I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I’m like, ‚My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don’t have it. I just want to chill.‘ We all have self-doubt. You don’t deny it, but you also don’t capitulate to it. You embrace it.

It’s not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail.

I can handle pain.

I think I’ve developed, as many people do, this sense of, ‚Don’t say the wrong thing, or else people will point at you and laugh.‘

I have a strong feeling that I shall be glad when I am dead and done for – scrapped at last to make room for somebody better, cleverer, more perfect than myself.

I can’t jump the highest. I’m obviously not the biggest, not the strongest.

I don’t know how to live good. I only know how to suffer.

Sometimes I feel my whole life has been one big rejection.

When I was into my 30s, I became increasingly depressed by rejection letters. I had had the feeling that by the time I was 30, I would be established. But I was not at all. By the time of ‚Lives of Girls and Women,‘ I was into my 40s and I had become more thin-skinned.

I grew up in the east side of Detroit in an area where there was very little, except for a lot of scarcity, poverty and hunger. I never woke up saying, ‚I’m an orphan again today, isn’t this terrible? Poor me.‘

We’re all insecure, aren’t we? I’m not walking around like I’m macho man or anything.

I think most of the people involved in any art always secretly wonder whether they are really there because they’re good or there because they’re lucky.

There was a point where I really felt I had ‚penniless divorcee lone parent‘ tattooed on my head.

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

In retrospect, I can see I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!

The greatest story of all is Colonel Sanders. He didn’t start until he was sixty-six on a freeway bypass for his chicken shop. Anything is possible!

We did it Disneyland, in the knowledge that most of the people I talked to thought it would be a financial disaster – closed and forgotten within the first year.

I’m interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.

In my career as a director, there’s always been some point where you get halfway through it, or three-quarters, and you go: ‚What is this thing all about, and why am I telling the story? Does anybody really care about seeing this?‘ At that time you have to say: ‚OK, forget that and just go ahead.‘

I hear my friends and my mom tell me I’m special, but honestly, I still don’t get it.

Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is how you learn from it.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they’re better than other human beings.

I was a very shy character, always feeling uncomfortable because everybody was stronger than I, and always afraid I would look like a sissy. Everybody else played baseball; everybody else did all kinds of athletic things.

I don’t even know how to speak up for myself, because I don’t really have a father who would give me the confidence or advice. And if you’re always the new kid, you never get a chance to adapt, so your confidence is just zilch.

I feel like people can relate to me because we all go through wins and roadblocks and passion and pain, and it’s a vibe.

I used to feel unsafe right in the moment of an accomplishment – I felt the ground fall from under my feet because this could be the end. And even now, while everyone is celebrating, I’m on to the next thing. I don’t want to get lost in this big cushion of success.

I love playing ego and insecurity combined.

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.

We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.

Me not finishing school – in my head, I still have this insecurity when I’m talking to someone educated.

Even if you have a terminal disease, you don’t have to sit down and mope. Enjoy life and challenge the illness that you have.

To this day, some of my closest friends say, ‚Gaga, you know, everything’s great. You’re a singer; your dreams have come true.‘ But, still, when certain things are said to you over and over again as you’re growing up, it stays with you and you wonder if they’re true.

I’ve heard there are troubles of more than one kind; some come from ahead, and some come from behind. But I’ve brought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see; now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!

It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.

With all singers, insecurity is your best security. That’s why we’re such loud people and why we walk all funny. You think, ‚Are people interested?‘ But I think our band has something and they know we don’t just put albums out. We do think about it.

I don’t lose any sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word.

The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world.

No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.

I’m not the sort of person who gives up on things. The first time we crossed the Atlantic in the balloon, it crashed, and we went on and did the Pacific. First time we crossed the Atlantic in a boat, it sank, and we went on and got the record. So, generally speaking, we will pick ourselves up, brush ourselves down, and carry on.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did – which was to hide.

In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.

Actors search for rejection. If they don’t get it they reject themselves.

At first, I was scared to show fear because you can never be sure how people will perceive you. But I dared myself to do that, to stand out. Now I’ll talk about being beaten up or robbed or making a stupid decision because of a girl or whatever.

I wouldn’t use the word ‚scared‘ for my role as Hitchcock, but it was my most insecure. Taking on such a formidable, giant personality such as Hitchcock; he was one of the great geniuses of world cinema. Sheer genius.

There are so many things we have to overcome in this life with Jesus, His work on the cross. He’s paid the ultimate price for us, so I’m proud to be a child of God.

Vanity can apply to both insecurity and egotism. So I distance myself, because I feel everything.

When I was in my teens I had issues with OCD.

Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.

Serious illness doesn’t bother me for long because I am too inhospitable a host.

The only difference between Benito and Bad Bunny is 16 million followers on Instagram. And the money that Bad Bunny has in the bank. Benito had, like, $7. The numbers are different, but I’m still the same. Even my insecurities remain the same.

What good am I? I can’t have kids. I can’t cook. I’ve been divorced three times. Who would want me?

I am sure there’s going to be times when I do things wrong that no one’s going to like and everyone’s going to think I’m terrible and rubbish but I know I’m going to go through those times, and it’s just about understanding that that’s going to happen.

Folks don’t like to have somebody around knowing more than they do.

State formation has been a brutal project, with many hideous consequences. But the results exist, and their pernicious aspects should be overcome.

Change is always tough. Even for those who see themselves as agents of change, the process of starting a new thing can cause times of disorientation, uncertainty and insecurity.

Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as constantly under threat. This, by the way, is the case even if the ego is outwardly very confident.

Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.

When you’re in hell, you forget how great you really are because you’re suffering and you forget the great things you’ve done.

I don’t ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It’s like, ‚Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.‘

People say you have to hit rock bottom, and, I can tell you, almost dying is as rock bottom as it gets.