Top 77 Quotes About Stage Fright
#2. God bless Dad, he came to every one of my shows. I was bad, and I had horrible stage fright. My dad was so relieved - he'd say, 'You were terrible; this kid is not going to be an actor.' Finally, I did a play and he said, 'Son - you were really good.'
Kirk Douglas
#3. I've never really been one to get what they call stage fright so much.
Sean Penn
#5. I didn't have traditional stage fright. If there was 500 people in the audience or three people in the audience, it didn't really make a difference. What made a difference was the conductor. Everything that I was scared about as a drummer was him.
Damien Chazelle
#6. Sports just happen to be excellent for avoiding foreign-language stage fright and developing lasting friendships while still sounding like Tarzan.
Timothy Ferriss
#7. I get stage fright and gremlins in my head saying: 'You're going to forget your lines'.
Alan Rickman
#8. I have had a very difficult time with stage fright; it undermines your well-being and peace of mind, and it can also threaten your livelihood.
Renee Fleming
#9. It's interesting - years ago, I had such bad stage fright during musical theater auditions that I just gave up. And now I'm on Broadway.
Tom Lenk
#10. I started out doing my mother's nightclub act, and I had stage fright.
Carrie Fisher
#11. I conquered my stage fright a long time ago. In my line of work, it's kind of a pre-requisite that you not feel bad about looking stupid in front of a lot of people.
Buzz Osborne
#12. I get stage fright with short stories. For me it feels like standup comedy: kill or die. I'm more confident when I begin a novel because I know I have space to fail.
Sefi Atta
#13. Oddly enough, I have really bad stage fright - getting up in front of people. And I made a living going on live television.
Bill Hader
#14. I definitely suffered from stage fright. I had to work really hard to come out of my shell. When I was little, I was very loud and loved performing in front of people. I was fearless. When I hit puberty, I became very shy and self-conscious.
Brianna Brown
#15. I have stage fright every single concert I've ever done. I have at least four or five minutes of it. It's absolute living hell.
Brian Wilson
#16. I have never known stage-fright at any time.
Kate Smith
#17. The truth is, I hate to perform. I get such bad stage fright, it makes me physically ill.
Rivers Cuomo
#18. It's never fun to be scared [about stage fright] but I think that it is important and it's healthy to always push yourself.
Rose Leslie
#19. Stand-up is not something that you're good at right away. You have to do it a ton. But, I think I got to shave a year off because I didn't have to get over stage fright.
Amy Schumer
#20. I guess you could say I'm an addict - an adrenalin addict - I get great excitement and stimulation from doing stuff in public, even though I'm nervous and I have very bad stage fright.
Barry Humphries
#21. If you have stage fright, it never goes away. But then I wonder: is the key to that magical performance because of the fear?
Stevie Nicks
#22. Many people associate stage fright with a fear of looking ridiculous, making a bad impression. For me, it's like a kind of fever.
Jeanne Moreau
#23. I have been nervous before, but I have never had stage fright.
Gloria Gaynor
#24. I don't get stage fright, I actually love the energy, I love the spontaneity, I love the adrenaline you get in front of a live audience, it actually really works for me.
Brooke Burke
#25. I suffer greatly from nerves. I have stage-fright badly, and it gets worse, but the stage is still my life.
Barry Humphries
#26. When you get real stage fright, it comes like a sledgehammer out of the blue in the middle of something that you know you've done too many times before, and there's no rhyme or reason for it. It's something quite different from being nervous. It's almost paralysing.
Billie Whitelaw
#27. Throughout my career, nervousness and stage-fright have never left me before playing. And each of the thousands of concerts I have played at, I feel as bad as I did the very first time.
Pablo Casals
#28. I still suffer terribly from stage fright. I get sick with fear. Not every night, but at the beginning and on occasion - not necessarily when I'm expecting it. You just have to cope with it - take it on the chin and work through it, trying to use the adrenalin to perform.
Helen Mirren
#29. I would have stage-fright if I had to speak with every one of the people before whom I speak.
Karl Kraus
#30. I've never suffered stage fright. That fascinates people.
Ethel Merman
#31. In my career, I've had kind of a strange trajectory as an actor. I started out doing movies and theater and stuff, but then I had a terrible problem with stage fright as an actor on stage, and I quit stage acting for a long, long time.
Fred Melamed
#32. As for the stage fright, it never goes away. When I'm waiting in the wings to go on, it's agony every single time but I stay focused and I know that once I'm on stage it'll be fine; I'll be in my happy little bubble.
Britt Ekland
#33. For me I have learned to enjoy everything, especially performing live, so much more. I used to get horrible stage fright when I was younger and today and just love to sing for anyone who still turns up at my shows!
Olivia Newton-John
#34. Stage fright, like epilepsy, is a divine ailment, a sacred madness ... It is a grace that is sufficient in the old Jesuit sense - that is, insufficient by itself but a necessary condition for success.
Charles Rosen
#35. I have horrible stage fright - you know how you go through the bi-polar stage fright thing? Then you go on drugs to get over the stage fright and perform, but then you're not funny at all.
Roseanne Barr
#36. I had serious performance stage fright. I kept my singing to the confines of my shower and car, while doing the dishes, and in my basement, but I would burst out crying if anyone asked me to sing.
Michelle Chamuel
#37. When you're sick on the road, it's the worst. That's when you become the most vulnerable and neurotic. You become scared. If I had a cold or a chest infection, and I had to sing all those high parts, there was stage fright.
Richie Sambora
#38. In my opinion, the only way to conquer stage fright is to get up on stage and play. Every time you play another show, it gets better and better.
Taylor Swift
#39. I am basically the sort of person who has stage-fright teaching. I kind of creep into a classroom. I'm not an anecdote-teller, either, although I often wish I were.
Lydia Davis
#41. (...) Stage fright, if you like. Easier to hide behind a persona than to bare one's soul. I'm really not the monster you think I am. I just wanted to talk to you unencumbered by all this complications, all this ... history. [Jakab]
Stephen Lloyd Jones
#42. Stage fright and acting blocks are just unfocused or misplaced energy. Everything is possible if you know how and where to focus to invite inspiration ... Inspiration is a sensation in the body. It can be invited upon your will and willingness to experience it taking you over..
Marjo-Riikka Makela
#43. I had - after I sang the 'Star Spangled Banner' so badly, after my tragic singing accident, after that, you know, all my stuff kind of, like, really got even more full blown and, you know, I got stage fright and, you know, I couldn't do stand-up anymore and let alone sing and all the other things.
Roseanne Barr
#44. People talk about stage fright, but what scares me is not so much the going on as the going off. I only come to life when people are watching. - Red Skelton
Douglas Wissing
#45. Every audience has its character; I like America - they love me. I suffer from stage fright, but in America not so much.
Andrea Bocelli
#46. Once, and only once, I walked on stage and my mind went utterly blank! I had no idea why I was there! My fellow actors had to rescue me. I was very young and new to the business, so I'm glad it didn't give me stage fright for the rest of my life!
Laura Donnelly
#47. I always feel like if someone has stage fright, I really try and say, "Listen, these people want you to succeed, they want to have a good evening. They want to see something really great. They don't want to see something crappy. They don't. They want to be at something really special."
Laurie Anderson
#48. A little bit of stage fright, then I'm ready.
Faith Hill
#49. Fame: an embalmer trembling with stage fright.
H.L. Mencken
#50. He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next
Kurt Vonnegut
#51. Yeah ... I was a singer as a kid. I had a lot of stage fright, and what's happened with 'Idol,' it has got me past so much of that.
Kara DioGuardi
#52. The absolute contingency of the encounter with someone I didn't know finally takes on the appearance of destiny. The declaration of love marks the transition from chance to destiny, and that's why it is so perilous and so burdened with a kind of horrifying stage fright.
Alain Badiou
#53. I can't remember that I ever had just a minute of stage fright.
Henry Rollins
#54. The idea of doing theatre always terrified me because I get terrible stage fright. In the early 1970s I was offered a panto but the thought of going on stage was just too mortifying.
Britt Ekland
#55. I'm just living each day, and I'm better equipped to do so. I mean, I used to be totally afraid, I used to have, like, permanent stage fright. But now I'm trying to have fun. I'm trying to bring as much happiness to as many people as possible.
Rivers Cuomo
#57. Stage fright is not a thing about 'Am I any good?' It's about 'Am I gonna be good tonight?' It's a right-now thing. It helps me. If I went out there thinkin', 'Eh, we'll go slaughter 'em,' I'm positive something would go seriously wrong.
Gregg Allman
#58. I like to take a puff or two before going on the air. I still get stage fright when I have to perform. A little grass gets rid of the problem.
Bob Denver
#59. Yes, I was scared, it was like stage fright, but I worked through it. If you've gotten to the door, you shouldn't doubt you can open it.
Lara Fabian
#60. Stage fright is my worst problem. A voice is very intimate. It's something of your own. So there's always this fear, because you feel naked. There's a fear of not reaching up to expectations.
Andrea Bocelli
#62. I used to suffer from stage fright, which at times was an ordeal. I won't perform live again. I'm going to do some TV shows and videos but nothing else ... I don't like to travel too much or do concerts. I'm more of a studio and home girl.
Agnetha Faltskog
#63. I don't get stage fright. I do get nervous before I play in front of big audiences [though].
Jack Barakat
#64. Actually, I failed drama in high school because of nerves. I wasn't able to memorize the words. I had complete stage fright.
Constance Marie
#65. My stage fright gets worse at every performance. During the overture I hope for a theater fire, typhoon, revolution in the Pentagon.
Hildegard Knef
#66. I've never told anyone this. But I suffer from terrible stage fright. True. You can't tell though, can you? Unbelievable, the panic. I nearly die of fear before I go on stage. Something wicked. I can't eat a thing the day before a gig. It'd make me vomit.
John Lydon
#67. I'm always aware of being observed. Always self-conscious. I'm evidently living my life with stage fright.
Donna Cooner
#68. Of course it does on opening night, but I've never had that devastating stage fright that some people get, but apparently, you can develop it.
Joan Collins
#69. If you don't have a certain amount of stage fright, then it's not going to be that interesting. It's not going to have the inner vibration. I think screen work needs inner vibration.
Charlotte Rampling
#70. The Alexander Technique has helped me to undo knots, unblock energy and deal with almost paralysing stage fright
William Hurt
#71. When I was 6 I became the poster child for my hospital and would go to banquets and make speeches. I did not get stage fright and I actually enjoyed talking to people of all ages.
Atticus Shaffer
#72. Anytime you have to get intimate on camera, it's always a little interesting. You have to trick your brain almost, so that you don't get stage fright or get too much in your head where you're super uncomfortable.
Evan Rachel Wood
#73. People ask me if I have stage fright. I say, "God, no, I'm completely comfortable there. I have rest-of-the-day fright."
Adam Duritz
#75. People say to me, you have not got stage fright. And if I haven't got stage fright, then I'm going to be comfortable within myself, and then something - I've always been that way and so I'm fighting to get away from that fear.
Ozzy Osbourne
#76. You get used to it, you look forward to the adrenaline of the stage fright before you go out.
Brian Henson
#77. But I have fun with the fright, work with it. You have to - that's your timing, that beat of excitement. And when I go on stage, it's just like taking a step into heaven. Poof, you know? Poof - and there I am.
Eddie Bracken
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