Paul Bowles Quotes

I was also ready to believe, though, that whatever good things I had managed to set upright could topple at any second.

Cling to your insecurity, in this world, it's the only thing you can be sure of.

Now I'm where I want to be and who I want to be and doing what I always said I would and yet I feel I haven't won at all. Running for my life and never looking back in case there's someone right behind me shoot me down and say he always knew I'd fall. When the crazy wheel slows down where will I be? Back where I started.

We fear that this moment will end, that we won't get what we need, that we will lose what we love, or that we will not be safe. Often, our biggest fear is the knowledge that one day our bodies will cease functioning. So even when we are surrounded by all the conditions for happiness, our joy is not complete.

I think you realise how terrifying and scary the world is when you're bringing kids into it.

You can never be comfortable with your success, you've got to be paranoid you're going to lose it.

I do have a sense of displacement as constant instability - the uninterrupted existence of everything that I love and care about is not guaranteed at all. I wait for catastrophes.

Americans have discovered the fragility of life, that ominous fragility that the rest of the world either already experienced or is experiencing now with terrible intensity.

Everything that turned out well for me seems like a fluke. I feel like, at any moment, I could lose everything and be working at Dunkin' Donuts.

I have a real dog-like mentality, in that it's like, 'Where is my next meal coming from? Am I ever gonna eat again? Will I ever write another song again? Will anyone show up for tour?' I think it comes from being really poor as a kid.

Even when one is doing well, one still worries that things might go badly again in the future. This is an old observation based on human experience.

I don't take things for granted, because everything feels more fragile. It's made me wonder about mortality and how long you've got somebody in the world. I'm more fearful than I used to be.

It's just so fragile. The growing sense of 'Oh, God, what am I doing? Am I any good? Will I ever work again?' All those questions of self doubt, they do creep in.

And it just made me realize again because I have know it for some time, that you never get comfortable in this. No matter who you are. No matter who... how successful you are.

I feel confidence in myself, but at the same time there's these cracks in the facade and those little things underneath that are unstable.

The state of things and the dispositions of men were then such, that a man could not well tell whom he might trust or whom he might fear.

Many today feel troubled and distressed; many feel that, at any moment, the ships of their lives could capsize or sink.

I think it's the nervousness and the worry that it won't last forever that keeps us working so hard.

You can't even stand without risking to fall.

What if I fall?', Tim cried. Maerlyn laughed. 'Sooner or later, we all do.

We're just afraid, period. Our fear is free-floating. We're afraid this isn't the right relationship or we're afraid it is. We're afraid they won't like us or we're afraid they will. We're afraid of failure or we're afraid of success. We're afraid of dying young or we're afraid of growing old. We're more afraid of life than we are of death.

The craving to become causes fears; to be, to achieve, and so to depend engenders fear.

I'm a bit rubbish at knowing when something is good. But if it goes out and I can say, "I wasn't as bad as I thought I would be", then I'll be happy. Until then, I'll be thinking, "I shouldn't be here!"

I have a fear of failure.

Fear is the ultimate cause of failure and disappointment.