Quotes About Fear

Now that we've been in hiding for a little over a year, you know a great deal about our lives. Still, I can't possibly tell you everything, since it's all so different compared to ordinary times and ordinary people.

I don't dare do anything anymore, cause Tm afraid it's not allowed.

Für jeden, der Angst hat, einsam oder unglücklich ist, ist es bestimmt das beste Mittel, hinauszugehen, irgendwohin, wo er ganz alleine ist, allein mit dem Himmel, der Natur und Gott. Dann erst, nur dann, fühlt man, daß alles so ist, wie es sein soll, und daß Gott die Menschen in der einfachen und schönen Natur glücklich sehen will. (S. 192)

Samstag, 22. Januar 1944 (...) Kannst du mir vielleicht erzählen, wie es kommt, dass alle Menschen ihr Inneres so ängstlich verbergen? (...) Warum vertraut der eine dem anderen so wenig? Ich weiß, es wird einen Grund dafür geben, aber manchmal finde ich es sehr schlimm, dass man nirgends, selbst bei den Menschen, die einem am nächsten stehen, ein wenig Vertraulichkeit findet.

Ik antwoord niet eens meer, ga op een divan liggen en slaap om de tijd, de stilte, de verschrikkelijke angst ook, te verkorten, want te doden zijn ze niet.

Ab Mai 1940 ging es bergab mit den guten Zeiten:...,und dann das Elend fur uns Juden begann. Judengesetz folgte auf Judengesetz, und unsere Freiheit wurde sehr beschrankt. Judden mussen einen Judenstern tragen; Juden mussen ihre Fahrrader abgeben;...Jacque sagt immer zu mir: ,,Ich traue mich nichts mehr zu machen, ich habe Angst, dass es nicht erlaubt ist.

Reichtum, Ansehen, alles kannst du verlieren, aber das Glück deines Herzens kann höchstens einmal verhüllt sein und wird dich doch immer aufs neue Glücklich machen, solange du lebst. Solange du ohne Furcht zum Himmel aufsehen kannst, solange weißt du, dass du reinen Herzens bist, und das Glück wird immer mit dir sein.

You know your fear is both false and illogical, but you fear it anyway.

I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good at it.

We write to expose the unexposed. Most human beings are dedicated to keeping that one door shut. But the writer's job is to see what's behind it, to see the bleak unspeakable stuff, and to turn the unspeakable into words - not just into any words but if we can, into rhythm and blues. You can't do this without discovering your own true voice, and you can't find your true voice and peer behind the door and report honestly and clearly to us if your parents are reading over your shoulder.

Try to write in a directly emotional way, instead of being too subtle or oblique. Don't be afraid of your material or your past. Be afraid of wasting any more time obsessing about how you look and how people see you. Be afraid of not getting your writing done.

I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that alot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.

Courage is fear that has said its prayers.

If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and safe, we die there... When nothing new can get in, that's death.

And my fear of failure has been lifelong and deep. If you are what you do- and I think my parents may have accidentally given me this idea- and you do poorly, what then? It's over; you're wiped out. All those prophecies you heard in the dark have come true, and people can see the real you, see what a schmendrick you are, what a fraud.

When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are.

And that almost everyone was struggling to wake up, to be loved, and not feel so afraid all the time. That's what the cars, degrees, booze, and drugs were about.

We're all afraid of the same stuff. Mostly we're afraid that we're secretly not okay, that we're disgusting, or frauds, or about to be diagnosed with cancer. ... We want to teach you how to quiet the yammer ... how you can create comfort, inside and outside, how you can get warm, how you can feed yourself. And even learn to get through silence. ... There is a wilderness inside you, and a banquet. Both. [p. 253]

All these years I fell for the great palace lie that grief should be gotten over as quickly as possible and as privately. But what I've discovered since is that lifelong fear of grief keeps us in a barren, isolated place and that only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it.

Lies cannot nourish or protect you. Only freedom from fear, freedom from lies, can make us beautiful, and keep us safe.

And we've read scary books and watched scary movies and TV shows together. He's met monsters, ghouls, and demons on the page and on the screen. There's nothing like watching Anaconda with your best friend or lying in bed next to your mother reading Roald Dahl, because that way you get to explore dark stuff safely. You get to laugh with it, to step out on the vampire's dance floor and take him for a spin, and then step back into your life. When you make friends with fear, it can't rule you.

we all wanted this because let's face it, it's so inspiring and such a relief when people find a way to bear the unbearable, when you can organize things in such a way that a tiny miracle appears to have taken place and that love has once again turn out to be bigger than fear and death and blindness.

I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die.

Our shadow is on the outside. And we can see in the dark: we can see you, we see you turn away, but one day we finally understand that you turn away not from our faces but from your own fears. From those things inside you that you think mark you as someone unlovable to your family, and society, and even to God.