Mary Gaitskill Quotes

I think to be courageous, you have to be afraid. For me, it feels very courageous when I go skiing because I'm very, very afraid to ski. It's dangerous! I feel very scared. But when I'm acting, I don't feel very scared.

If you worried about falling off the bike, you'd never get on.

I am totally fearless! Well, of course, I'm not totally fearless. I worry constantly and obsess over things, but I just don't let fear stand in the way of doing something that I really want to do.

I'm a relatively shy person, but I love being challenged and putting myself in positions that are scary.

Once you lose that fear, good stuff can happen because you're not in your head about whether it will suck. Once you don't care and accept that it probably will suck, then it probably won't suck.

I am not going to do anything unless I am afraid of it.

I've had so many letters from people saying I've inspired them to take up riding, and that's an amazing feeling.

I came across the idea of running towards the things that frighten you. Once you go and do it, you realise that the fear of it is far more powerful than actually doing it.

So I don't really suffer too badly from fears - I'm quite happy to engender them in other people though!

The comfort zone is the great enemy of courage and confidence.

Everyone is coming from a place of fear and my feeling is stop being so afraid. If something doesn't work then that's fine at least then you know it doesn't work. Don't worry so much about it not working, you can always fix that.

- Some men think because they are afraid to do. - There is a difference between fear and caution.

One thing I know for sure: it is only by doing what we fear that we can ever truly learn to be brave.

When you're fearless, you take more risks because you're less conscious of failure or what can go wrong.

Valor grows by daring, fear by holding back.

People are often afraid for me. They think that I am going to break. I can make it through a set.

I think for anyone - male or female - in improv, the biggest thing to get over is the fear. I think every improviser has that.

I had some fears as a kid, but I was also relatively fearless. Maybe that's a result of living half the time in reality and the other half in fantasy.

In all the difficult decisions that I made through the course of running Loudcloud and Opsware, I never once felt brave. In fact, I often felt scared to death. I never lost those feelings, but after much practice, I learned to ignore them. That learning process might also be called the courage development process.

Excitement was plentiful during my two years' service as a Pony Express rider.

It always amazes me when people go rent horses and ride them. You mean you want me to pay you to ride a horse?

I tend to do things that I'm very frightened of. That's what I do.

Whether you're scared of getting into a relationship; or taking the new job; or a confrontation - you have to size fear up.

Audacity augments courage; hesitation, fear.

I don't work with fear, and I don't work with actors that are fearful.