A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.

I'm scared of the unknown future.

Sometimes I make very selfish choices like I did 'Once Upon A Time' for my inner 8-year-old and my hypothetical future child. I've done some movies because I would regret them if I didn't but other projects I've done because they've scared me or if I felt I needed to do a big romantic comedy to help me professionally.

The future is called 'perhaps ' which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.

I remember being onstage once when I didn't have fear: I got so scared I didn't have fear that it brought on an anxiety attack.

When we were scared about 9/11 we federalized the airport security we spent millions for body armor for dogs in Ohio. All that over-reaction comes from fear and government - bad combination.

When you say 'fear of the unknown' that is the definition of fear fear is the unknown fear is what you do not know and it's genetically within us so that we feel safe. We feel scared of the woods because we're not familiar with it and that keeps you safe.

The way you deal with a scare is the way you deal with a laugh. The timing has to be perfect. When you're dealing with fear or laughter - emotions that happen spontaneously - you hope it's working. But in the moment you really have no idea.

A line from one of my 1997 columns - 'Do one thing every day that scares you' - is now widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt though I have yet to see any evidence that she ever said it and I don't believe she did. She said some things about fear but not that thing.

My only problem is the fear that opposition bowlers might go for my fingers and that's why I was scared of the short ball. Now I am struggling with the ball pitching up and swinging away. I just keep nicking that one.

The fear of the never-ending onslaught of gizmos and gadgets is nothing new. The radio the telephone Facebook - each of these inventions changed the world. Each of them scared the heck out of an older generation. And each of them was invented by people who were in their 20s.

More than fantasy or even science fiction Ray Bradbury wrote horror and like so many great horror writers he was himself utterly without fear of anything. He wasn't afraid of looking uncool - he wasn't scared to openly love innocence or to be optimistic or to write sentimentally when he felt that way.

But I love being scared. I think you're brave only when you do things that scare you. I've always used fear as a motivator. I'm not sure why.

I was probably more scared of my high school exams than I was of the Oscars. At the time you think it's everything and if you don't do well your life's over. Opportunities are gone. So the more you do it the less the fear is present.

Going to New York to do whatever - show business - it just seemed fun. It seemed fun to go to the big city and meet all kinds of different people and maybe be famous. It was just exciting. So I wasn't scared.

I've never dreamed of being famous. The idea of it really scares me.

Over the years my mother's steadfast faith in God has inspired me particularly when I had to perform extremely difficult surgical procedures or when I found myself faced with my own medical scare.

I'm not scared of anything in particular but I am motivated by a fear of failure as opposed to a need to succeed.

Failure? Scared to death of it.

Words are capable of making experience more vivid and also of organizing it. They can scare us and they can comfort us.

I'm watching the Weather Channel more than I've ever watched it. I'm scared to death it's going to rain.

I'm not supposed to be able to speak clearly and decipher what's going on in the media. I'm supposed to be the typical amateur who's 22 and scared to death and can't believe he won the Olympics.

Libertarians know that a free country has nothing to fear from anyone coming in or going out - while a welfare state is scared to death of poor people coming in and rich people getting out.

It's something I want to overcome. And my kids are scared to death to fly. I want them to witness me overcome it.