Quotes About Self-doubt

You're awful." He said it as though he was delighted. "And the worst part is that you believe otherwise.

I am not weak, he wanted to shout, but he wasn't sure he could say that aloud, either

What other stuff do they teach you at federal agent school?" I ask. It shouldn't bother me that he's fitting in so well. So what if he's faking it? Good for him. I guess what bothers me is him faking it better than I am.

And now she was sixteen and felt like she had no imagination left.

Looking back, Val knew she had a habit of trusting too much, being too passive, too willing to believe the best of others and the worst of herself.

She'd been afraid of herself. Somebody needed to keep her in check, and so that person became Charlie herself. Making sure she got knocked down every time things were going well, picking the wrong people to love, getting fired from jobs, screwing up. Charlie had been walking away from herself her whole life.

Her mind would careen along one path and then another, making imaginary moves and countermoves, a chess game played against herself to no purpose except indulging her anxiety. A snake eating its own tail and then choking on it.

You were always good," he says, looking down at me. "Just never good enough.

In case she can't get what's in her head and her heart on the canvas. Maybe she's afraid of being afraid. That she'll be so paralyzed by fear she won't do a thing, she'll just stand there with her paintbrush, feeling like a fraud.

Recently, she'd noticed something strange happening when she talked to people in groups. She couldn't quite remember how to be. She'd find herself thinking: Did I just laugh too loudly? Did I forget to laugh? Did I just repeat myself?

long time for her to reinstall her personality after he'd systematically taken it apart, making her doubt her every thought.

She had done all she could. It didn't feel like enough. Nothing, in fact, ever did.

My mom was a real person. I am not a real person. She had convictions and took action. She has purpose and belief. She helped others. I help no one. She helped found that donation organization. I couldn't even write one thank-you letter for a refrigerator. All I want is to write fiction. I am a drain on the system, dragging around my debts and dreams. It's all I've wanted. And now I'm not even able to do that.

I am wasting my life. I am wasting my life. I am wasting my life. It pounds like a heartbeat.

I wasn't anybody at all. And I began to get afraid that all at once maybe my eyes would break open like soap bubbles and everybody would see there wasn't anything there, just a vile mess. And I was afraid that maybe the rot inside me would break out in sores and warts, screaming: 'traitor, sinner, imposter.'" Part

Possibly from the outside this looks determinedly individual. Nobody realises what a mess of loneliness and inadequacy I am inside.

I couldn't picture myself as a good teacher and didn't want to be a bad one. Meanwhile I fell into proofreading, which led to copy editing, which has proved satisfying and educational. Pity about the summer vacations, though.

I didn't do anything as active as deciding that I wanted to be a writer. For one thing, I didn't feel like I was the final authority on whether or not I was anything like a writer. (I'm a timid soul.) I just kept writing stories, because becoming a veterinarian seemed as if it involved too much dissection.

There's somthing inside me that pulls beneath the surface. Consuming. Confusing. This lack of self-control I fear is never ending. Controlling. I can't seem To find myself again, My walls are closing in (Without a sense of confidence, I'm convinced that there's just too much pressure to take) I felt this way before... So insecure..

I long ago gave up defending humanity. It's beyond me on most days to defend myself.

You must work with the assumption that every teenager secretly worries that she's crazy.

I don't know why I'm always screwing up at everything, even when I try so hard, all the time, not to. I'd do better if I could, I really would. But I don't know how. There are a lot of things I don't know.

when she went from being the sort of girl who drank warm cider with rough boys to the sort of girl who had the love of a real man, who had beautiful babies and a two-bedroom flat. But that girl … that girl is starting to feel like a shapeshifter, a fraud, a one-dimensional paper doll.

I can't cut off an ear everyday. Do the Van Gogh here and the Mozart there. Anyway it's exhausting enough always having to check up on what one is really doing!.