Communication apprehension Quotes

If I have to speak in public, I am terrified.

One of the areas I have a little less confidence in is giving any kind of a speech.

I did my first speech when I was 17, well, my first formal speech. So I've had time to deal with it, and to adjust to it, but I can't say I'm like gung-ho on public speaking or interviews for that matter.

Before I met David Bowie, I was very nervous. I thought, 'Here comes the Thin White Duke, Ziggy Stardust. How will I ever communicate with him?'

I'm pretty shy. I'm so bad at public speaking. I can answer questions in front of a crowd, that seems to be fine, but standing up there by myself and delivering some kind of speech, I'm the worst. I hate it.

We're segregating ourselves because we're afraid we're going to offend each other.

I think we all feel like misfits when we open our mouth sometimes, you know?

The largest fear in the world is to speak in public. We fear of stumbling, or public humiliation, and so we're fearing a face-to-face rejection. So, we'll say things in a text or e-mail that we would never say face-to-face. So, relationships are coming together faster and breaking apart faster, and they're a little bit more disposable.

I'm very quiet. I can go a whole week without talking, so doing interviews is really awkward for me!

When I have to take phone calls, I start to sweat and panic. Being on the phone is so weird - hearing a voice without seeing the face so you can't really know the intention behind the voice.

I don't understand this whole thing about computers and the superhighway. Who wants to be in touch with all of those people?

I do have a huge problem, a huge problem. In fact, worse than watching is hearing. I cannot stand to hear my own voice. When it's coming out of my mouth right now it sounds fantastically interesting to me. It's rich in light and shade, it goes up and down. But when I hear it either on TV or even on someone's answering machine, I just sound like I've had half my brain removed.

As a child, I was very shy. Painfully, excruciatingly shy. I hid a lot in my room. I was so terrified to read out loud in school that I had to have my mother ask my reading teacher not to call on me in class.

I'm not such a talkative person, and I don't like speaking in front of a lot of people.

Public speaking is the number-one fear... even over death!

I don't like standing and talking in front of lots of people.

I'm not much of a public speaker.

I've done interviews in the past where, apparently, I didn't give the journalist any eye contact. I'm a bit shy, yes. I've thought about refusing to do any press at all.

In general, I get nervous when I do print interviews because I know that whatever I say is going to be shown through the lens of whomever I'm talking to.

I was extremely shy and had a terrible fear of public speaking. But I had fallen in love with stand-up.

I resisted Twitter for a long time. To me, it was synonymous with networking, which in my mind means unceasing self-promotion and superficial small-talk with strangers. A little like wading into a river with a raging current - and I'm a terrible swimmer.

Public speaking, for me, or speaking even in front of a handful of people is my greatest fear.

A writer writes for writers, a non-writer writes for his next-door neighbor or for the manager of the local bank branch, and he fears (often mistakenly) that they would not understand or, in any case, would not forgive his boldness.

I had this job where I had to cold call people, and that was terrifying to me, and that was on a far different level than invading their space.

There has been in our time a lack of reliance on language and a lack of experimentation which are frightening to anyone who sees them as symptoms. We know the phenomenon of stage-fright: it holds the player shivering, incapable of speech or action. Perhaps there is an audience-fright which the play can feel, which leaves him with these incapacities.