Catherine Keener Quotes

I'm not a writer. I'm not smart. I couldn't possibly even write my own story.

I have not been a success, and probably never will be.

As a teenager I was so insecure. I was the type of guy that never fitted in because he never dared to choose. I was convinced I had absolutely no talent at all. For nothing. And that thought took away all my ambition too.

To this day I do not believe I'm great at anything.

I didn't do very well at school, and I suppose I've always had this sense, you know that, of being average, so I've been a bit low on self-confidence in my ability.

I was always behind in class. There was people in my class who was amazing at art, amazing at maths, amazing at English, but I wasn't clever with anything, even though I tried my hardest.

I'm a lot of things, but none of them are great.

He [Richard Nixon] was more lacking in self-confidence than any leading politician I have known.

I've always been a mediocre student, so I never won an award in school. I'm not very athletic, so I've never won a sports award. So, I'm a mediocre person.

Every time I've been offered a new job, I've automatically said, 'Oh, I don't think you want me for that job.' It's sort of a weird female - or, at least, it is in me - a weird female defense, when, in fact, what you want to do is scream, 'Hooray, I want to do this!'

I know what I do for a living is ridiculous.

Oh, of course, I always feel unconfident.

I'm a perfectly equipped failure.

I'm terrible. I'm the wrong person to talk to, I really don't know a thing.

I am not loved. I am not a beautiful soul. I am not a good-natured, giving person. I am not anybody's savior.

It's a terrifying thing to be perhaps 16 or 17 and feel like you are a failure and a has-been.

I just don't think I'm that interesting. I don't think what I have to say is that interesting. To hear me go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, who... cares?

I longed to be bright and most certainly never was. I was rather hopeless, I suspect.

Sometimes I feel like a has-been who never was.

I have never really been confident about my career at any stage.

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

In my first few years as an actor, I took one terrible TV job after another. But even as I laughed off my awful roles and made fun of myself to friends, my work made me cringe - I dreaded anyone's seeing it. I was crushed that I wasn't doing anything I was proud of.

You have no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself and how little I deserve it.

I always thought everybody else was better than me.

It's so funny because all those years I was working, I basically always felt that whatever job I was doing would probably be the last one I would get. I really never thought that I stacked up with the other girls.