Stephen Hendry Quotes

When I go to competitions, I don't have so much confidence that I don't worry or get nervous about the other skaters doing well.

If I'm not nervous, if I don't have at least a little bit of the same self-doubt and anxious feelings I had when I started playing, then it will be time for me to go on. I must have that tension.

I can't remember ever racing without any pressure.

Before competition, I start to question things. I don't know why it happens, but you've got to control it so you don't get too far out of the race.

It's taken me a long, long time to figure out how to deal with negativity, because it used to really upset me. I was always that girl that, if I was performing in the club and there was one person not paying attention or not liking me, the whole club could be packed with people loving me, but I'd be obsessed with that one person.

The fear of failing... not quite the fear of failing, but the uncertainty of whether you are going to perform or not, is there every single game I have played in my life. It will always be there.

At a track, it's different, there's pressure, things like this, so to be yourself is a bit different.

I'm confident in my own ability. If that wasn't the case you might as well pack it in now. If you think too much, you start doubting yourself, doubting your quality, so you have to train yourself in a certain way.

When I'm on my own, I can be negative. I need my friends and family around to help pick me up if I've had a bad qualifying session. I think insecurity plagues a lot of sportspeople.

Actors are no strangers to self-doubt, fear, and rejection.

The thing that helped me come to terms with performing was an anxiety, a desperation for acceptance. There was never enough positive motivation in my life.

I never feel like I have anything. People can tell me a thousand times, 'You're the guy, you're the guy,' and I'm just like, 'We'll see when I'm on the set.'

I've always been a bit of a self-doubter. I think a lot of actors are.

My golf is so delicate, so tenuously wired together with silent inward prayers, exhortations and unstable visualizations, that the sheer pressure of an additional pair of eyes crumbles the whole rickety structure into rubble.

Sometimes in the past when I played something might make me lose focus, or I would go home after a game where I thought I could have played better and I would let it hang over my head for a long time when it shouldn't.

Every audition is different, but I get incredibly nervous and insecure and worked up for however long I have to prep - that's when I get to spin. But you're not allowed to spin once you enter the room. Doubt really can't enter the room when you're auditioning - unless it's part of the character.

If any player has a bad game it's there in the back of your mind in the next game. There's always a hangover. It is like a wounded animal in a way, as you want to get out there as quick as possible and rectify it.

I've seen a lot of women give up after they've had three or four bad gigs in a row. It's very difficult to learn not to take nasty heckles personally.

Sometimes the biggest problem is in your head. You've got to believe you can play a shot instead of wondering where your next bad shot is coming from.

I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I'm like, 'My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don't have it. I just want to chill.' We all have self-doubt. You don't deny it, but you also don't capitulate to it. You embrace it.

In tennis, it is not the opponent you fear, it is the failure itself, knowing how near you were but just out of reach.

On certain plays and situations I feel like I have the advantage. But sometimes I just have to not think about the size of the guy in front of me.

Tonight I'll dust myself off, tonight I'll suck my gut in, I'll face the night and I'll pretend I got something to believe in.

When I go out on the ice, I just think about my skating. I forget it is a competition.

I always wanted to be a Broadway girl. But once I got Tony-nominated, it really messed with me, because it was like, yes, I'm getting this affirmation that you're right where you're supposed to be, but there was still this voice saying, 'You're not good enough.'