Elizabeth Wurtzel Quotes

Sometimes people call me a success for all the reasons that make me think I'm a failure.

My whole life, I've felt like I didn't quite measure up.

I was afraid of not living up to what people expected me to be.

Whatever I do seems artificial and false, to me.

We are a nation of people who are afraid we are not enough.

I think that half of us feel fraudulent in our lives anyway. There's that strange disconnect of not really knowing what we're doing sometimes, or why it matters. It's our existential crisis.

I may be a successful football player, but I feel like such a failure.

I had a series of mini-breakdowns where the public persona - this thing, this face, this person who writes this music... I would walk past that person in the mirror or listen to that person playing guitar and I didn't know who they were.

I have two books that were published quite some time ago. I start to read about three sentences. I have to close it. I am so self-conscious. Who did I think I was?

I was like, 'Josh Tillman, you are not a songwriter. You are an ape. Stop thinking of yourself as a songwriter.'

That's why you find a lot of entertainers are insecure, because it's the perfect camouflage for insecurity.

Probably some of the projects I chose to do after that had more to do with what people thought of me. The industry was very open and probably hoping that I could do anything.

Where I fit in is confusing to me.

I thought it was something peculiar to me. I thought I was abnormal.

I always wanted to be a Broadway girl. But once I got Tony-nominated, it really messed with me, because it was like, yes, I'm getting this affirmation that you're right where you're supposed to be, but there was still this voice saying, 'You're not good enough.'

I think one of my big struggles with being famous in my early 20s was that there was a constant running commentary telling me who I was.

It feels like my hard work has paid off, but at the same time, I still have the impostor, you know, syndrome. I still feel like I'm going to wake up, and everybody's going to see me for the hack I am.

It seems like I'm one of those people that has the personality where, if I win an award, I wake up the next day, and I'm like 'Oh, but I didn't win this award though, or this didn't happen.'

People make the mistake of thinking they've got to perform just because someone has said something about their potential.

I know I have trouble watching my own films.

The fundamental thing about my personality is that I think I'm an imposter.

I go through phases sometimes: 'I'm a genius; they get me,' and sometimes I'm like, 'Why does anyone want to hear me?'

I can't do this because I can't...I can't be the man I want to be with you. And that means that this - this just becomes...another reminder of what I am not.

I come from an overly confident place. But I'm overconfident because of feelings of inferiority.

I used to get the feeling, and sometimes I still get it, that I was fooling somebody - I don't know who or what - maybe myself. I have feelings some days where there are scenes with a lot of responsibility, and I'll wish, 'Gee, if only I had been a cleaning woman.'