Melvyn Bragg Quotes

I enjoy performing, always, but when you're taping a gig, you've got to blank out this mass apparatus of self-consciousness that's surrounding you, this invitation to drown in self-consciousness. Otherwise you just won't be able to do anything.

The red carpet is really the only thing that makes me nervous.

You have that moment just before you go on - I've had it in every play - where you just kind of want to run away. There's a whole audience, and they are waiting outside, and you're like, 'Why am I doing this again? Why? Why?'

I normally feel relief that I didn't die onstage or forget all my lines. Then I start remembering that I have to do it again sometime, and it'll probably not go as well.

We don't get too nervous for too may things, but on television a few million people are sitting there watching. Definitely a lot more nerves.

I'm nervous whenever I perform.

I definitely get nervous about if I'm going to forget the words to the songs or something. And I don't enjoy being the center of attention for an hour straight - I think that's really stressful.

That's the last thing I want to do is go on up there and mess up, you know, in front of America.

I'm terrified of performing live.

I was jumping out of my skin. It was horrible. I was all over the place, because I'd never been in front of a live audience. That's a whole other element in the play, the audience.

I go around the country, and I speak to colleges, conferences and thousands of people at a time, and I'm like, 'Great. Fine. Whatever.' Coming to speak to about 60 kids, I am scared to death.

I think I'm always nervous, even if I play not on the center court.

It's one thing to practise in front of a mirror at home, but another to do it in front of 800 people or on live TV.

The biggest problem for people who get really, really nervous when they perform live is that you think everybody's looking at you.

I can play in front of 30,000 people at Fenway and not be nervous at all. But I get really nervous in front of kids.

I can't understand it myself - how nervous I was when I took the floor for 'Strictly Come Dancing.' I walk out with 50,000 people gathered in the Millennium Stadium to fight Mikkel Kessler in the unification fight for the super middleweight division in 2007, and I feel great... and here I am, wearing tight pants and Cuban heels, and freaking out.

When I started on 'Strictly,' I was terrified. Live television seemed like the most daunting thing in the world.

I'm not comfortable as a lead singer. Maybe I could do it in the studio, but I wouldn't have the confidence to play shows.

I am not worried about playing in front of a big crowd.

When I had introduced 'Kandy Floss,' I was a bundle of nerves... I had done a non-fiction programme before - 'Kosmiic Chat' with Sunita Menon. But this one I was really scared of.

People might not believe me if I say I get nervous, but I tend to practice constantly to show a balanced performance.

Performing gives me so much anxiety.

I hate every moment of live performance.

I've never been good at playing live in front of people.

You numb yourself so you're not terrified when you're on TV at 7 o'clock in the morning with Justin Bieber, who you just met a couple of days before, having to perform in front of millions of people.