Sheila Heti Quotes

It's not easy that everything you do, everybody has to come in and critique it and give their opinion. Sometimes it does help me and sometimes it hurts me as a person. That's life. I have feelings.

I tend to write things and don't go the next step and try to get it published. I don't want to do book signings and stuff.

I tend to take negative comments to heart.

As an artist, you put so much into what you do and it can all be torn down in a nanosecond.

Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.

It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

When you decide to come on to 'The Bachelor' or 'The Bachelorette,' you make a conscious decision to share your journey. But what people sometimes forget is our families don't necessarily make that same choice. They aren't the ones who sign up for this experience.

I try not to look at stories on the Internet because I don't want to psych myself out. I kinda half to stay off the Internet. I'm not thick-skinned enough. I get too sensitive. I don't want it to effect what I'm doing.

I struggle to try not to read the press about my album. It was great when the first stuff came out to hear that people liked it, but at the same time at this point it's almost hard for me to read because as much as I'm uncomfortable with my voice, trust me, I'm more uncomfortable with the things I say. [laughs] To see it on a written page, it's like, "Oh my god. I told that guy I'm a hopeless romantic! What am I doing?"

I am dreading the publication, for it will be impossible not to mind what is said. I have exposed my heart to be shot at.

I was very vulnerable to criticism for many years. I could read a bad review and remember it my whole life.

Either I'm too sensitive, or else I'm gettin' soft

If you're a creative person, you'd better not read what people write about you, because if it's good it'll blow your head up and it'll force you not to take the subway and you'll start taking cabs, and you'd better stay around people, and if it's bad, it just hurts your feelings so much it discourages you.

Frankly, I get much more sensitive about what's written about me than how I look in a photo. I'm so used to people seeing my image in plays and films that what they think about how I look is none of my business. If they says, "Hey, he doesn't look good," I'm like, Whatever, because I know I look different from day to day. But if you're up there putting your heart into something and people reject your performance, that's very painful. The written word can kick your ass.

You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the awareness that this ghastly sensation will never, ever leave you, no matter how successful and publicly lauded you become. It is intrinsic to the real business of writing and should be cherished.

Being an actor is such a humiliating experience because you are selling yourself to the public, your face, your personality, and that is humiliating. As you get older, it becomes more humiliating because you've got less to sell.

You see how wrong I go, how ridiculous I'm making myself in your eyes by keeping on guessing wrong like this! Doesn't that help you to come out with it? Come on now!

I don’t think any man writing can worry about what the act of writing costs him, even though at times he is very aware of it.

I feel very lucky for that gift that I was given but it´s been quite tough to deal with sometimes too. When you are blessed with something like this and it brings emotions to people - to keep up to the magical standard that everybody wants it to be and the perfection - can be hard.

I had self-doubt about whether my story was interesting to people. I didn't want to write something that was anecdotal. It was important to me that people would get something out of my book. I want people to read it and say, "Now I don't feel so alone," or "I'm going to remember that next time I'm being an asshole."

Comedy is frightening at first because you're opening yourself up. When it's just you and people hate it, you're like, "Oh God. Do they hate me?"

things which in my mind blossom will stumble beneath a clumsiest disguise appear capable of fragility and indecision

O why do I ever let anyone read what I write! Every time I have to go through a breakfast with a letter of criticism I swear I will write for my own praise or blame in future. It is a misery.

The better the artist, the more vulnerable he seems to be.

I'm an actress so the amount of rejection and commentary you get right to your face is pretty rough.