Mary Gordon Quotes

In a way, I'm always trying to do something I'm not qualified to do. So I feel that lack of qualification. And I'm scared. And I have a tendency to think things may not/probably won't work out. That's my basic mindset.

Like everybody in show business, you think you're going to wake up one day, and it's all going to be taken away from you. I think we all share an insecurity in that way, everybody in show business - the ones I talk to, anyway.

It's kind of a rule of thumb for me to self-doubt going into any kind of project. I always think that I shouldn't be doing it and I don't know how to do it and I'm going to fail and that I fooled them. I always try to find a way out.

I constantly think I'm a fraud - that this success is not warranted or justified.

I feel like I'm not smart enough to answer the questions I'm asked.

I'm the most insecure guy in Hollywood. If you had it good all your life, you figure it can't ever get bad, but when you had it bad, you wonder how long a thing like this will last.

It feels like my hard work has paid off, but at the same time, I still have the impostor, you know, syndrome. I still feel like I'm going to wake up, and everybody's going to see me for the hack I am.

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.

It seems like I'm one of those people that has the personality where, if I win an award, I wake up the next day, and I'm like 'Oh, but I didn't win this award though, or this didn't happen.'

It's always at the back of my mind that acting might come to an end for me when Harry Potter finishes. I don't know if I'm good enough to have a long career. I've got a bit of an inferiority complex about my acting. My self-esteem is quite low in that sense.

I feel like I'm the luckiest person alive. I'm always waiting for that phone call: 'Hello. We've just realized you're really a no-talent hillbilly. We've made a horrible mistake and we'd like you to leave now.'

You can never be comfortable with your success, you've got to be paranoid you're going to lose it.

I thought that when you have more success that you'd feel more buoyed or feel more confident. But in fact my brain has the gift of switching it around and saying, 'Now people are expecting something. Now you're really going to let people down.'

Am I about to feel really, really stupid?

I knew I wasn't a baseball writer. I was scared to death. I really was afraid to talk to players, and I didn't want to go into the press box because I thought I was faking it.

I'm usually convinced that what I'm working on is a total disaster.

I have two books that were published quite some time ago. I start to read about three sentences. I have to close it. I am so self-conscious. Who did I think I was?

I always think that I'm not going to be right for a movie or that there's someone else who can do it better.

Being insecure - I'm a master, a virtuoso - they can be handing me the keys to the kingdom and all I can think is, I hope I don't drop the key.

I don't even know why I'm saying this in an interview situation, but I always feel like I'm not good enough for some reason. I wish that wasn't the case, but left to my own devices, that voice starts speaking up.

Lack of confidence - every time I start a new piece of work, it seems I have to spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

It's just so fragile. The growing sense of 'Oh, God, what am I doing? Am I any good? Will I ever work again?' All those questions of self doubt, they do creep in.

It's funny, I never think I'm doing that well. I've never, ever. I just constantly think, 'This isn't working out.'

I have spent my years since Princeton, while at law school and in my various professional jobs, not feeling completely a part of the worlds I inhabit. I am always looking over my shoulder wondering if I measure up.

My biggest fear is that I'm not good enough. I have this voice in my head that I've been battling for years that says, 'You're not really talented enough. You don't really deserve this.'