Shannon Purser Quotes

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.

More and more, it feels like I'm doing a really bad impersonation of myself.

I was afraid of not living up to what people expected me to be.

Whatever I do seems artificial and false, to me.

I have a lot of what you might call creative self-loathing - I have pretty high expectations, and they seem to consistently be higher than what I'm able to accomplish.

I was a nervous young man. I wanted to do so many things. And I was so enthusiastic and earnestly in love with so many things that I tried too hard. I tried really, really hard. And I made a lot of mistakes. I was afraid of a lot of stuff. And I kind of feel bad for that person I was.

I can relate to having those people in your life that you feel are moving on to this great, big, normal life and you're like, 'What's wrong with me?'

Twenty is a hard time. It doesn't matter what profession you're in or how much experience you have, you're always going to be haunted by this feeling of failing. It's terrifying.

I regrettably wasted time at university by being overwhelmed and intimidated by the talent of other composers. I felt stuck and didn't know what I was doing there. I enjoyed my experience, but I didn't grab it in the way I would now.

When I was young I had so many inferiority complexes. I had an inferiority complex because I didn't go to university. I had an inferiority complex because I didn't train. Then it gets tiring. And you do get bored of it.

I've always felt like an imposter, in the whole, as a musician.

There was this real fear in doing 'Square Pegs' after getting such a fast ride to glory on 'Saturday Night Live'. I was afraid that the word would be 'peaks early, fails to live up to promise.'

I think that half of us feel fraudulent in our lives anyway. There's that strange disconnect of not really knowing what we're doing sometimes, or why it matters. It's our existential crisis.

I think that there were only two people in my high school that were comfortable there, and I think they are both pumping gas now.

I have never really been confident about my career at any stage.

When you're young and beautiful, you're paranoid and miserable.

Within me, I knew I would never be a first-rate producer. I wasn't tough enough.

I'm kind of an insecure artist. I hop from piece to piece. I always think my life depends on every painting. Every painting is my first painting.

Actors live dependent on being validated by other people's opinions. I don't understand what it is I do that people want. I don't know what an actor does. I have no credentials. I don't know what I'm doing.

The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.

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 don't know what to do if I am not inspiring some sort of false fascination.

Discontent arises from a knowledge of the possible, as contrasted with the actual

I don't know anybody who doesn't have a lost decade.

I was a very repressed young person. I wasn't good at school. I didn't fit in.