Dan Chaon Quotes

I'm one of those people who, even if I'm invited somewhere, I still kinda feel like I'm not supposed to be there.

I still think people will find out that I’m really not very talented. I’m really not very good. It’s all been a big sham.

There are several times when I walked into a room and just felt like such a sham. That's the problem with auditioning.

I still feel like I've crashed the party.

In a way, I'm always trying to do something I'm not qualified to do. So I feel that lack of qualification. And I'm scared. And I have a tendency to think things may not/probably won't work out. That's my basic mindset.

I knew I wasn't a baseball writer. I was scared to death. I really was afraid to talk to players, and I didn't want to go into the press box because I thought I was faking it.

I'm wildly unskilled at what I do. Part of me thinks: 'Why do I think I can pull this off?' but the part of me that has to pay the mortgage thinks: 'Just get on with it!' I'll just keep going until someone discovers I'm no good.

I love readings and my readers, but the din of voices of the audience gives me stage fright, and the din of voices inside whisper that I am a fraud, and that the jig is up. Surely someone will rise up from the audience and say out loud that not only am I not funny and helpful, but I'm annoying, and a phony.

When the eyes are on you for the first time, you can't believe that people aren't criticising you.

When you see something that's so excellent it can be intimidating to walk into it no matter how many people you know.

It's kind of a rule of thumb for me to self-doubt going into any kind of project. I always think that I shouldn't be doing it and I don't know how to do it and I'm going to fail and that I fooled them. I always try to find a way out.

Being insecure - I'm a master, a virtuoso - they can be handing me the keys to the kingdom and all I can think is, I hope I don't drop the key.

I don't even know why I'm saying this in an interview situation, but I always feel like I'm not good enough for some reason. I wish that wasn't the case, but left to my own devices, that voice starts speaking up.

I have spent my years since Princeton, while at law school and in my various professional jobs, not feeling completely a part of the worlds I inhabit. I am always looking over my shoulder wondering if I measure up.

I was always self-conscious about the fact that I didn't have as much comedy experience as other people at 'SNL,' and I kept thinking they were going to realize they'd made a mistake by hiring me.

I feel like I'm not smart enough to answer the questions I'm asked.

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 still think I'm not as good as anybody else.

It's almost like the better I do, the more my feeling of inadequacy actually increases, because I'm just going, 'Any moment, someone's going to find out I'm a total fraud, and that I don't deserve any of what I've achieved. I can't possibly live up to what everyone thinks I am and what everyone's expectations of me are.'

Countries are like adolescent entering a dance ... they're sure everybody is thinking about nothing but their inadequacies.

People are going to figure out that I don't know anything. I always thought I'd be discredited in the end.

To this day, I haven't felt like I've made it. I'm waiting for them to pull the rug out from under me. I kind of feel like George Plimpton; I'm just experiencing this whole business with the really talented people.

I feel overestimated.

I'm always super scared of feeling like a fake.

When I was at University I had a sort of fear about going to the gym and that kind of blokeish environment, which was rooted in a feeling of total inadequacy, which is what fear is.