Saqib Saleem Quotes

I was probably more scared of my high school exams than I was of the Oscars. At the time you think it's everything and if you don't do well, your life's over. Opportunities are gone. So the more you do it, the less the fear is present.

Of course you're nervous going into a final.

I crammed my exams in London and did fine.

I didn't have any idea of what I was getting into by going away to college. And I was scared. I was scared of failing. I was scared of it not being for me because I was going to be one of the first people in my family to go off to college.

I was terrified of taking the G.R.E.

I mean, sometimes I hate interviews because I always feel like I sound stupid.

I was so intimidated by the thought of improvising back in the '80s when I was in Chicago. I think the opportunity only even came up once that I can recall, and I turned down the offer. It was to go improvise in some club in the suburbs or something. Good God, I couldn't think of anything more frightening than to get up there without a plan.

I'm really bad at tests of any kind, so I'm bad at auditions. I consider myself educated most of the time, but when I'm under the gun, I just fail.

I feel the same way I did when I was in school. I'm having the same insecurities.

I am a really bad test taker. I can get straight As in school, but I get nervous on test.

What I wasn't prepared for were the feelings of anxiety that it stirred in me. I wasn't prepared for the initial feeling of I don't want to have to do that again. I was scared.

Both of my parents are professors and everyone in my family has some fabulous degree of something or another and I couldn't get into college because I didn't know a language.

I sometimes feel nervous because I give stupid answers to certain pointless questions. It happens in Turkish as much as in English. I speak bad Turkish and utter stupid sentences.

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'm very bad with improvisation. I hate it.

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

I still have nightmares about taking tests.

For the first six or eight months at Juilliard I felt paralysed. I didn't know what I was doing.

The release of 'Lungs' was so hard. It was terrifying, because it was the first time doing everything. The first experiences of media exposure were almost paralysing. I spent a lot of time crying on the floor of the studio - it sent me a bit mad.

There will always be prayer in school as long as there are math tests.

I used to hate playing Seattle shows.

Interviews usually upset me in one way or another.

I went to college when I was 27, and somehow, between high school and college, I became obsessed with getting A's. I can tell you exactly how many non-A's I had, and tell you honestly that I cried every time!

When I was a freshman at Yale, one teacher brought me up after class and said, 'You're trying to undermine my class.' And I thought to myself, 'Oh my God, I'm going to be kicked out of school on the first week.' Not only do I not have a sense of self, I don't even know what she's talking about. I don't even know how to undermine anything.

I enjoy what was called 'swotting' in my day.