Writing Fear Quotes

It took me a couple of years after I got out of Berkeley before I dared to start writing. That academic mind-set - which was kind of shallow in my case anyway - had begun to fade.

You never get over the fear of writing.

I never discuss a novel while I'm writing it, for fear that talking about it will diminish my desire to write it.

I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. Dumbo got airborne with the help of a magic feather; you may feel the urge to grasp a passive verb or one of those nasty adverbs for the same reason. Just remember before you do that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.

I think that most writers who wait until they're inspired to write are just waiting for the fear to subside.

In college, I had a lot of friends who were writers and wanted to be writers and I felt intimidated by it. I just didn't know if I had any gift or voice and I had no confidence about it.

I've never had a writer's block, but still I think: 'Is it going to happen this time?' You never know what you're going to get; you just put your fingers on the keys and hope.

Right now, I have no idea what I will write or if I will write again.

My first novel, 'The Lions of Lucerne,' just poured out of me. It was an amazing feeling of accomplishment. My biggest fear and therefore my biggest obstacle to becoming an author had been, 'What if I spend all that time and the book is no good?'

I always had a superstitious fear of setting up a too well-designed writing place and then finding that the writing had absconded.

We're [writers] all afraid of writing badly, and there are psychological reasons, like the bad interior of ourselves is somehow being revealed, but we all fear that, and you can't write well if you're not willing to write badly. That's why you have to make writing a habit, so it feels normal and not strange.

I was afraid that not even Merlin the Enchanter could transform me into a writer.

I didn't think I could pull off a novel.

I never thought I was good enough actually to write.

It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one is producing a complete disaster.

Well, you know, I'm quite a reluctant writer. I'm not someone who set out to be a writer or really wanted to be.

I find writing very difficult. It's hard and it hurts sometimes, and it's scary because of the fear of failure and the very unpleasant feeling that you may have reached the limit of your abilities.

I started out in graduate school to be a fiction writer. I thought I wanted to write short stories. I started writing poems at that point only because a friend of mine dared me to write a poem. And I took the dare because I was convinced that I couldn't write a good poem... And then it actually wasn't so bad.

Even when I have to write a simple letter I'm scared stiff as if faced with looming seasickness.

When you first sit down to write the first song, until you've maybe got three or four under your belt, it's always, to me, like a mountain to climb. You look at that one blank piece of paper and you think, 'God, how many songs do I have to write here?' It always feels like pressure.

The one thing I'm terrified of trying to write about is sex. I mean my God, my wife might read it or my daughter might read it or my son might read it, so no, I've never really written about eroticism at all.

There are two MFA programs here at the University of Texas, and I read on the jury of both of them. And it's amazing to me how many really talented young writers seem to fear humor.

I found that many gifted people are so afraid of writing a poor story that they cannot summon the nerve to write a single sentence for months. The thing to say to such people is: "See how *bad* a story you can write. See how dull you can be. Go ahead. That would be fun and interesting. I will give you ten dollars if you can write something thoroughly dull from beginning to end!" And of course, no one can.

Because I've always been more afraid of writing than I have of doing anything visually such as directing or acting.

I have been writing since I was about 20, and at first I wrote in secret and never showed anybody. I was very concerned about making a living, so I conducted.