Michael Douglas Quotes

I was probably finding my feet more than anybody. I really have to say I was more obsessed with myself faltering than anybody else.

You think you can go into all those auditions not knowing who you are? The work came after I found my sense of self - when I wasn't so manic and desperate.

I always told, Sandra Bullock was my student when she was younger, I always told her it's important that we hold on to our insecurity, the wisdom of insecurity.

If I'm honest I don't think the world would miss me if I never acted again.

I'm still insecure, but when I first started acting, I was really insecure. I glared at a lot of people. I assumed everyone hated me. Somehow that scowl has turned into an acting career.

I was deeply uncertain of who I was and who I wanted to be. I really thought I wanted to be a much cooler guy than what I was.

I'm not quite as cool as I would like to be, really.

Success can make you go one of two ways. It can make you a prima donna - or it can smooth the edges, take away the insecurities, let the nice things come out.

I guess I could say I'm an actor, which I am, but that sounds like I'm putting down being a movie star, which, let's face it, is what I've become to many people. For myself, I'm a guy who was very insecure from about age 14 until the day I hit my 30th birthday.

If it's about work or sports or politics or women, we have no problem sharing our opinions, but if it's about our insecurities or our struggles, our fear of failure, then it's almost like we become paralyzed.

I'm still conscious of whether people really accept me, but that insecurity makes me stronger.

We're all human so of course there are days when I'm feeling insecure. When that happens, I take time to reflect on how far I've come and how far I will continue to go - it helps me feel empowered and self-assured.

Only a man who cannot conquer his deficiencies feels the need to convince the world that he has none.

To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is, a dissatisfaction with self, an impossible claim that one should be at once Rose Bowl princess, medieval scholar, Saint Joan, Milly Theale, Temple Drake, Eleanor of Aquitaine, one

Once, in a dry season, I wrote in large letters across two pages of a notebook that innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself. Although now, some years later, I marvel that a mind on the outs with itself should have nonetheless made painstaking record of its every tremor, I recall with embarrassing clarity the flavor of those particular ashes. It was a matter of misplaced self-respect.

If my former self and my current self met for coffee, they'd get along OK, but they'd both probably walk out of the Starbucks shaking their heads and saying to themselves, “That guy is kinda delusional.”

You can't take yourself too seriously. Like, yeah, I'm doin' all that, but still I don't feel like I've done anything, really. I feel blessed 'cause I'm doin' all these things, but I'm not satisfied. I still have that feeling like, "Who am I? Who am I to have an ego? Who am I to change up and act like some Hollywood character?" Technically, in the grand scheme of things, I haven't done anything.

I was just learning to be by myself. He seemed to really see me, see through the bullshit...He was so handsome, and he could dance. I thought, 'He won't be interested in me; I'm not a contender. He was so cool, so funny - I was such a fan of his and had always fancied his speed and his intelligence. I thought, 'I'm not beautiful enough or his type.'

When you are self-conscious you are in trouble. When you are self-conscious you are really showing symptoms that you don't know who you are. Your very self-consciousness indicates that you have not come home yet.

It's easy to forget who you are.

It's murder to doubt yourself in life. It took until I was 45 to get to that point. As hard as it is in your work, it's harder in your life. But it can be done.

Being an actress hasn't made me insecure. I was insecure long before I declared I was an actress.

I'm 43 now. I've reached the point where I really can't care what anyone thinks. Of course, I do. I'm an actress. I'm totally insecure, but I'm trying to stick to my guns about what is important to me, and it doesn't matter what anyone thinks I should or shouldn't do.

If I saw my 15-year-old self now, I'd think I wasn't that bad, but back then I perceived myself as awful.

I felt all the things that other teenagers felt. I was insecure in lots of ways, over-confident in others. I was very emotional. Excitable.