Albert Bandura Quotes

I was gonna throw the first pitch at a Mets game, but there was a rain delay. So I'm waiting for it to stop, and the team's manager, Willie Randolph, comes by. Now he's already intimidating to begin with. But he comes over to me and says, 'If you screw this up, they will boo you.' And I said 'Thanks.'

It's tough to play the right chord on the instrument when there's someone out there who wants to kill you.

I always performed out of fear of failure - and that's a tough way to play. It was as if my back was to the wall and I was constantly surrounded by very dangerous people that were not friendly to me.

You need confidence to play under pressure.

The idea of improvisation kind of freaked me out.

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.

I always think I'm terrible. So it's always a relief when I find out that I wasn't. I've had roles where I realized that I was in way over my head - and that is my biggest fear.

Anxiety is experiencing failure in advance. Tell yourself enough vivid stories about the worst possible outcome of your work and you'll soon come to believe them. Worry is not preparation, and anxiety doesn't make you better.

I felt like a deer with a hundred hunters after me.

Panic is our great enemy.

Once fear enters your life - it will take you in one of two directions: empowerment or panic.

If you ask any of the other actors, they'd probably say nice things because they're nice people, but I was always like, "Oh gosh, I hope I'm doing this right." I was very hard on myself, and I continue to be. That's why it's sometimes hard for me to digest watching myself on television. There is some pressure.

That’s the trouble with being scared all the time. Eventually, people just go numb.

Fear is like the steam that fires the combustion engine. You need fear to get a performance going.

Onstage, of course, you have the luxury of rehearsal and discovery and time and comfort, which then turns into terror when you actually have to put it in front of people.

Indeed there are many competent people who are plagued by a sense of inefficacy, and many less competent ones who remain unperturbed by impending threats because they are self-assured of their coping capabilities

Now it was just the three of us: the leader, the warrior, and the kid about to wet his pants. Guess who I was.

Getting up in front and talking to the people who build my cars is the worst. I get so damn nervous.

Worry lives a long way from rational thought."---Self

I'm generally a people-pleaser so I get high anxiety from any sort of confrontation.

Anxiety and fear are cousins but not twins. Fear sees a threat. Anxiety imagines one.

I'm just one gigantic ball of rancid fear and self-consciousness. I'm entirely fueled by fear, so the fact that I knew it could be a catastrophic disaster made me unable to sleep, and made me work quite hard.

A couple hundred people around, and I'm shaking.

My dad told me if I was ever intimidated by anyone, just picture them with their clothes off. He said that's how he dealt with my mom.

Whenever people have trouble public speaking, it's because they are just thinking about themselves.