Michael Dirda Quotes

I've spent a lot of my life among people brighter than myself.

I always thought everybody else was better than me.

I believed what people said, that I don't deserve to be a leader because of the way I look. That I don't deserve to be popular, that I don't deserve to be loved. I'm not intelligent.

These stories about my intellectual capacity really get under my skin. You know, for a while I even thought my staff believed it. There on my schedule first thing every morning it said, 'Intelligence Briefing.'

It's always at the back of my mind that acting might come to an end for me when Harry Potter finishes. I don't know if I'm good enough to have a long career. I've got a bit of an inferiority complex about my acting. My self-esteem is quite low in that sense.

Exaggerated sensitiveness is an expression of the feeling of inferiority.

I grew up being really insecure and dumped on, over-feeling certain things in a negative way. So I thought I had something to prove.

I'm constantly dogged with a feeling of fraudulence, so if somebody tells me they like what I've written, then I immediately begin to think it's rubbish.

You have no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself and how little I deserve it.

I was like, 'Josh Tillman, you are not a songwriter. You are an ape. Stop thinking of yourself as a songwriter.'

I'm not a writer. I'm not smart. I couldn't possibly even write my own story.

I didn't go to university; I hardly went to school, but I grew up among people well versed in Henry James and Proust, and just felt this endless, total inadequacy.

I am incredibly self-deprecating. It stems from self-doubt.

I still think I'm not as good as anybody else.

Donald Trump has got unlimited number of insecurities. But the No. 1 one thing, I would say, is his insecurity with his intellect. There's a reason why he always refers to where he went to college and, you know, that, 'I'm a smart person.' You know, it may be narcissism. But I think it really reflects an insecurity.

I grew up as a child who felt she was very inferior to everyone else.

I'd rather speak less because I don't consider myself a very intelligent person.

I have trouble keeping a lid on the self-hatred.

Every time I've been offered a new job, I've automatically said, 'Oh, I don't think you want me for that job.' It's sort of a weird female - or, at least, it is in me - a weird female defense, when, in fact, what you want to do is scream, 'Hooray, I want to do this!'

I've hated myself since I knew my own name. But 'Bake Off' has simply confirmed to me what a bottom-feeding halfwit I am.

I don't feel stupid, just inadequate. After three years of studying the law, I'm very much aware of how little I know.

I'm a very lucky person. I'm an idiot, and I've shoveled through life rather nicely so far, so I don't feel like I deserve good treatment.

There's something I find highly embarrassing about it. As soon as I think I've written something smart, the next day I've got nausea, thinking, "Don't even try to be smart, it's absurd."

I am a very mediocre intellect, at best, and I am smarter than most people I know - and that terrifies me.