Talent Doubt Quotes

I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.

If I tried to do comedy for the rest of my career, I would not be very successful.

I don't think I really have a talent for movie acting.

Sucking up to a director means you are unsure of your talents. I'm not.

I didn't think I'd ever be able to do movies. That was for serious actors.

Was music my talent really? No, I don't think I was particularly talented.

The essential truth is that sometimes you're worried that they'll find out it's a fluke, that you don't really have it. You've lost the muse or - the worst dread - you never had it at all. I went through all that madness early on.

I wish I had the guts and talent to be a good comedian. I love the idea of it, yet I'm terrified of it. I'd also love to play music in front of people.

Looking back at it now, I really feel like it was a gift because I don't know if I have the talent to become a prima ballerina. It's such a hard job to have. I don't have any regrets about it.

I was thrust into a really lofty, enviable, but isolated position with 'Princess Diaries' in that I could carry a film before I really knew if I could act.

Almost six years ago, before I was given the incredible opportunity to be in 'Leaving Las Vegas,' I was going through a long period of artistic confusion. I'd spent years doing work that hadn't pushed me enough, and I was beginning to wonder if I had any talent.

I'm so used to people slagging me off. Since the beginning of my career I've been told I have no talent, I can't sing and I'm a one-hit wonder.

I have no musical talent at all. I was banned from music classes and told I would never be able to understand anything. I still don't think I can sing, but somehow I get away with it.

I don't teach writing. I teach patience. Toughness. Stubbornness. The willingness to fail. I teach the life. The odd thing is most of the things that stop an inexperienced writer are so far from the truth as to be nearly beside the point. When you feel glosbal doubt about your talent, that is your talent. People who have no talent don't have any doubt.

Going to college was never an option. I was passionate about music, but how much talent I actually had was another matter.

I used to write three- and four-part harmonies for my YWCA club in high school. We used to win all the song contests. But people would say, 'Look who her father is. He probably did the whole thing.'

These dreams reminded me that, since I wished some day to become a writer, it was high time to decide what sort of books I was going to write. But as soon as I asked myself the question, and tried to discover some subject to which I could impart a philosophical significance of infinite value, my mind would stop like a clock, my consciousness would be faced with a blank, I would feel either that I was wholly devoid of talent or perhaps that some malady of the brain was hindering its development.

Though I played classical piano since age 5 and sang in a cappella groups, being an artist didn't seem like something I was talented enough to do full time. So I kind of buried that dream.

As an actor, when you are called upon to do a job, you are oftentimes convinced you can't do it. You say to yourself 'I don't have the talent for this; they are going to figure out I'm a fraud.' And then you watch how the others do it, and fake your confidence.

As actors, you always have that moment thinking you've been absolutely terrible or a fraud.

There's a bit of hazing when it comes to the youth performers and a disbelief that you're capable of handling dramatic or comedic material on an adult level.

Because I killed a guy in real life, and because my character kills a guy onstage, they said I could never do anything this great again. I resented that.