Harvey Pekar Quotes

I feel like I do my best work under fear of being fired.

I work best when a little scared, when there's so much more than the lines to think about.

The fear of messing up is what makes you work harder!

No matter how good you are at planning, the pressure never goes away. So I don't fight it. I feed off it. I turn pressure into motivation to do my best.

Getting that audience approval is always a question mark, and it's always that flag that flutters in front of you.

I guess I'm motivated by the fear of failure to some degree and knowing what can happen when you don't do things the way you need to do them to have success.

I worried so long that I would sing to empty bars my whole life. I was singing my guts out; there would be five people into it.

I work better under pressure.

In fact, people think you have to be stressed to be successful. They think if you are not stressed, something is wrong with you.

I have a level of fear going into every project, and that's what keeps me going.

We would make songs, and the producers said we should play it for my dad. I was kind of scared, I didn't know what to think cuz we were just joking around.

Auditioning for something you already know and love is terrifying.

Auditioning for 'Philomena' was such a traumatic experience because I had three callbacks, and I was absolutely positive that I was just an option.

Each one of us requires the spur of insecurity to force us to do our best.

I think it's one of the main negative emotional ingredients that fuels show business, because there's so much at stake and the fear of failure looms large.

We need to distinguish between stress and stimulation. Having deadlines, setting goals, and pushing yourself to perform at capacity are stimulating. Stress is when you're anxious, upset, or frustrated, which dramatically reduce your ability to perform.

I find fear is a great motivator to work hard.

I normally feel relief that I didn't die onstage or forget all my lines. Then I start remembering that I have to do it again sometime, and it'll probably not go as well.

Some people thrive under pressure, but pressure can also ruin your performance, it can push you down angles which you don't want to go.

Show business is, essentially, a fear-based industry.

The whistle is always waiting to be blown, and in some ways, it gets me to do better work.

I like pressure. Pressure doesn't make me crack. It's enabling. I eat pressure, and there might be times when I get a bad feeling in my gut that this might be too much, but you feel pressure when you're not doing something, you know?

I do feel pressure. I have always been able to surprise people because they didn't know to expect anything from me. And now people are starting to have expectations.

Everyday, all day I have to be productive. And when I ain't productive, I get concerned.

Some people play very, very well just so they won't get embarrassed.