Joshua Bell Quotes

I was terrified of being on stage, and I had to work very hard at a craft to get past that.

So much of performing is a mind game. You're memorizing thousands of notes, and if you start thinking about it in the wrong way, everything can blow up in your face.

As for the stage fright, it never goes away. When I'm waiting in the wings to go on, it's agony every single time but I stay focused and I know that once I'm on stage it'll be fine; I'll be in my happy little bubble.

When I had just started 'Cheers,' my nerves were ajangle, to put it mildly. I was absolutely terrified. What you're learning is to not show the fear, and to ultimately overcome it so that the level of relaxation is commensurate with the level of tension.

A good 80 percent of the vault is still physical and another percentage of it, 20, 25 percent is mental. Mental is always the mental strength, the confidence building up to that contest or repetition, practice, practice, and practice.

When I got to match point in the final I was afraid I'd be a little nervous, but I just said, You have to stay focused, just think about what you have to do.

I know what it feels like to walk out in front of a sold-out crowd of a thousand people that are there for you, and how good that feels, but as an opener, you just have to train yourself to think that it's going to be harder.

When I got on stage, I would have a rush of adrenaline; everybody gets it. Normally after the first night it becomes more controllable, and as long as I could ride the wave, I was still in charge.

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

I have been in auditions where - because - you're always scared before, but if you let that scared feeling get the better of you or become too much, it could ruin your audition.

Over the course of the game, you can't let negativity get in your head. Any time a guy playing negative upon emotion, it's not going to be a great day.

A Canadian comedian once told me that when you first go out there to imagine that you're actually just going back out for the encore, that all the clapping is because they've already seen you do your thing and they want to see more. You can train your mind to do anything.

The performance anxiety I had is still there. I've been given different kinds of tools and learned how to manage it.

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 like to spend time alone before I go on stage.

I always felt like my future was at stake every time I stepped on stage and that was kind of hair-raising. At some point I just went, don't be frightened, you can't do anything wrong, it's your show.

A lot of amateurs are terrified of going up against a player who is clearly better than they are. They never play their best, because they aren't comfortable. There's one surefire way to get over that, and it's to ask yourself, 'What if I beat him?' Imagine the possibility.

And when I perform on my own tour, I have to talk myself into going out on that stage every single night.

People think I look odd onstage. But the way I deal with being incredibly nervous is by concentrating really hard.

I need to do more on stage. I've got to get my fix!

Before I go on stage I pretend that everyone loves me.

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.

Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will - all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely.

I made a few records here and there by default, but I wasn't ever comfortable in that role. I wasn't comfortable on stage. We'll see how it goes this time.

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.