Quotes About Being Scared To Be Happy

“Because pretending to be happy is almost like being happy. Until you remember that you're only pretending. Then you're sad. Really sad. Because wearing a mask every day of your life is the hardest thing to do. And after a while, you get a little scared because the mask becomes you.”

— Brittainy C. Cherry

“There are lots of real reasons to decide to leave something or someone, but there are lots of other reasons that are less valid and less real and less about a relationship than our own minds: Fear (of screwing up, of being left, of not being good enough), restlessness, resistance to growing up, PMS, not knowing how to live without drama, fearing that you're getting happy, and happiness is boring.
The thing that scared me the most was the knowledge that if I stayed, something was going to change, and that something was probably me. I didn't know what changed me would look like, or if I would like her more or less than I already did. Would I still recognize myself? Would I still be myself?”

— Anna White

“Thack seemed to sort something out for a moment.
"Sometimes I watch him when he's playing with Harry or digging in the yard. And I think: This is it, this is the guy I've waited for all my life. Then this other voice tells me not to get used to it, that it'll only hurt more later. It's funny. You're feeling this enormous good fortune and waiting for it to be over at the same time."
"You seem happy," Brian ventured.
"I am."
"Well ... that's a lot. I envy you that."
Thack shrugged. "All we've got is now, I guess. But that's all anybody gets. If we wasted that time being scared ... "
"Absolutely.”

— Armistead Maupin

“Em, we've known each other five or six years now, but two years properly, as, you know, 'friends', which isn't that long but I think I know a bit about you and I think I know what your problem is. Here it is. I think you're scared of being happy, Emma. I think you think that the natural way of things is for your life to be grim and grey and dour and to hate your job, hate where you live, not to have success or money or God forbid a boyfriend. In fact, I think I'll go further and say that I think you actually get a kick out of being disappointed and under-achieving, because it's easier, isn't it? Failure and unhappiness is easier because you can make a joke out of it.”

— David Nicholls

“I loved you, I love you now, but I'll be able to go on. I know that I can. You taught me that. Not being with you is far from my dream, but like our hearts, dreams can be broken and repaired again. It's hard for me not to wonder if I scared you away with all these letters. I hope not. I hope it just made you see how beautiful and amazing you are. I guess I'm realizing now that I just want you to be happy and safe. That's the most I can hope for now. I brought some of your boxes here but I didn't open”

— Renee Carlino

“Kill her for me," she said in that whiny little-girl voice.
Diego took a step toward me, wearing an expression that told me he was only too happy to oblige his lady love.
"Oh, what?" I said. I wasn't even scared. I didn't care anymore. The numbness in my heart had pretty much taken over my whole body. "You always do what she tells you? You know, we have a word for that now. It's called being whipped.”

— Meg Cabot

“He is the luckiest man in the world to have you, Rosie, but he doesn't deserve you and you deserve far better. You deserve someone who loves you with every single beat of his heart, someone who thinks about you constantly, someone who spends every minute of every day just wondering what you're doing, where you are, who you're with, and if you're okay. You need someone who can help you reach your dreams and who can protect you from your fears. You need someone who will treat you with respect, love every part of you, especially your flaws. You should be with someone who can make you happy, really happy, dancing-on-air happy. Someone who should have taken the chance to be with you years ago instead of getting scared and being too afraid to try. I am not scared anymore , Rosie. I am not afraid to try.”

— Cecelia Ahern

“The desire to make the horse happy and the cabman happy, had reached the point of a bizarre longing to take them to bed with him.  And that, he knew, was impossible.  For Stevie was not mad.  It was, as it were, a symbolic longing; and at the same time it was very distinct, because springing from experience, the mother of wisdom.  Thus when as a child he cowered in a dark corner scared, wretched, sore, and miserable with the black, black misery of the soul, his sister Winnie used to come along, and carry him off to bed with her, as into a heaven of consoling peace.  Stevie, though apt to forget mere facts, such as his name and address for instance, had a faithful memory of sensations.  To be taken into a bed of compassion was the supreme remedy, with the only one disadvantage of being difficult of application on a large scale.  And looking at the cabman, Stevie perceived this clearly, because he was reasonable.”

— Joseph Conrad

“I've arrived at the place if I'm not taking a career risk, I'm not happy. If I'm scared, then I know I'm being challenged.”

— Jim Carrey

“My heart raced. He needs you, I thought. Don't let him down. I couldn't remember ever being so happy ... or so scared.”

— Ann Aguirre

“Lord make me happy enough in the grace of Jesus to avoid being proud, cold, scared, and hooked.”

— Timothy Keller

“You can't live with the idea that someone might leave. So instead of being happy for me, like any normal person, you're pissed off because ooh, oh no, Hassan doesn't like me anymore. You're such a sitzpinkler. You're so goddamned scared of the idea that someone might dump you that your whole fugging life is built around not gettting left behind. Well, it doesn't work, kafir. I just - it's not just dumb, it's ineffective. Because then you're not being a good friend or a good boyfriend or whatever, because you're only thinking they-might-not-like-me-they-might-not-like-me, and guess what? When you act like that, no one likes you. There's your goddamned Theorem.”

— John Green

“You looked around and saw everybody either married or busy and happy and thinking and being creative, and you felt scared, sick, lethargic, worst of all, not wanting to cope. You saw visions of yourself in a straightjacket, and a drain on the family, murdering your mother in actuality, killing the edifice of love and respect built up over the years in the hearts of other people.”

— Sylvia Plath