A lot of amateurs are terrified of going up against a player who is clearly better than they are. They never play their best, because they aren't comfortable. There's one surefire way to get over that, and it's to ask yourself, 'What if I beat him?' Imagine the possibility.

I'm a musician with a very unique mental state, I suppose. I'm agoraphobic. I'm scared to leave my house. I haven't been alone in, like, two years. I'm either with my boyfriend or my assistant, my manager or my tour manager. I won't go anywhere by myself; I'm too terrified.

Again, as a gay man I look at that and say there's a hopelessness that surrounds it, but as a human being I look at it and say 'Why? Where's this disparity coming from, and why can't we as a culture and society dig deeper to examine that?' We're terrified of facing ourselves.

I've chronicled a time when I was 17, 18, utterly terrified that you're not gonna get anywhere with whatever you want to do. It's that fear and claustrophobia that I think comes to most people living in small towns. But I am lucky, because I just knew that music was my thing.

Palestinians also have a right not to have their homes demolished because an occupying power refuses to grant them a permit. Palestinian children should not be shot at or arrested in the middle of the night and interrogated by the Israeli military while terrified and isolated.

When I was younger, I was terrified to express anger because it would often kick-start a horrible reaction in the men in my life. So I bit my tongue. I was left to painstakingly deal with the aftermath of my avoidance later in life, in therapy or through the lyrics of my songs.

You show up at high school, there's all these kids you don't know, and you're terrified that people will have some kind of wrong or unpleasant impression of you. You just don't want anything to ruin your public persona, because you actually have a public persona in high school.

I want to talk about my very first play, when I was in eighth grade. One day, my English teacher, Mrs. Baker, announced that we were going to read 'On Borrowed Time' out loud in class. I was a mediocre student; I was terrified that she was going to call on me, so I hid my head.

When I first started, it was a dare. Someone basically said, 'You're a tough guy... but I'll bet you won't get on a microphone in front of a bunch of people.' I was terrified, but I did it. Once I broke the ice and got onstage and got some laughs, I thought, 'That's not so bad.'

I'm happy that the sacrificing, the hard training, the travel, the time being away from the family, is going to stop. So I'm happy; I'm glad about that. But I'm also terrified. Frightened. Because, I mean, in my whole adult life, cycling was the most consistent thing I ever did.

It's very interesting because as an actor, you play a litany of different roles, but to play both of them within the same day multiple times, in quick successions, it's different and sort of a really rare opportunity that I was initially terrified by and a little bit daunted by.

Sometimes I really wish that I could sit back and enjoy it, live in the moment more. But I am terrified, and I want to better myself, not that I want to prove anything to anyone other than myself. I am ambitious, and there are many things I want to do. It doesn't get any easier.

I'm terrified of being too famous. What I'm really afraid of is that the audiences will go into the theater and not be able to forget that it's me, that fame will stand in the way of my acting. I want to keep being able to change into different shapes and different personalities.

The kind of boy's club I'm used to? It is definitely not a jock-y, frat-y kind of thing. They say, 'I'm sensitive and nerdy,' but actually, it's like, 'You're a huge child and you're terrified of women, but you don't like sports, so you think that makes you less of a misogynist.'

I was so terrified that the business would not do well and that there would be no way that I would be in a position to pay my dad back this $80,000. At Stars, as a line cook, I think that I was making $10 or $12 an hour. So $80,000 - to have to pay that back was incomprehensible.

When I first started as an editorial cartoonist, I was terrified on a daily basis. Filling that hole the next day, knowing that tens of thousands of people were going to expect something funny. There is still that pressure, but you kind of learn how to cope with it a little better.

People into hard sciences, neurophysiology, often ignore a core philosophical question: 'What is the relationship between our unique, inner experience of conscious awareness and material substance?' The answer is: We don't know, and some people are so terrified to say, 'I don't know.'

My family didn't have very much money, so ballet wasn't even on my radar; I just found it randomly when I was 13 at a Boys & Girls Club. We were practicing in a basketball court in gym clothes with some old socks on. Even though it terrified me at first, I found that I really liked it.

'The Stepfather' was the first time I sort of carried a film, or led in a film, and doing it was fun, and I felt very special. Afterwards, though, I was terrified. I just thought, 'Wow, this is basically going to be about me. If this film is a success or a failure, a lot of it's on me!'

The more successful I got, the more scared I got. My name was all over Google. I had a Wikipedia page I was terrified to look at. And so I just snapped. I thought, 'If I'm going to come out with this, I'm going to do it in a big way. And not just for myself. This can't just be my story.'

So about this Fierce and Fearless award, honestly, I am often afraid. I was terrified when I lost my voice. But I've come to understand and listen to the fear. I walk towards it. I lean into it to find the information and things that it has to teach me - unless it says run, and then I run.

If it weren't for my breast cancer, I wouldn't be a 'Today' host. After I got better, I talked to my boss about working on the show. Six months before, I'd have been terrified to go in there and ask for what I wanted. But after what I'd been through, how could I be scared of being told no?

I seek out things that terrify me, like an improv class. I'm terrified of sharks, but I scuba dive. I'm not good at auditioning, but I force myself to do it all the time. I've never met anybody who is fearless, but the more you push against your own boundaries, the easier it becomes to push.

I don't think we were shy so much as we were terrified. Especially when we did 'Saturday Night Live' on live TV. We looked really animatronic because we were scared, but it came off as being this alien sort of attitude, which served us well, because people were like, 'Whoa, this is so weird.'

I used to be terrified of a particular film - I can't remember what it was called. It was set in a forest, and there was lots of oil coming from trees. And someone fell, and ever since then... Oh, and I also dream about my teeth, losing a tooth, which I think means that you want control back.

When I went to Australia, I went shark diving. It was crazy. It was called 'extreme' shark diving because even though we were in cages, we literally could touch the sharks swimming by. They were huge and I'm terrified of sharks. Then I went to a wildlife park and held kangaroos. That was nice.

Even if you're an optimist, there's some part of you that just tries to toughen up and be pragmatic and go, 'This isn't gonna happen. This isn't gonna happen.' I really felt that way through the process of 'Korra' because I knew 'Avatar,' and I knew how wonderful it was, and I was so terrified.

I have mentally overcome situations most of you would be terrified to ever attempt: heights, fire, needles, spiders, snakes, angry monkeys, being shot, being hit by a car, going blind - you name it, I have been in a situation where I have had to mentally overcome my inherent fears to do my job.

When I got my headshots done, there was this woman screaming at me to blow my lips out. She kept saying, 'You want to be like Scarlett Johansson, don't you?' In the shot, my eyes are popping out; I look terrified. I realised I'd rather not get a job than go through pain to be something I'm not.

I was terrified the first time that I had a big problem in my business. I was obviously terrified when they diagnosed me with cancer in 1994. I was terrified when my son used to drive too fast. But I do believe in the fact that fear is not an option, so I always try to face it and not be afraid.

I'm really grateful to my parents for having the confidence in me to let me go. I was terrified I might have to slink back to the village with my tail between my legs, and treated every job as though it were my last - I still do - but fortunately, I got work and things seemed to slot into place.

Prosecutors frequently overcharge, load up charges on individual defendants, knowing that three strikes laws and harsh mandatory minimum sentences will force people to plea bargain and essentially convict themselves because they're terrified of doing a life sentence for a relatively minor crime.

There's no room for being a visionary in the studio system. It literally cannot exist. You give Terrence Malick a movie like Transformers, and he's f***ed. There's no way for him to exist in that world... Lars Von Trier's dangerous. He scares me. And I'm only going to work now when I'm terrified.

Because we put ourselves in a movie or on TV, then it must mean we want to be completely open to the world. Sometimes, people will run up to you as if this is Disneyland and I'm a character. I understand their point of view, but it's difficult to explain how terrified it makes me. I'm so nervous.

I've always been terrified about not having money. I've been a big saver and a big earner. When I've been out of work, I've always found another job. I never wanted to get into debt, because money was very tight when I was growing up. I never felt deprived, but I couldn't have the things I wanted.

We're so terrified of death in Western culture that we have to make up a myth of an afterlife. I think there's something to be said for living your life very mindful of the fact that you're going to die because I think you carry yourself differently. It doesn't have to be this big, negative bummer.

There is tension all over the country. The party in Bengal has done substantial work. They have eliminated a few officers. The Englishmen are terrified. As a result, they have started sending their families to Britain. After some time, they will realise that they cannot exercise authority over India.

My dad looked like Errol Flynn, and I think my mom thought she was moving into a hacienda, but they lived on a dirt street in Tijuana, a house jammed with relatives, nobody speaking English. She didn't know a word of Spanish. She grew up well and was appalled and humiliated, terrified of anyone ethnic.

When a movie is being made out of a book, there is a mixed reaction on the part of fans because they are both extremely excited and they are also terrified. 'They are going to take my story, and they are going to mess it up; they are going to ruin it; they're going to do this; they're going to do that.'

I didn't read a book until I was 31 years old when I was diagnosed with dyslexia. Books terrified me. They made me nervous. Now I know you can travel to the bottom of the ocean or to outer space or anywhere in between without leaving your armchair, and I'm so, so sorry I couldn't read when I was younger.

I had always known that I was 'different.' I didn't really understand it all until I got older. But there was always this foreboding sense something was 'wrong.' I never knew how to talk about it. I just remember feeling terrified about what would happen if someone found out. It was a very lonely feeling.

'Overboard' was the movie that I put on when I wasn't feeling great, and it always made me feel better. I could watch it a gazillion times. So when they approached me to be a part of this remake, I was terrified because I felt like there's no way anything could live up to the original. But it was thrilling.

The hardest pill for me to swallow has been receiving recognition, getting dressed up, going to events. That's the part that has always terrified me. You can see dozens of photos where I have zero hair and makeup and I'm wearing my own jeans and T-shirt, because I was not that interested in that side of it.

I was terrified of vault, like literally I hated it. I had a fear of running as fast as I could at a solid object, which is I think a normal fear to have because nobody would really want to do that. Once I got over the fear of running into the table I just kind of relaxed and now it's like autopilot. I love it.

Bent Literary Agency had a Q&A on Twitter, and I took a chance and asked if the Black Lives Matter movement was an appropriate topic for a YA novel. Brooks Sherman, who is now my agent, responded that he didn't think any topics were inappropriate for YA. I remember being so terrified even just sending the tweet.

Gone are the days when the upper classes were terrified of the angry mob wanting to smash their skulls and confiscate their properties. Now their biggest enemy is the army of lazy bums, whose lifestyle of indolence and hedonism, financed by crippling taxes on the rich, is sucking the lifeblood out of the economy.

Well, the first thing that clued me in to the fact that there was something really scary about breast cancer, way beyond the thought of dying, was coming across an ad in the newspaper for pink breast cancer teddy bears. I am not that afraid of dying, but I am terrified of dying with a pink teddy bear under my arm.

I do think that something of the effect I have on people is to put everything on an edge where they're both infatuated with a kind of charmingness happening in the person or in the writing, and also flatly terrified by a revelation or acceptance of revelation that's almost happening, never quite totally happening.

The first play I did was 'Philadelphia Here I Come.' Can you imagine that? I am 37 years old I am doing my second professional play and I am on stage with John Malkovich. Joan Allen, Laurie Metcalf and Gary Sinise. One huge name after another. I was terrified and petrified, could hardly get a word out of my mouth.

When I did 'Thoroughly Modern Millie,' it was almost every 'first' I could have imagined: I dreamt someday being on Broadway, and then dreamt someday playing a lead on Broadway, and then dreamt someday of getting to originate a role, and then getting a Tony nomination. It all happened at once. I was just terrified.

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