John le Carre Quotes

My family moved from California to New Jersey in the beginning of my sophomore year of high school. I will never forget the first day in a new school, walking into the cafeteria during lunch and not knowing a single soul. I didn't feel confident enough to share a seat at just anyone's table.

I don't know that I've gotten much feedback directly from the literary world; sometimes I doubt even the notion that there is a literary world, though I guess there is or was.

I arrived in London and I was terrified. I never wanted to be a celebrity - one minute I was in school and the next I was in London talking to people at a record company. If anything, I didn't feel in any way worthy.

I think most people are afraid of what they don't know.

I feel intimidated by fashion.

The uncertainty of the danger belongs to the essence of terrorism.

The unknown is always frightening.

I'm always afraid someone's going to tap me on the shoulder one day and say, 'Back to North London.'

People who work every day are kind of scared of things they don't understand.

I was really nervous, intimidated by the whole thing-all the people and all the buzzing, and all the sitting around waiting. I felt really small in this huge place.

I always feel scared and insecure on a film set. I don't know any other way.

Fear is the thought of admitted inferiority.

If we fear the unknown then surely we fear ourselves.

Even if you are a best-seller you feel insecure because it is all so unpredictable.

I thought I'd get over being insecure if I became famous, but it hasn't happened. It just gets worse, really. You get more and more on edge, more nervous. These are all the things I'm dealing with. You think if you get famous, fear will go away and problems will go away. But they don't.

When you say 'fear of the unknown', that is the definition of fear; fear is the unknown, fear is what you do not know, and it's genetically within us so that we feel safe. We feel scared of the woods because we're not familiar with it, and that keeps you safe.

I'm terrified to go in lakes because you can't see the bottom, and not knowing what's there watching you is really scary to me.

The terrorist threat is so cloudy, faceless, and vague, so manipulable by political purposes, so definitely present but indefinitely manifested, that it sometimes feels interchangeable with everyday dread itself.

As an actor I am always waiting for my luck to run out.

I think fear of the unknown is the scariest thing.

I have an innate fear of fame. I've never thought being famous looked like such a good place to be. I love being incognito.

The unknown is very scary.

I get very nervous around famous people and I get nervous around beautiful women.

Perhaps I scare people. I don't know why.

A few of the world's most famous non-American novelists have large followings in the United States, among them Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Guenter Grass, who were both popular even before winning the Nobel.