or innovative. Your fear will always be triggered by your creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome, and fear hates uncertain outcome.

So I don't try to kill off my fear. I don't go to war against it. Instead, I make all that space for it. Heaps of space. Every single day. I'm making space for fear right this moment. I allow my fear to live and breathe and stretch out its legs comfortably. It seems to me that the less I fight my fear, the less it fights back. If I can relax, fear relaxes, too.

You don't get any special credit, is what I'm saying, for knowing how to be afraid of the unknown. Fear is a deeply ancient instinct, in other words, and an evolutionarily vital one . . . but it ain't especially smart.

Pero sobre todo les pedía a sus alumnos que fueran valerosos. Sin valor, les enseñaba, nunca serían capaces de desarrollar sus habilidades al máximo. Sin valor no llegarían a conocer el mundo con la profundidad con que este ansía ser conocido. Sin valor sus vidas seguirían siendo pequeñas, mucho más pequeñas probablemente de lo que querían.

Everything is so goddamn scary.

Your ego's job isn't to serve you. Its only job is to keep itself in power. And right now, your ego's scared to death cuz it's about to get downsized. You keep up this spiritual path, baby, and that bad boy's days are numbered. Pretty soon your ego will be out of work, and your heart'll be making all the decisions.

ago that if I want creativity in my life—and I do—then I will have to make space for fear, too.

I've watched far too many brilliant and gifted female creators say, "I am 99.8 percent qualified for this task, but until I master that last smidgen of ability, I will hold myself back, just to be on the safe side.

I'm talking about living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.

fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun. This

You are afraid of surrender because you don't want to lose control. But you never had control; all you had was anxiety.

a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.

But I see it differently. I think perfectionism is just a high-end, haute couture version of fear.

try saying this: "I enjoy my creativity." And when you say it, be sure to actually mean it. For one thing, it will freak people out. I believe that enjoying your work with all your heart is the only truly subversive position left to take as a creative person these days. It's such a gangster move, because hardly anybody ever dares to speak of creative enjoyment aloud, for fear of not being taken seriously as an artist. So say it. Be the weirdo who dares to enjoy.

El miedo es aburrido

Without it, you will never push yourself out of the suffocating insulation of personal safety and into the frontiers of the beautiful and the unexpected.