Damon Lindelof Quotes

I always feel terrified whenever I put my work out there to be seen, to be scrutinized. I think it's a very vulnerable thing that we are asked to do.

Most writers or performers walk around with the notion in their head that - a paranoid worry that maybe people don't like them.

I'd be far too self-conscious and insecure if I suspected my editor might be a better novelist than I.

I'm a bit of a worrier, to an extreme. I'll crack a joke, then worry if I've offended someone - even when they're laughing. I have a guilt complex, always worrying.

Some days I totally appreciate everything that's happening to me, and some days I feel everyone's waiting for me to mess up.

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 worry a lot about what people think. I worry people think I'm not helping them enough, that they don't like my music, that I'm playing a song too fast or talking too fast. I worry my wife isn't happy with our relationship... I'm afraid somebody's going to take my career away from me. That it's going to go away, or I'm going to get fired.

I'm uncommonly slow to show my work to other people, and by the time I do I've usually exhausted myself so completely that all I really want is for someone to tell me that my efforts have added up to something - not one of my better qualities, I admit.

I can be such a people pleaser, and so worried about what people are thinking or feeling insecure.

If you ask any of the other actors, they'd probably say nice things because they're nice people, but I was always like, "Oh gosh, I hope I'm doing this right." I was very hard on myself, and I continue to be. That's why it's sometimes hard for me to digest watching myself on television. There is some pressure.

I'm always just very nervous. I never feel like, 'I've got this'. I'm always very nervous and aware of how quickly people can hate you and that scares me. I never feel like I'm on top of it or I know what I'm doing... so, no. I never get a big head, I just get more and more anxious.

So many people are paralyzed by worrying, "What are these people going to think?"

Doubt is the brother of shame.

I'm always thinking 'Don't mess this up.'

Even when I had a run of successful prime-time shows, I couldn't sit down and enjoy my success. I would beat myself up and scrutinise everything. I'm a natural-born worrier.

When you sit down and play your music for someone you respect, you get that feeling in your stomach of like: 'Oh my God...' You know if it's not great because you start to feel sick.

If you're going to worry about what people say, you're never going to make any progress.

We feel a lot of pressure about looking silly or appearing weak, whatever that means, or being a failure. You have to keep in your head: what's the worst that can happen?

As an actor I am always waiting for my luck to run out.

I do have, at different times, a certain kind of self-consciousness in the world, an insecurity.

In many ways, I think I've always overcompensated. I was always almost too careful, because I knew if anybody ever found any way to doubt my work, then they'd start picking my life apart, too.

Everyone's projecting onto you, or you feel like everyone is judging you. I feel like I'm being judged a lot of the time. You become really self-conscious.

You know why I fear people's judgment? Because I know they're judging. I know they are.

As actors, we tend to usually have some issues with self-esteem and some need for validation, and it takes awhile for that fear of not having a job to go away.