Quotes About Self-doubt

You have to dig deep to make great music, and it gets harder and harder. It's a difficult, painful process to reach deep in there and pull out the real gems. And you have to have that little bit of anxiety of, 'Can I really do this? Am I good enough?' You need that in the recipe to really get down in there.

As you get older, you overthink and can talk yourself out of anything. It's good to be a bit reckless and experimental.

I become absolutely reclusive when I'm not working, to the point where I question whether I can actually do it again.

People think you're really confident because you're an actress or whatever, but I'm, like, the worst. Although the good thing about being recognizable is that people approach me, which is good.

I'm often reading a magazine and hearing about someone's new record, and I think, 'Oh, boy, that's gonna be better than me.' It's a very common thing.

For a long time, I felt like I failed myself, my career, and my record company.

I was very dramatic - very, like, 'It's never going to happen. My life is over at 16 because I'm not already famous. I'm not going to get my record deal. I'm not going to be able to sing for a living.'

I've had a record deal before and I was willing to do whatever they wanted me to do and I thought that would be it. By the end of it, you know, I hated myself.

It's the worst feeling, going into your record label when you haven't got a hit. It was like: 'Maybe you've lost it.' And, once you're done, that's it. There's no support, or anyone to help you.

I had basically been shelved by the record label for two years and I was writing songs every day. I made two albums that just never came out, and that was just a really big knock to my confidence, because everything I sent seemed like it just wasn't good enough.

I'm never happy with anything I've done! If you sat me down and played everything I've ever recorded, I'd just sit there going, 'No... that could be better.'

I dreamed of recording a guitar album since I started playing, but I just never felt ready. I never felt like I was the player that I wanted to be. But I had this epiphany: you're never going to feel ready.

It's nice to be in a creative world that's kind of isolated, but you can get led astray down some pathway while you're recording that you might not like later. And there's a lot of time to get in your own head and stay there.

I started writing out all of my feelings, and people asked me, 'Have you ever thought of recording your music?' It was something I'd always thought of, but I'd never really had the confidence.

I listen to my old records and I think, 'How did I ever get on the radio?'

All the Junos, the Grammy nominations, the gold and platinum records, did nothing to assuage my conviction that I was an out-and-out loser.

I actually don't think that I'm gonna sell a lot of records.

I sometimes think, 'What am I doing standing on this red carpet?' It's hard to believe. You just tell yourself, 'Just play along and hopefully no one will notice!'

Blurryface is a fictional character and a reference to insecurities, which I think all people have.

I am merely an amateur; being referred as a lyricist is a far fetched dream for me, and I feel I don't entirely deserve it yet.

When I read for 'Girls,' I was like, 'The script says 'Handsome Carpenter,' so someone else is going to get the part. They'll have someone handsome, not me.'

After each book, I get panicky. I don't love the reviews. I don't like going through all that, and you would think that, after almost 40 years of writing, I'd have got the hang of it.

I have a hard time sometimes watching my own work.

I am harder on myself than anyone else could be.