Stephen Karam Quotes

When I can't write, it depresses me.

You know, sometimes I feel well and vital in the world, and sometimes I just feel so distressed I want to pull my hair out by the roots.

Sometimes on sets, I shut down, try to focus.

Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.

The release of 'Lungs' was so hard. It was terrifying, because it was the first time doing everything. The first experiences of media exposure were almost paralysing. I spent a lot of time crying on the floor of the studio - it sent me a bit mad.

Usually, I work every day, seven days a week. When I go three days without writing, my body aches with anxiety; my mood is irritable. My night dreams grow wild with unconscious invention.

I feel there is this looming cloud over my life.

It's official: The biggest back-to-school bullies are anxiety, worry and fear.

A weekly column is not always a treat. It can be a tyranny. There are times when I have very little to say. There are times, every year, when I am weighed down with depression. At these times it takes days of slog to force the words on to the page.

I write good songs out of fear... fear of failure. Because if they're not good enough, you feel yourself starting to fall.

The Warrior is terrified when making important decisions.

Stress is caused by being here but wanting to be there, or being in the present but wanting to be in the future. It's a split that tears you apart inside.

I'm just one gigantic ball of rancid fear and self-consciousness. I'm entirely fueled by fear, so the fact that I knew it could be a catastrophic disaster made me unable to sleep, and made me work quite hard.

I have a horror of silence while I'm writing. It's like the universe is howling at me if I don't have it.

I feel like I'm walking on eggs and can't take another step.

My anxiety level of my own work and what I'm doing and focusing on my art and all of that stuff? That's fundamental.

As a novelist, I'm incredibly lucky to make a living, but that doesn't mean that I don't lie awake at four o'clock in the morning, worrying.

The challenge in my life really is keeping the balance between feeling creatively energized and fulfilled without feeling overwhelmed and like I'm in the middle of a battlefield.

There are days when I should be writing, and I am so tired that I can't. And the fatigue also affects my emotions, making me not even care about writing. There are days when I wake up so angry I can barely speak, and also days when I am so sad.

I have my own demons and dark moods. It's weird.

The success of Torn was a bit too much for me. I took a year off and was still scared to start the second album.

My biggest enemy for the longest time was my head. When I first became successful, it made me anxious because I was overthinking everything, and you hear so many 'fail' stories.

Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.

I find I have to touch what I am working on every day, or a deep-seated dread kicks in that is very hard to overcome.

Like everyone else, I've had moments when I've felt that I've been losing my grip.