Patricia Derian Quotes

I was a very awkward high schooler, especially in early high school.

When I was younger, I was insecure for about 10 years: I wore glasses, had a cow's lick, buck teeth and braces. I looked ridiculous.

Everyone is insecure, especially in high school.

I'm 16, and I'm still self-conscious. Everyone is at this age.

My freshman year of high school was just awkwardness all around.

There was a kind of physical anarchy that dominated most of my younger life. I was always too skinny, not hairy enough, my voice jumped around. It was a thing that drove me away from towel lines in gym class.

All of my friends are really good dancers, which was initially why I never danced - we'd go out, and they would kill it, and I'd be like, 'Yeah, I'm just gonna sit at the bar.'

I was an awkward kid.

On some level, I think everyone felt like a dork in high school.

When I first began, the technicians, camera and makeup men made me feel so self-conscious that I began to have the biggest inferiority complex about my looks.

I didn't want to get that ring around my lips from practicing the trumpet, because I thought the girls wouldn't like me. So I never practiced.

High school was hard for me. I tried really hard to fit in and said the things I thought people wanted to hear. But I was unsure of myself. I was self-conscious, and I didn't really know my place or where I fit in.

In junior high P.E., I was way too shy to take a shower in front of the other kids. It was a horribly awkward time - body hair, odors... So I'd go from my sweaty shirt back into my regular clothes and have to continue the day.

In high school, I definitely fancied myself an intense guy, which is so lame.

I feel uncomfortable because I'm insecure about who I am.

If you asked me to go back to being 14 or 15, I couldn't - it was a terrifying time. I was so awkward in my own skin. I used to hide behind my hair because I was so ridiculously self-conscious.

I was at an all-girls' school, so there were a lot of us who were really awkward. I was this tall when I was 11, so I was really awkward and self-conscious. No one would really have wanted to be mean to me. I was too unimportant.

I got more shy as I got older and realized people could be laughing at me or judging me.

We moved in 8th grade, so 7th grade I was doing okay, and then 8th grade, everything fell apart. I had no fashion sense to speak of. We only had a couple of hair care products back then. We didn't have all these things to tame your hair. I had glasses; I had braces. I had it all.

I was so gangly, even sneakers looked awkward. Everybody kind of goes through some phase, and it's hard if you're singled out for anything. But there was this one boy in particular who made fun of me, and - it's funny - then later, when we were 18 or 19, he wanted to go out with me.

I'm always super scared of feeling like a fake.

I wasn't the class nerd, but I was weird. I could tell long stories and be funny, but I couldn't do sports. And I was always terrified of being held back.

I was a teenage girl once. I was not an overweight teenage girl, but I had really bad acne when I was 11 or 12 years old. It was heart-rending, and people made fun of me. People whispered when I walked by in the hallways, and I was sure they were whispering about me. My adult perspective is maybe they weren't.

I was voted 'most shy' in seventh grade! Can you even believe it?

The amount of people that I feel like... I'm not being self-demeaning, but I actually feel like I'm not as cool as them, you know what I mean?