Quotes About Self-doubt

There was a warmth of fury in his last phrases. He meant she loved him more than he her. Perhaps he could not love her. Perhaps she had not in herself that which he wanted. It was the deepest motive of her soul, this self-mistrust. It was so deep she dared neither realise nor acknowledge. Perhaps she was deficient. Like an infinitely subtle shame, it kept her always back. If it were so, she would do without him. She would never let herself want him. She would merely see.

He always ran away from the battle with himself. Even in his own heart's privacy, he excused himself, saying, If she hadn't said so-and-so, it would never have happened.

I started writing because of a terrible feeling of powerlessness, the novelist Anita Brookner has said. The National Book Award winner Alice McDermott noted that the most difficult thing about becoming a writer was convincing herself that she had anything to say that people would want to read. There's nothing to writing, the columnist Red Smith once commented. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.

It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, The dark threw its patches down upon me also, The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious, My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?

You can paralyze yourself with perfectionistic do-your-best nonsense.

I wanted so desperately to prove that I was right, even though all of my efforts were obviously self-sabotaging.

If I stand here, I can see the Little Red Haired girl when she comes out of her house... Of course, if she sees me peeking around this tree, she'll think I'm the dumbest person in the world... But if I don't peek around the tree, I'll never see her... Which means I probably AM the dumbest person in the world... which explains why I'm standing in a batch of poison oak.

I'm depressed! I'm completely depressed! I am firmly convinced that there is no one in this world who really likes me!" "So what else is new?

How is the birdhouse coming along, Charlie Brown?" "Well, I'm a lousy carpenter, I can't nail straight, I can't saw straight and I always split the wood... I'm nervous, I lack confidence, I'm stupid, I have poor taste and absolutely no sense of design... So, all things considered, it's coming along okay!

I've always been criticized, right from the beginning! Right from the very first day I was born... They said I wasn't right for the part!

It'll do you all the good in the world, Giles, to be a little uncertain of yourself".

Sometimes when I'm brushing my teeth, I'll look at the mirror and I swear my reflection seems kind of disappointed. I realized a couple of years ago that not only am I not super-skilled at anything, I'm not even particularly good at being myself.

How many times have I failed before? How many times have I stood here like this, in front of my own image, in front of my own person, trying to convince him not to be scared, to go on, to get out of this rut? How many times before I finally convince myself, how many private, erasable deaths will I need to die, how may self-murders is it going to take, how many times will I have to destroy myself before I learn, before I understand?

How do you convince someone to change, to stop being afraid of himself? How do you convince yourself not to be so scared all the time?

You are good," I say. "No I'm not. I'm not I'm not. I'm not," she says. "I'm no good." And then, softly to herself: "Am I?

Sometimes when I'm brushing my teeth, I'll look in the mirror and I swear my reflection seems kind of disappointed.

I realized a couple of years ago that not only am I not super-skilled at anything, I'm not even particularly good at being myself.

I used to feel intimidated by people like this; now I see them as walking insecurity beacons, slaves to the perceived judgement of others, trapped within a self- perpetuating circle of crushing status anxiety.

For there is nothing quite so terror-inducing as the loss of sleep. It creates phantoms and doubts, causes one to questions one's own abilities and judgement, and, over time, dismantles, from within, the body.

I think what drove me insane for a long time is feeling like I hadn't earned most of what I achieved because it came so fast.

I'm still scared, still wanting to run at times when I look into your eyes and wonder how I will ever be the sort of man you deserve. I want so much to deserve you. To be worthy of a woman like you.

Within forty minutes, the voice inside my head was screaming, WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO? I tried to ignore it, to hum as I hiked, though humming proved too difficult to do while also panting and moaning in agony and trying to remain hunched in that remotely upright position while also propelling myself forward when I felt like a building with legs.

There's a crazy lady living in your head. I hope you'll be comforted to hear that you're not alone. Most of us have an invisible inner terrible someone who says all sorts of nutty stuff that has no basis in truth.

I'd stopped being grandiose. I'd lowered myself to the notion that the absolute only thing that mattered was getting that extra beating heart out of my chest. Which meant I had to write my book. My very possibly mediocre book. My very possibly never-going-to-be-published book. My absolutely nowhere-in-league-with-the-writers-I'd-admired-so-much-that-I-practically-memorized-their-sentences book.