Isak Dinesen Quotes

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.

I was kind of scared of failing at acting.

Fear seems to have many causes. Fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt, and so on, but ultimately all fear is the ego's fear of death, of annihilation. To the ego, death is always just around the corner. In this mind-identified state, fear of death affects every aspect of your life.

Accept that all of us can be hurt, that all of us can and surely will at times fail. Other vulnerabilities, like being embarrassed or risking love, can be terrifying, too. I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk.

Actors are frightened little children.

Stage fright is my worst problem. A voice is very intimate. It's something of your own. So there's always this fear, because you feel naked. There's a fear of not reaching up to expectations.

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive - the risk to be alive and express what we really are.

Show business is, essentially, a fear-based industry.

The exposed nature of life in the public square affects leaders' attitudes toward risk - and failure.

We feel a lot of pressure about looking silly or appearing weak, whatever that means, or being a failure. You have to keep in your head: what's the worst that can happen?

People are afraid of failure - they don't like to work so hard and have people keep saying, 'No.' I think that's what people fear most.

Death's not one of those things that frighten the life out of me. Getting up on stage with the curtain going up frightens me more.

Public speaking is something I fear more than death itself.

I think all actors get scared because we're frightened to disappoint.

Falling in front of an audience - that's, like, my biggest fear.

You don't know what you're doing. You're just hoping that people won't make fun of you. I had no idea how it would turn out.

I’m still afraid of being totally honest. I’m more afraid of this than dying.

I'm afraid of the general things that everyone is afraid of: a bump in the night that could be a cat or Death dragging his sickle across the room; losing my health; becoming homeless, never meeting George Clooney.

I'm a guy so I equate vulnerability with fear. What makes me fearful. I feel vulnerable when I release material, my work, to the world, and I have no control over the outcome. Those are very vulnerable moments. I'm getting married on Friday.

Okay," I said, "what's your biggest fear?" As always, he took a second to think about the answer. "Clowns," he said. "Clowns." "Yup." I just looked at him. "What?" he said, glancing over at me. "That is not a real answer," I told him. "Says who?" "Says me. I meant a real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence." He thought for a second. "Clowns.

I'm more afraid of falling than I am of flying high. I'm not as scared of dying as I am of growing old. Every battle has its glory and its consequence.

Motherhood didn't make you stronger; it made you vulnerable and afraid of what death could steal from you.

Sleep is death's younger brother, and so like him, that I never dare trust him without my prayers.

When men die, they die in fear", he said. "They take everything they need from you, and as a doctor it is your job to give it, to comfort them, to hold their hand. But children die how they have been living - in hope. They don't know what's happening, so they expect nothing, they don't ask you to hold their hand - but you end up needing them to hold yours. With children, you're on your own. Do you understand?

Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I didn't have the courage to say "yes" to life?