Quotes About Self-doubt

I despise my own hypersensitiveness, which requires so much reassurance. It is certainly abnormal to crave so much to be loved and understood.

I had to go out and drink a little because I was going nutty writing this stuff. You can't imagine what a turmoil is in my head, how much I want to say, and how little is coming out. My head is bursting.

For what always creates anxiety in me is the doubt of my own sanity. I always question myself: am I being over-sensitive, am I exaggerating? What I crave at this moment is to be where I am not cut off from the world, to find another thread of contact.

For what always creates anxiety in me is the doubt of my own sanity. I always question myself: am I being over-sensitive, am I exaggerating?

The pages were all right—neither good nor bad, neither fish nor fowl. As I read them I seemed to hear the original lines from which they were abstracted, saw the wavering handwriting, and the curious childlike drawings, the mistakes, the bad spelling, the ink spots, the greasy finger-prints, the cheap paper (which is so touching in itself—the cheapest for genius always!). I rebelled

In other people's company I felt I was dull, gloomy, unwelcome, at once bored and boring...

I looked at myself in the mirror and didn't like what I saw.

I've been cheered by thousands, booed by thousands, but nothing feels as bad as the booing inside your own head during those ten minutes before you fall asleep.

I am becoming more and more convinced that there is something wrong with the way I live. Something false about everything I do. Even when I want to do something good; I feel that it's only in order to seem a better person.

Here, all this time, Less thought he was merely a bad writer. A bad lover, a bad friend, a bad son. Apparently the condition is worse; he is bad at being himself.

She knew whose love she doubted. It wasn't her parents' and it wasn't her friends: It was her own.

Barbara appraised her with critical eyes. 'Oh my. Well, this is going to need some work.' She went right to Carmen's hips and pulled the unfinished seams open. 'Yes, we'll have to take this way out. I'm not sure I have enough fabric. I'll check when I get back to my office.' You are a horrible witch, Carmen thought. She knew she looked absolutely awful in the dress. She was part Bourbon Street whore and part Latina first-communion spectacle.

Maybe being a "princess" isn't so great. Would you always wonder whether people liked you or whether they liked the things you could do for them.

Mum, since when have you ever decided whether or not to do something based on an assumption that you will fail?" I asked. "If I think everyone else will be better than me, then you're right, I shouldn't try. But if that is my approach, maybe I should just preemptively admit defeat and retire now.

We need a voice from the outside because our own voices cannot be trusted.

When my walls start to crumble, I'm so damn frightened of what's behind them that I fix them straight back up again. Basically, I'm a mess...

And when you can't stand yourself, you don't want people around who are constantly saying how much they love you, because you know you don't deserve it.

I wondered if he ever thought of me, and hated the pang I felt when I told myself he didn't.

It's so, so stupid what we do to ourselves because we're afraid. It's so stupid.

But it was even worse when you knew at that very moment that there was still time to save yourself, and yet you couldn't even budge.

I don't know, I said. Maybe you're right, and all that stuff I think I missed is overrated. Why should I even bother? What's the point really? He thought for a moment. Who says there has to be a point? he asked. Or a reason. Maybe it's just something you have to do. He moved down to start bagging while I just stood there, letting this sink in. Just something you have to do. No excuse or rationale necessary. I kind of like that.

If this was my instinct talking, I didn"t want to hear what it was saying.

It's so stupid," she added softly, "what we do to ourselves because we're afraid. It's so stupid." And she kept her head turned, as if I wasn't even there.

Take the fact that people generally were full of loathing and it cost them an effort to look at one another. Mostly they wanted to be let alone. And they dug for unreality more than for treasure, unreality being last great hope because then they could doubt that what they knew about themselves was true.