Mark Twain Quotes

There's nothing like the knowledge of being hanged in the morning to concentrate the mind wonderfully.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

If I relaxed, if I took my foot off the gas, I would probably die.

In the right circumstances, terror is good. It makes you focus.

You need confidence to play under pressure.

Worry is a funky luxury when a lot has to be done.

I like to prepare as much as possible beforehand, but there's definitely that element of fear when you're on set, and you have to be conscious of it and use that fear to drive you to work harder.

They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged.

My anxiety level of my own work and what I'm doing and focusing on my art and all of that stuff? That's fundamental.

Do you realize that you can't play the game of life with sweaty palms?

I'm only going to work now when I'm terrified.

A higher rate of urgency does not imply ever-present panic, anxiety, or fear. It means a state in which complacency is virtually absent.

Every day I run scared. That's the only way I can stay ahead.

I feared the verdict of the watch, where I either lost the race against time that day or would lose it soon by making the record even harder to break. The time trap had snapped shut.

No matter how good you are at planning, the pressure never goes away. So I don't fight it. I feed off it. I turn pressure into motivation to do my best.

To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.

Fear and anxiety are great motivators for me.

Few things focus the mind like fear.

I like pressure. Pressure doesn't make me crack. It's enabling. I eat pressure, and there might be times when I get a bad feeling in my gut that this might be too much, but you feel pressure when you're not doing something, you know?

A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it's better than no inspiration at all.

I'm always on the verge of death in my head.

I always have the fear that, if I don't commit 100 percent to my work, then it's gonna suffer.

You can almost taste the pressure now.

Fear drives you a lot harder than success does.

I think the stress will kill me. I think it will be the stress.