Stephen Sondheim Quotes

You always feel like a hack and a fraud when you're writing. It's just how it goes.

For a long time I managed to think two things simultaneously, that I am actually a good playwright, and that the next time I write a play I will be revealed as someone who is no good at all.

As a writer, you live in permanent self-doubt; you're on permanent trial.

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.

Most artists think they're frauds anyway.

I always think the insecurity is going to go away, but it's always there. Only bad writers think they're good.

If you're a writer, you're constantly doubting yourself.

The honest truth is no, I don't feel like I arrived. I don't feel like I'm worthy. My publicist says I'm not supposed to say that, but I don't feel I'm there yet.

When it comes time to sit down and write the next book, you're deathly afraid that you're not up to the task. That was certainly the case with me after Snow Falling on Cedars.

I had a period where I thought I might not be good enough to publish.

Sometimes I panic and think I can't really write.

A lot of writers whom I love, admire and call friends share this feeling, which is this fundamental idea that we're frauds. That we will be pushed out on to the stage, and it will be revealed that the emperor has no clothes.

Sometimes if I tell people, 'I'm afraid that I'm really a fraud,' or 'I have a lot of self-doubt,' they go, 'Oh, no, you're kidding.' I go, 'No, I'm really honest.'

My inner critic who had begun piping up about how hopeless I was and how I didn't know to write.

It's kind of a rule of thumb for me to self-doubt going into any kind of project. I always think that I shouldn't be doing it and I don't know how to do it and I'm going to fail and that I fooled them. I always try to find a way out.

I have spent my years since Princeton, while at law school and in my various professional jobs, not feeling completely a part of the worlds I inhabit. I am always looking over my shoulder wondering if I measure up.

Every day I wake up afraid that I won't be able to write, that today is the day it has left me.

It's a phobia I have. I never assume I'm going to be able to write another album after I finish one.

The essential truth is that sometimes you're worried that they'll find out it's a fluke, that you don't really have it. You've lost the muse or - the worst dread - you never had it at all. I went through all that madness early on.

Every single time I step into the studio, I say, 'Can I still do this? Do I still have it? Have I ever had it?' I suppose there's a good amount of self-loathing that goes into any form of artisanship.

Every decade of my life I attempted to write a novel. But I had nothing to say. I was far too self-absorbed, and now I realize I was writing for others, so that they'd applaud me, see my genius, tell me how wonderful I am, or be jealous of my success.

I've always felt like an imposter, in the whole, as a musician.

One of the biggest obstacles I've overcome in my life was thinking I didn't deserve to be successful. Artistically I'm not as much of a heavyweight as someone like Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell, because I'm not a creator of original music, and I worried about that for years.

I'd be far too self-conscious and insecure if I suspected my editor might be a better novelist than I.

Part of being an artist is that you are always concerned you don't have what it takes. It... keeps us honest.