Stewart Lee Quotes

I still suffer terribly from stage fright. I get sick with fear. Not every night, but at the beginning and on occasion - not necessarily when I'm expecting it. You just have to cope with it - take it on the chin and work through it, trying to use the adrenalin to perform.

I do have panic attacks every time I go on stage so I'm really not sure why I put myself through this.

Barbra Streisand developed overwhelming performance anxiety at the height of her career; for 27 years she refused to perform for the general public, appearing live only in private clubs and at charity events, where she presumably believed the pressure on her was less intense.

Performing gives me so much anxiety.

I definitely have an alter ego that can come out and get me out of situations where I'm having social anxiety. I can take a deep breath and create a bubble so I can perform in some way.

I have this system. I torture my husband and everyone around me with my nerves and anxiety. Then, when I get on stage, the fear is gone. I've exhausted myself. It just dissipates.

When I had just started 'Cheers,' my nerves were ajangle, to put it mildly. I was absolutely terrified. What you're learning is to not show the fear, and to ultimately overcome it so that the level of relaxation is commensurate with the level of tension.

I have had a very difficult time with stage fright; it undermines your well-being and peace of mind, and it can also threaten your livelihood.

The performance anxiety I had is still there. I've been given different kinds of tools and learned how to manage it.

I had big problems with stage fright in the past. I think, slowly, as I've gotten better at it, I've started to enjoy it. It's made me a more confident person in my normal life. I can open up and be myself in situations that used to be abject terror.

I get stage fright really bad sometimes, so touring has been hard on me in a lot of ways. But despite that, I love performing.

Moving to New York City and doing what I do, social anxiety is a really ridiculous kind of curse to have. But I met people along the way who deal with it - performers as well - and they are learning to deal with it daily and deal with it in different ways.

My first-night jitters are so bad, I can't even hold a tea cup, but once I am over that, I get really into it.

It took me a long time to be alright with smiling onstage.

I don't need a good skate to make everything OK.

Going out on a stage publicly and not knowing how people are going to react to you - once I experienced that, it made me feel much more comfortable about going into a scene.

If I'm a bad mood, I can't go on stage and smile.

I would just sweat so much. I'd be dry when I run on the stage. By the time I got in front of the microphone, it just, just like a river pouring out. I don't know what made that happen. It took five years for that to stop happening to me.

People think I look odd onstage. But the way I deal with being incredibly nervous is by concentrating really hard.

I was this kid, and I was scared to death of all these pros around me... My head would shake, and my hands would shake, and I discovered if I kept my head down and looked up, my head would not shake, so I started to do that when I could, when it was appropriate in a scene.

In the old days, variety turns like me learned how to cope with failure - we all had nights when we 'died' on stage - but today's youngsters simply don't have that experience. For them, it really is instant make or break time - hence, all the tears and, hence, all the potential emotional damage.

I would get ill before going onstage - something about getting in front of people, and if they don't laugh, I'm a bomb. I got over it when somebody laughed.

Cure for an obsession: get another one.

I conquered my stage fright a long time ago. In my line of work, it's kind of a pre-requisite that you not feel bad about looking stupid in front of a lot of people.

Before I go on stage I pretend that everyone loves me.