Quotes About Self-doubt

I'm impossible when a book is taking shape. Well, actually, I'm despicable.

I've never thought of myself as a writer. I still don't, despite all the writing I've done.

I don't go back and read my own stuff too much, but there are times where I second-guess myself and said I could have done something different, like a line of dialogue.

When I re-read my diaries, it's the self-doubt that seems to be prevalent.

I could have been a mediocre tap dancer.

I'm not good at audition tapes.

Comedians second-guessing themselves is scary. Poor taste is not a crime and we can't forget that.

I didn't start writing songs, honestly, until I started making my album. I was always doing poetry, but I never thought I could write songs. I discouraged myself and thought it was so hard. But starting this process and learning just what it is to be a songwriter and performer taught me that you don't have to feel discouraged about anything.

I always feel as if I'm a disappointment: that people want a grand dame in furs like Barbara Taylor Bradford.

What happened was, I always wanted to be a singer/songwriter kind of guy like a James Taylor or Crosby, Stills and Nash type of thing; I went to a lot of coffee houses and used to watch all those guys, but I never had the nerve to get up and do it because singing seems so personal and intimate to me. It was too revealing.

Being 16 is the worst time to be anybody, there is not enough tea in China to persuade me to be that young again. I wasn't very happy with myself.

I was so afraid to even read a paper in front of my classmates. It is very funny because at that point my teachers would never have believed that I could speak in front of an audience of over 2,000 people.

As the daughter of two teachers with first-class degrees, I'd always seen myself as a duffer by comparison.

What is so broken about me? So unlikable? Why does it still hurt?

I would drive home and see people wearing my No. 34 jersey and wonder why, because I didn't feel worthy of that. And all the time I just knew people were staring at me, talking about me everywhere I went.

From my own experience, I realized that there are many other reasons we procrastinate, starting with fear.

I was asking my friend who has children, "What if I have a baby and I dedicate my life to it and it grows up to hate me. And it blames everything wrong with its life on me." And she said, "What do you mean, 'if'?"

We procrastinate when we fear a threat to our sense of worth and independence, as a method of avoiding difficult situations.

I remember I had lunch with John Travolta when he was in the doldrums. I mean, he was, as they say, box office poison. He said to me something so great. He said, "I wasn't that good, and I'm not this bad.

See, what you're meant to do when you have a mid-life crisis is buy a fast car, aren't you? Well, I've always had fast cars. It's not that. It's the fear that you're past your best. It's the fear that the stuff you've done in the past is your best work.

You're an artist, Mel. You can't expect to be a success at the same time.' She was warming her white hands. I was not sure that I was an artist, but it was nice to be told.

Excuses are your lack of faith in your own power.

Moque-toi d'une mauvaise réputation. Crains une bonne que tu ne pourrais pas soutenir.

T]hou canst not think worse of me than I do of myself.