Richard Matheson Quotes

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

I think every writer doubts themselves, every day. You procrastinate because you're afraid. You're always afraid it's not going to be as good as you want it to be. But, the key is overcoming fear.

These days I am ruled by doubt, and that is a difficult place to write from.

To write fiction is to think that you're doing it wrong - that your work habits are inhibiting you; that you've chosen the wrong subject; that you've chosen the right subject, but that someone else has, unbeknownst to you, already written exactly the book you're laboring over.

By some fluke, my folks forgot to ask me the question most crucial to ensuring a lifetime of self-doubt: 'What if you fail?

For the few little successes I may seem to have, there are acres of misgivings and self-doubt.

Begin to wonder what you do write about. Or if you have anything to say. Or even if there is such a thing as a thing to say. Limit these thoughts to no more than ten minutes a day; like sit-ups, they can make you thin

Every song that I start to write, I wonder if I'll be able to write it.

I'm afraid of all kinds of things. I'm afraid of failing at whatever story I'm writing - that it won't come up for me, or that I won't be able to finish it.

I think you're not a human being unless you have doubts and fears.

I lost my confidence.

I'm probably the most pessimistic actor I know. I'm always sure I'll never work again.

I won't lie, I've had a lot of discouraging moments in the past years, moments I wasn't sure about things and doubted myself.

I don't know which is stronger: the thrill of winning or the fear of failure. I don't know which one affects me most. I don't know where the middle is.

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

I am very self-doubting; it has come out of experience.

The fact is that blank pages inspire me with terror. What will I put on them? Will it be good enough? Will I have to throw it out?

Every book takes you to the terror, that terrible place of possible failure.

The only virtue on which I pride myself is my self-doubt; when a writer loses her self-doubt, the time has come to lay aside her pen.

Every time I make a movie I think that it's going to be my last one, I think that no one is going to show up. I always have this sense that they're all going to fail. I am scared to death.

You don't know what you're doing. You're just hoping that people won't make fun of you. I had no idea how it would turn out.

I always think I'm terrible. So it's always a relief when I find out that I wasn't. I've had roles where I realized that I was in way over my head - and that is my biggest fear.

I knew that this job would be too much for me.

I have a fear of failure.

I might kiss you. I might be bad at it. That's not possible.