Idina Menzel Quotes

When I'm working on something, if I went to an exhibition of an artist I respect, then I usually come home quite depressed and look at what I'm doing and throw it all away and start again.

To play music, you have to understand it. I didn't understand 'Topographic Oceans.' That's why I hardly played on it. It frustrated me no end - and playing the whole thing on tour, I got farther and farther away from it.

When you're playing such brilliant music every day, then the last thing you ever want to do is try to write something of your own that's crude and not as good.

I've had the healthy and sobering experience of constantly working with music that is invariably better than any performance of it can be.

I'm a very tough critic of my guitar-playing. Sometimes I don't even want to do it anymore.

I personally believe that most people that play an instrument would be able to write a few songs here and there. But they say, "I tried, I can't do it" and give up and don't try it again; they get too discouraged.

You only feel as good as your last sketch.

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

I play with a fear of letting people down. That's what motivates me.

You know one of the causes of modern despair is the fact that we have had proposed to us, from various quarters, an impossible perfection.

I'm not the most confident dancer, to be honest. Dancing on film was very difficult for me because you can see it after it's been done.

When you audition for something, and you book it, you think, 'Okay, well, I got the job, and now I actually have to show up on set and do it.' So, you show up on set, and you don't know, 'Am I going to get swallowed up by these people?'

There was a period where I stopped auditioning because I was like, 'I don't have the heart.' There's just so much rejection.

I'm never happy with my performance.

When I'm in the studio, I like to be in there by myself because if I'm in the mike room, and I look out and see people talking, or they're not nodding their head or rocking to the music, it makes me feel like it don't sound good, or I'll be scared to really open up vocally because I might mess up, and they might be in there laughing.

When you start working on screen, a lot of the time it can feel like you're just trying to make sure that you're not bad.

I think I'm slightly OCD. I'll be desperate to get a part, but as soon as I do, the sense of pride wears off almost immediately, and fear of not doing a good job sets in. I'll think, 'This is a dream come true,' and then, 'It's not OK until I get a good review.'

I get nervous before every shoot. I'm really jealous of the people that can just rest on their laurels and say, 'I'm good; this is it.'

For years, when I was popular, I would face the blank page to write, and I couldn't think of anything that I thought was good enough.

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.

I wish I was really talented in music because then I would be doing it. I felt that I could write a decent song, but it was a big struggle.

I'm an actor, so I'm never going to feel like I've done enough.

I rarely like the music I make. It's like nothing's good enough. I just stay in my head, waiting on the next best beat, so I can do something better than what I did.

If I drop a ball, I'm going to beat myself up, or if I go out and a rep isn't perfect, I feel like I've got to do it again.

During those years with the Iron Maidens, I felt I had to be great and really prove myself at every single show.