Stephen Frears Quotes

My childhood is always going to limit me.

To this day I do not believe I'm great at anything.

To be honest, I still feel like I haven't scratched the surface of where I want to be. If someone asked me for an autograph, I'd be like, 'Me? I haven't done anything yet !' I have much more to offer the world.

I'm a lot of things, but none of them are great.

I've not always played well for City, but I'd never been the scapegoat, coming off at half-time when in my head I thought I was having a decent game. It was weird, unnatural, it had never happened to me before and it felt like no matter what I did it wasn't good enough any more.

My best friend used to make fun of me about the camps I wasn't invited to, and I used to get mad. He was just always better, always the favorite. I was always the one in the shadow that everybody was like, 'He's not good enough. Might not even make it to college.'

I'm not good enough to write about my friends, who are all brilliant and sophisticated.

I'm not a writer. I'm not smart. I couldn't possibly even write my own story.

The sufficiency of merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.

I don't feel like what I've done are 'accomplishments.'

I didn't go to university; I hardly went to school, but I grew up among people well versed in Henry James and Proust, and just felt this endless, total inadequacy.

Usually, with the work I've done, by the end, I usually feel like it's a failure. It doesn't matter how it's received.

The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.

You always feel when you look it straight in the eye that you could have put more into it, could have let yourself go and dug harder.

I was always behind in class. There was people in my class who was amazing at art, amazing at maths, amazing at English, but I wasn't clever with anything, even though I tried my hardest.

One of the by-products of being a perfectionist and constantly trying to improve myself are sobering feelings of low-grade anxiety and a nagging sense of inadequacy. But this is not anxiety without a purpose. No, this anxiety keeps me humble. It creates a healthy tension that serves as the catalyst that drives me to fulfill my limited potential.

If you say I'm great, thank you very much. But I know what I am. I could be better, man, you know?

I almost wish I could be more exciting, that I could match what is happening out there to me.

My biggest fear is that I'm not good enough. I have this voice in my head that I've been battling for years that says, 'You're not really talented enough. You don't really deserve this.'

I am a man of limited talents from a small town. I don't seem to grasp that I am President.

Many feel discouraged because they have not measured up to their potential.

I'm a dreamer, and I'm a perfectionist, and I love excellence, and that's hardwired in me. But when I was young, I lived in a space for a long time where I only felt insufficient.

If you can't send your daughter to school when you know it will help her, you feel a sense of failure, and you feel that failure deeply.

I never feel like I've done anything. Swear to God. I'm not kidding. So it's always a surprise when somebody asks me to do anything.

Every day I receive messages that I'm not good enough, that I should lose my job.