Brenda Ueland 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.

Needing to have things perfect is the surest way to immobilize yourself with frustration.

Perfectionism is not as much the desire for excellence, as it is the fear of failure couched in procrastination .

We are all afraid. That's the thing that unites all truly successful people: fear, fear of failing, fear of criticism, fear of letting down the team in some way. That why they try so hard, that's why they pay attention to detail and try to get every possible duck in a row. It's fear

I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good at it.

Fear of failure leads to failure.

The need to be a great artist makes it hard to be an artist. The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all. . . Fear is what blocks an artist. The fear of not being good enough. The fear of not finishing. The fear of failure and of success. The fear of beginning at all.

I have a fear of failure.

I second-guess and overthink and rethink every single thing that I do.

Mistakes I've made in the past make me afraid to try new things in the future. I want to be perfect.

If I didn't do something perfectly, I had to do it again... I grew up with a glue gun pointed at my head.

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.

It sounds funny, but my biggest fear is that I'm not perfect. I'm a perfectionist, and I get upset when things go wrong or when I don't do well.

When I like someone a lot, I get scared that I'll let them down. My fear of sucking is worst when I feel like someone thinks I'm good.

It's pretty disabling sometimes, the terror of not living up. My expectations are the worst.

Every time I start a new piece of work, I spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

I'm kind of an insecure artist. I hop from piece to piece. I always think my life depends on every painting. Every painting is my first painting.

I, for one, find writing excruciating. Some mornings, as I'm on my way to my desk, my hands actually tremble with fear. The fear, of course, is that I'll sit down at the desk and discover that what I've written is claptrap. Fear inevitably leads to procrastination.

Lack of confidence - every time I start a new piece of work, it seems I have to spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

It's almost like the better I do, the more my feeling of inadequacy actually increases, because I'm just going, 'Any moment, someone's going to find out I'm a total fraud, and that I don't deserve any of what I've achieved. I can't possibly live up to what everyone thinks I am and what everyone's expectations of me are.'

I want to be perfect. I don't want to fail. And you always fail.

I've learned how my own perfectionism can cripple me.

I think I'm slightly OCD. I'll be desperate to get a part, but as soon as I do, the sense of pride wears off almost immediately, and fear of not doing a good job sets in. I'll think, 'This is a dream come true,' and then, 'It's not OK until I get a good review.'

I'm the kind of person who can paralyze myself very easily by over-thinking decisions.

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