Impostor Syndrome Quotes

“She explained that many people, but especially women, feel fraudulent when they are praised for their accomplishments. Instead of feeling worthy of recognition, they feel undeserving and guilty, as if a mistake has been made. Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can't seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time until they are found out for who they really are- impostors with limited skills or abilities.”
― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

“Some years ago, I was lucky enough invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment they would realise that I didn’t qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things.

On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, “I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.”

And I said, “Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something.”

And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren’t any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for.”
― Neil Gaiman

“I had extraordinary dreams, and an ordinary mind.”
― Blake Crouch, Upgrade

“What's talent but the ability to get away with something?”
― Tennessee Williams

“May you choose yourself, always!”
― Malebo Sephodi

“When you know you're ENOUGH!

When you stop focusing on all things that you're not.
When you stop fussing over perceived flaws.
When you remove all imposed and unbelievable expectations on yourself.
When you start celebrating yourself more.
When you focus on all that you are.
When you start believing that your perceived flaws are just that - perception...”
― Malebo Sephodi

“It is a supremely cruel thing to have your mind conjure a desire which it is functionally unable to realize. No one teaches you how to handle the death of a dream.”
― Blake Crouch, Upgrade

“When I became a bandit, I spent a lot of time being close to the lowliest of the low: criminals, the enslaved, deserters, men who had nothing to lose. Contrary to what I had expected, I found that they had a hardscrabble beauty and grace. They were not mean in their nature, but made mean by the meanness of their rulers. The poor were willing to endure much, but the emperor had taken everything from them.

These men have simple dreams: a plot of land, a few possessions, a warm house, conversations with friends, and a happy wife and healthy children. They remember the smallest acts of kindness and think me a good man because of a few exaggerated stories. They've raised me on their shoulders and called me duke, and I have a duty to help them get a little closer to their dreams.”
― Ken Liu, The Grace of Kings

“I have challenged fate to chess and am now attempting to keep all my confidence from puddling in my boots. What if I’m the only one betting on myself because everyone but me can see I am not suited to play at all?”
― Mackenzi Lee, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy

“I wonder if anyone really identifies as the adult they've morphed into.”
― Emily Austin, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

“Sometimes, sitting here in the dark, slowly slowly creating strategy, she wondered if she was only fooling herself to think her plans were clever.”
― Vernor Vinge, The Children of the Sky

“In 1966, after arriving in New York, I read two of Luria's books, Higher Cortical Functions in Man and Human Brain and Psychological Processes. The latter, which contained very full case histories of patients with frontal lobe damage, filled me with admiration [4].

[Footnote 4]. And fear, for as I read it, I thought, what place is there for me in the world? Luria has already seen, said, written, and thought anything I can ever say, or write, or think. I was so upset that I tore the book in two (I had to buy a new copy for the library, as well as a copy for myself).”
― Oliver Sacks, On the Move: A Life

“Of that first decade, Neil said
I would have this recurring fantasy in which there would be a knock on the door, and I would go down, and there would be somebody wearing a suit – not an expensive suit, just the kind of suit that showed they had a job – and they would be holding a clipboard, and they'd have a paper on the clipboard, and I'd open the door and they'd say, „Hello, excuse me, I'm afraid I am here on official business. Are you Neil Gaiman?” And I would say yes. „Well, it says here that you are a writer and that you don't have to get up in the morning at any particular time, that you just write each day as much you want.” And I'd go „That's right.” "And that you enjoy writing. And it says here that all the books you want – they are just sent to you and you don't have to buy them. And films: it says here that you just go to see films. If you want to see them you just call up the person who runs the films." And I say, „Yes, that's right.” And that people like what you do and they give you money for just writing things down." And I'd say yes. And he'd say, „Well, I'm afraid we are on to you. We've caught up with you. And I'm afraid you are now going to have to go out and get a proper job.” At which point in my fantasy my heart would always sink, and I'd go, „Okay,” and I'd go and buy a cheap suit and I'd start applying to real jobs. Because once they've caught up with you, you can't argue with this: they've caught up with you. So that was the thing in my head.”
― Amy Cuddy, Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges

“You'll be amazed how much you have in common with Edith Wharton (who struggled to feel worthy of success), Louisa May Alcott (who badly needed money), Madaleine L'Engle (who could have papered an entire house with her rejection letters) and other writers...”
― Nava Atlas, The Literary Ladies' Guide to the Writing Life

“I had read in books that art is not easy
But no one warned that the mind repeats
In its ignorance the vision of others. I am still
the black swan of trespass on alien waters.”
― Ern Malley, The Darkening Ecliptic

“Relentless criticism in childhood can internalize a parental scorn that no amount of success will silence.”
― Bruce Watson

“Never, ever, ever, write off anything you’ve achieved as merely being lucky. You are not lucky: you are hard-working and capable. Don’t ever question it.”
― Charlene Walters, Launch Your Inner Entrepreneur: 10 Mindset Shifts for Women to Take Action, Unleash Creativity, and Achieve Financial Success

“How many people, healthy and strong do not distinguish their own, personal, God-given feelings from the common, dime-a-dozen feelings. Those people get into bed with the same unbridled pleasure, ready for anything, that they sit at a table with: just to be satisfied. And they cry and laugh looking around--to make sure that they are seen laughing and crying so that their tears do not go to waste. They were played out: touch them a special way--and they won't understand, they won't respond, not a single string will vibrate with a sensitive quiver. It's too late for them--they are deaf and dumb, and they will never touch anyone that way either. And all because they did not want or did not know how to be alone with themselves, they had forgotten and lost themselves, and now they couldn't remember or find themselves.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Live and Remember

“In none of her lives will she be brilliant or famous or content. Her mediocrity will hound her through a kaleidoscope of futures.”
― Lara Ehrlich, Animal Wife

“To truly return, we must belong (, and that man came to understand that he no longer belonged to the place he'd left as a sixteen-year-old boy).”
― Jorge Galán, Noviembre

“Investing in yourself leads to success!”
― Felicia M. Johnson, Do You Feel Like a Fraud?: A certified life coach's guide to help you recognize and overcome impostor syndrome

“Anastasia felt inadequate among the greats, and yet they parted to make sure she was in the midst of them, as an equal.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“I never escaped the pinpoint pain of the term "White Indian." I scoffed at it. I made fun of it and refuted it. I joked about it with friends and family to prove to myself how much I didn't care.

Ever since then, though, a stem of fear sprouts in me. When I hear someone move fluently through their own tribal tongue, I flinch at their authenticity. When I watch other Natives dance in elaborate ceremonial regalia, I swallow my awe so it can instead fester into shame.

This feeling of being fake doesn't influence reality. I am still dark enough to get stopped at airport security, followed around stores, stopped by police in border states, talked down to by people paler than me, and asked racist questions about where I'm from or what kind of magic powers I have. I still get treated like a liar or a relic when I tell someone I'm Native. I still feel a rooted, thrumming connection to the beach and the ground whenever I go home to Sequim, to where my tribe is. I still keep a mental record of all the stories I have learned, either from family or from historic documents. None of it validates me enough to remove the blight of impostor syndrome.”
― Leah Myers, Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity

“I wonder if I will ever feel Native enough.”
― Leah Myers, Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity

“Everything was an excuse. The felt so concrete, so real at the time. Now they are wispy, pathetic. I was terrified. If I participated in the world I moved closer to, then I would have to stomach the chance that I might fail at every task I tackled.
I didn't want to fail at being Native. Being Native to me then meant not only having the experience of all of these cultural things, but also being decent at them. I wanted to feel a peace in myself that cultural things brought me, but I had never felt so out of my depth. Failure felt imminent.
But I couldn't fail at something I never had the chance to try. So the excuses continued to pour from me, sweetly apologetic to hide the stench of the rotting fear that created them.”
― Leah Myers, Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity