William H. Macy Quotes

I think every writer doubts themselves, every day. You procrastinate because you're afraid. You're always afraid it's not going to be as good as you want it to be. But, the key is overcoming fear.

A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.

For a long time I managed to think two things simultaneously, that I am actually a good playwright, and that the next time I write a play I will be revealed as someone who is no good at all.

I sometimes have a horrible fear of turning up a canvas of mine. I'm always afraid of finding a monster in place of the precious jewels I thought I had put there!

Success is so fleeting; even if you get a good book deal, or your book is a huge success, there's always the fear: 'What about the next one?'

No one leaves the edit room thinking, 'Yeah, I nailed that one!' Everyone I know goes into their first premiere or their first screening thinking, 'I screwed up so bad. I'm sorry, I messed up.' It's just a real common feeling.

Unless you sell millions, I think it's very hard as a writer not to feel anxious about what you put out. I always feel I could do better.

If you're a writer, you're constantly doubting yourself.

You always feel like a hack and a fraud when you're writing. It's just how it goes.

Each time you take a good picture, you have the wonderful feeling of exhilaration... and almost instantly, the flip side. You have this terrible, terrible anxiety that you've just taken your last good picture.

I am always in self-doubt... every moment of my filmmaking. I am supremely confident when the story is being written and everything is in our head. But the moment we get into the filmmaking, I start doubting myself - from the camera angle to the re-recording to getting the actors to do their shots.

Writing is something that you don't know how to do. You sit down and it's something that happens, or it may not happen. So, how can you teach anybody how to write? It's beyond me, because you yourself don't even know if you're going to be able to. I'm always worried, well, you know, every time I go upstairs with my wine bottle. Sometimes I'll sit at that typewriter for fifteen minutes, you know. I don't go up there to write. The typewriter's up there. If it doesn't start moving, I say, well this could be the night that I hit the dust.

Every time I make a movie I think that it's going to be my last one, I think that no one is going to show up. I always have this sense that they're all going to fail. I am scared to death.

This constant feeling of, 'I have to have everything figured out' is not going to get anyone anywhere.

I've never loved composing, because I feel like other people do it better.

I write a lyric, but when I reread it, I think it's awful and either hide it or crumple it up.

When I leave a recording session, there is usually a lot of paranoia or superstition on my part, like I'm afraid to hear what we've done.

You always feel a degree of insecurity about getting through a film.

Blur' is about feeling lost, and on a personal level I would be lying if I didn't mention that this song, for me, was about feeling creatively and artistically lost in the city of all great opportunities, Los Angeles.

The worst time for me is in the final few hours of taking a track that you've worked on for two years and bouncing it down to the final stereo mix. The overwhelming emotion for me is complete and utter fear that I've made a mistake. I'm scared. Afterward, I obsess endlessly about it.

The fact is that blank pages inspire me with terror. What will I put on them? Will it be good enough? Will I have to throw it out?

There are lots of different parts of movie-making that I participate in, but my favorite part is the making of it. I'm scared, every day. I keep thinking someone's going to throw me the ball and I'm going to go, "Oh, wow. Oh, god. I just messed that up."

Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things. It has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move forward. It is a loop-an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight of the whole.

The essence of show business is, if you see a tight-rope walker go across a tight rope, everybody claps. But, if you see him wobble, everybody gasps.

As an insecure writer, I'll finish a scene and worry there's a better version of it. Or it could be elevated somehow.