Kevin Parker Quotes

I find I have to touch what I am working on every day, or a deep-seated dread kicks in that is very hard to overcome.

I'm always thinking 'Don't mess this up.'

I was so worried about winning, it was as if I was caught up in my own web.

Even when I had a run of successful prime-time shows, I couldn't sit down and enjoy my success. I would beat myself up and scrutinise everything. I'm a natural-born worrier.

I'm on national TV in front of millions and I hate making mistakes.

I'm always nervous when I start a new picture.

My biggest worry is that we have to keep making good music, and I want to do well, but I wonder if I will be able to.

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.

It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one is producing a complete disaster.

Every single time I step into the studio, I say, 'Can I still do this? Do I still have it? Have I ever had it?' I suppose there's a good amount of self-loathing that goes into any form of artisanship.

As a novelist, I'm incredibly lucky to make a living, but that doesn't mean that I don't lie awake at four o'clock in the morning, worrying.

I am certainly suffering from a modicum of performance anxiety.

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.

I have an advanced degree in procrastination and another one in paranoia.

The success of Torn was a bit too much for me. I took a year off and was still scared to start the second album.

You can't go over every beat, every second, and worry about how you can do it better - it'll eat you alive.

I was very afraid that I wouldn't be able to do this job well. And the time never came back.

My biggest enemy for the longest time was my head. When I first became successful, it made me anxious because I was overthinking everything, and you hear so many 'fail' stories.

I'm in a complete state of panic before I begin something because I'm sure that it's going to be a complete disaster. I'm going to do a worse job than anybody could ever imagine anybody doing on the planet Earth.

Writing on assignment, with lots of money handed to you before you even began, got very scary for me. My dread of not being perfect, something I got from a childhood surrounded by powerful, successful people, began to infect everything I wrote.

When I first started as an editorial cartoonist, I was terrified on a daily basis. Filling that hole the next day, knowing that tens of thousands of people were going to expect something funny. There is still that pressure, but you kind of learn how to cope with it a little better.

When it comes time to sit down and write the next book, you're deathly afraid that you're not up to the task. That was certainly the case with me after Snow Falling on Cedars.

A lot of times, in the beginning of my career, I put pressure on myself just because I wanted to perform so well. I just wanted to be perfect.

I always feel scared and insecure on a film set. I don't know any other way.

I'm afraid of making a mistake. I'm not totally neurotic, but I'm pretty neurotic about it. I'm as close to totally neurotic as you can get without being totally neurotic.