Viola Davis Quotes

Putting your work out there is scary!

I can't stand to ask anyone, 'How was that?'

When you sit down and play your music for someone you respect, you get that feeling in your stomach of like: 'Oh my God...' You know if it's not great because you start to feel sick.

Somehow when I express my voice, I feel that much more vulnerable. For instance, if I used the wrong word, or if I said something and somebody could take the word and misinterpret it.

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

If you're constantly hamstrung by worry that people aren't going to like it, you can't do your job.

I always get a little bit scared reading reviews.

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

'Writing' always means 'not writing' to me because I will do anything to put it off. I think this is mainly because writing anything down and then handing it over to a third party - especially in comedy - is such an exposing act that you naturally want to delay the process.

It's very scary to allow the world to see you.

I'm a bit of a worrier, to an extreme. I'll crack a joke, then worry if I've offended someone - even when they're laughing. I have a guilt complex, always worrying.

We feel a lot of pressure about looking silly or appearing weak, whatever that means, or being a failure. You have to keep in your head: what's the worst that can happen?

I don't want to think about how many people have thought or still think that I'm crazy.

I am mostly a pretty worried person. In conversations, I am always worried about what to say.

I do have, at different times, a certain kind of self-consciousness in the world, an insecurity.

We live in a constant fear that our shortcomings will be exposed to family, to friends and to the world.

We're so insecure, comedians. 'Did you laugh? Do you think I was funny?'

Every time I put myself out there, I get rejected.

Sometimes when people give you suggestions they are kind of making you nervous, you wonder whether you are doing something wrong.

Everybody's looking at me expecting me to shrink up and die.

When you start, you have no brain; you are a kid. It's fine. But then I started to be scared. I was scared of judgment - not as a dancer, but as a person - and I was really uncomfortable with people. And it lasted for a very long time.

I will confess that almost all my inspiration has come from one emotion: fear. And terrible dread of the moment when I will finally be exposed as a fraud.

I never think I'm safe. I always live in fear I will lose.

I'm as highly insecure as a human can be.

I don't believe anyone ever suspects how completely unsure I am of my work and myself and what tortures of self-doubting the doubt of others has always given me.