Tracy Letts Quotes

The first time I went out under the spotlight, I was proper freaked out.

As a novelist, I'm incredibly lucky to make a living, but that doesn't mean that I don't lie awake at four o'clock in the morning, worrying.

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.

I get nervous every time, for every single performance, before getting up on that stage.

Luckily, I'm not a stand-up comedian, so I don't get the fear of standing on stage in front of a dead audience: my humorous pieces have to make it past an editor before they get exposed to the public.

When I go in front of an audience, I'll admit I sometimes have a certain amount of fear in me, because maybe the people are not going to accept what I'm doing today. That's bad for any artist, especially if what you're doing is not in line with what's happening today.

A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.

Every writer knows that unless you were born gifted with either supreme confidence or outsize ego, handing in your work holds, in some cases, admitted terror. If that's too strong, at least fairly high anxiety.

I wrote 'Mr. In-Between' very quickly when I was about 23. I wrote the penultimate chapter, then realised I'd done something which was written to the best of my abilities. I panicked. I hesitated to finish the final chapter and went into withdrawal for three years. I decided to pick it up again after I went drinking with author Tim Binding.

When it comes time to sit down and write the next book, you're deathly afraid that you're not up to the task. That was certainly the case with me after Snow Falling on Cedars.

People wonder why first-time directors can make a brilliant picture, then suck on the second one. It's because they're a little terrified the first time. So they listen to all the experts around them.

Every night when I go out on stage, there's always one nagging fear in the back of my mind. I'm always afraid that somewhere out there, there is one person in the audience that I'm not going to offend!

Show business is, essentially, a fear-based industry.

I'm such a coward that unless I get a good writer, I don't want to make a picture.

I'm excited and terrified to write something new. I won't be writing about suburbia.

Fear is the major cargo that American writers must stow away when the writing life calls them into carefully chosen ranks.

I will not do festivals. The thought of an audience that big frightens the life out of me.

I think the first time you try anything in a public way, you feel really exposed.

My verses stand gawping a bit. I never get used to this. They've lived here long enough.

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 have turned away from the thought of writing fiction in the past through what I suppose is, actually, fear. The direct, raw invitation for the reader to come in and explore my imagination is fairly scary for me so I have busied myself with so much else.

As a writer, the worst thing you can do is work in an environment of fear of rejection.

And I think I'm an adrenaline junkie, and there's nothing that will spike your adrenaline more than sitting in a theater and listen to an audience react to something you've written.

Pretty much everything I've written is a mix of excitement and fear.

I always feel very afraid as I work on books. It's just so hard to write a decent book!