Phoebe Robinson Quotes

I don't know if you've ever shown anyone your work before you're done with it, but it can be very uncomfortable.

I have no control over the audience. I have no idea what they think. My heart's pure. I can't do anything. I really can't do anything. I don't know what goes on in the crowd.

The exposed nature of life in the public square affects leaders' attitudes toward risk - and failure.

Actors are an insecure breed. It's hard to have your career depend upon other people's opinions of what you do.

I know I'm being judged, and anyone who works in the public eye will get some negativity at some point. It can be tough and it hurts. I can be very tough on myself. Occasionally, I hear or read something cruel and I'm shocked.

There is always shame in the creation of an object for the public gaze.

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.

I am a person beset with fears, and one of my fears is that this thing that I will be writing for five years won't work. And the likelihood, of course, is that it won't - and that's fine.

I'm a nervous sharer. I'm nervous to share things in their unfinished state just because, I mean, it's kind of embarrassing. You know what it could be, but you can't explain what it's going to be.

I knew that if I just came out as a singer, people would just be criticizing my voice.

I never have any idea how my opinions will be received, and more often than not I'm surprised when anything I say is controversial.

As an artist you organize your life so that you get a chance to paint, a window of time, but that's no guarantee you'll create anything worth all your effort. You're always haunt by the idea you're wasting your life.

I'd love to work with Kanye West. He's gone through a lot of stuff in the public eye, but his music is genius. He always takes risks.

I'm not the kind of person who ever thought, 'Oh, a one-woman show - bring it on!'

It's always nerve-racking, showing your parents things you've been working on.

All of the good things that surround art - you have to embrace the idea that it could be a complete disaster. I think that's what gives it its artistic sparkle is that it really could crash and burn at any moment because you're going out on a limb and being very personal.

Until a book starts forming in your head, you always wonder, 'Am I going to be able to do this again?'

I didn't want to put out 'The Unseen' because I thought I would be criticized. I thought everyone would think the sped-up vocals were a gimmick. I had to be convinced to put it out.

I've done a lot of movies, and you really never know. You do a movie and you think that it's great, and then you see it and it doesn't work.

I have a very dear friend, a great painter, called me up very upset, the work wasn’t going well… He asked me to come to his studio -- which I did -- I looked around at the work, dozens of sketches, drawings, large pictures, and I was very close to his work, intensely involved with his work, and he asked me, ‘What’s wrong?’ And I said, ‘Simple – it’s a loss of nerve.

If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’.

There are two kinds of witnesses. One kind is the people that surround you. You are constantly aware that you are being watched, witnessed. With so many eyes watching you, you are reduced to an object... And you are afraid because they may not appreciate you. They may not feed your ego, they may not like you, they may reject you. Now you are in their hands.

Every new painting is like throwing myself into the water without knowing how to swim.

Most artists, ashamed of their need for encouragement, try to carry their work to term like a secret pregnancy.

Part of writing a novel is being willing to leap into the blackness. You have very little idea, really, of what's going to happen. You have a broad sense, maybe, but it's this rash leap. It's like spelunking. You kind of create the right path for yourself. But, boy, are there so many points at which you think, absolutely, I'm going down the wrong hole here. And I can't get back to the right hole. I'm not going to be able to get this section back to the right hole - so I'm just going to have to cut it.