Maya Angelou Quotes

I do everything I watch, whether it's like a big comic book film that I've done or something very serious and raw.I do have that initial feeling like I'm the worst, this is awful, my work is - I've let everybody down. I definitely have that.

Once I actually get in the studio and I start working, I'm fine, but it's just getting there and these hours of torment with myself and self doubt, thinking 'I'm useless' and 'Who am I, conning myself into thinking I can do it again.'

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 am quite an insecure person, and I think that, like any director, if I'm asked about my vision for a piece, I feel very vulnerable.

I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.

As a writer, you live in permanent self-doubt; you're on permanent trial.

We know that creative people have all sorts of demons.

People think that if you've written a book and somebody's given you a pat on the back then, you know, it's all - you're all settled, you know? You're going to be fine. I know that if I'm not confused, and really afraid, my work isn't going to be any good.

Each project, I suffer like I'm starting over again in life. There's a lot of healthy insecurity that fuels this stuff.

It's still difficult for me to watch my work.

All writers learn this, in time: don't show your work to other people until it's safely finished. Even discussing your unborn book in quite general terms can be such an undermining experience that, afterwards, you give it up and go to live in Guatemala.

Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.

Most artists think they're frauds anyway.

That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.

There's always an element of fear that you need to work a lot until people get sick and tired of you or finally figure out that you're a fraud after all!

I have moments when I'll stare at a script and say, 'I don't know what I'm doing!' But then I push myself into that feeling because I think panic is important.

I'm always nervous when I start a new picture.

I find that most of us actors can't stand ourselves in any form.

It's hard for me to just say, 'Wow, this is amazing - I'm famous. I'm living the dream.' I sit there and think, 'I'm scared - this can go away tomorrow.' My dad always says that I'm a tortured soul because I'm never pleased; I never feel like I deserve what I've achieved.

You always feel like a hack and a fraud when you're writing. It's just how it goes.

It's not a lack of confidence, because I can't argue with the fact that I've taken some good pictures. But it's just a raw fear that you've taken the last one.

I've written six seasons of a TV show with great help from an incredible staff of writers and other collaborators, but I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing. I've kind of freed myself of the expectation that I ever will.

I still deal with impostor syndrome. It's a very real thing.

I write a lyric, but when I reread it, I think it's awful and either hide it or crumple it up.

I am always in self-doubt... every moment of my filmmaking. I am supremely confident when the story is being written and everything is in our head. But the moment we get into the filmmaking, I start doubting myself - from the camera angle to the re-recording to getting the actors to do their shots.