Rod Serling Quotes

Sometimes I panic and think I can't really write.

I don't know which is stronger: the thrill of winning or the fear of failure. I don't know which one affects me most. I don't know where the middle is.

Like most writers I spend a lot of my time sort of thinking, "It's such agony, I can't do it."

To write fiction is to think that you're doing it wrong - that your work habits are inhibiting you; that you've chosen the wrong subject; that you've chosen the right subject, but that someone else has, unbeknownst to you, already written exactly the book you're laboring over.

I always think there will be that time that people will find out that I'm crap at what I do.

Sometimes I wake up at night and go, 'Oh, damn! Here we go again! What were they thinking? They gave me this role; don't they know I'm faking it?

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.

By some fluke, my folks forgot to ask me the question most crucial to ensuring a lifetime of self-doubt: 'What if you fail?

I think writing for me has always been a matter of fear. Writing is fear and not writing is fear. I am afraid of writing and then I'm afraid of not writing.

For the few little successes I may seem to have, there are acres of misgivings and self-doubt.

Fear of failure is always a driver but the thirst for more is a good one too... So I think you need a little bit of both.

He pretended it was the only thing that kept him from it. But, far back in his mind, he wondered if he could write anything. Often the question threw itself at him when he was least expecting it. You have four hours every morning, the statement would rise like a menacing wraith. You have time to write many thousands of words. Why don't you? And the answer was always lost in a tangle of becauses and wells and endless reasons that he clung to like a drowning man at straws.

I was super doubting myself and if I was even cut out to live this life, but then the fans came to my rescue. And I think we all have those moments, but every failure is necessary, especially in the entertainment industry.

So I feel that lack of qualification. And I'm scared. And I have a tendency to think things may not/probably won't work out. That's my basic mindset.

Self-doubt is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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.

There are several times when I walked into a room and just felt like such a sham. That's the problem with auditioning.

I was kind of scared of failing at acting.

Every single time I start to do a picture, without fail, I feel as if I don't know what I'm doing.

In a way, I'm always trying to do something I'm not qualified to do. So I feel that lack of qualification. And I'm scared. And I have a tendency to think things may not/probably won't work out. That's my basic mindset.

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.

Seven years into writing a novel, I started to lose my mind. My thirty-seventh birthday had just come and gone, the end of 2008 was approaching, and I was constantly aware of how little I had managed to accomplish.

I lost my confidence.

I'm probably the most pessimistic actor I know. I'm always sure I'll never work again.