Matthew Broderick Quotes

At the bottom of not a little of the bravery that appears in the world, there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they have not the courage to face public opinion.

In high school, I was scared to dance.

All my life - middle school, high school - I've always been worried what are people going to think.

At some point, you realize that people might be laughing at your jokes because they're afraid not to laugh.

I hope people don't get tired of looking at me.

Even at age 10, I already knew that I was different from most people. My anxiety disorder was still years from being diagnosed, but it affected me quite deeply. I was too afraid to speak out in class, too nervous to make real friends.

All of my friends are really good dancers, which was initially why I never danced - we'd go out, and they would kill it, and I'd be like, 'Yeah, I'm just gonna sit at the bar.'

I grew up very insecure. From the time I was little I used to hide under my mother's dress.

When I was younger, I used to be super, super shy. I still find myself being scared of things.

I'm a bad interview because I want to always feel like I'm being totally honest, but at the same time, I'm absolutely paranoid. That combination results in a lot of spaces.

I'm a very nervous, shy person.

There's a difference between wanting to appear confident and actually feeling confident. I think there have been many times when I've overcompensated for how nervous or out of place I feel. I was like that at school.

Most men are petrified of standing out in any way or being thought superficial.

If you have an over-preoccupation with perception and trying to please people's expectations, then you can go mad.

I spent every day just praying that I didn't look like a big dork on camera.

I wasted years worrying about what other people thought.

I am mostly a pretty worried person. In conversations, I am always worried about what to say.

I can be shy when I talk to women. I'm a shy dude.

I guess I am actually quite shy, and I've always felt very self-conscious during interviews.

I would say that my fatal flaw, as a human being, is that I need people to like me, and if they don't like me, I will obsess over it - and try to change my personality until they like me - even if they don't like me for reasons that have nothing to do with me, and even if they're strangers.

Growing up, I was a target. Speaking the right way, standing the right way, holding your wrist the right way. Every day was a test, and there were a thousand ways to fail, a thousand ways to betray yourself, to not live up to someone else's standards of what was accepted, of what was normal.

I was embarrassed about modeling. When you're at school and you're modeling, it sounds very glamorous, but I didn't want to do things that no one else was doing. I didn't want to be the odd one out. I wanted to be part of the gang.

Everyone is insecure, especially in high school.

I've always been a slow starter. My first date was with a girl called Cessi. We had a beautiful relationship over the phone all summer, and then when we met, I couldn't look her in the eye.

I think I've developed, as many people do, this sense of, 'Don't say the wrong thing, or else people will point at you and laugh.'