Creativity Quote by Cynthia Weil

Fear, in Cynthia Weil's telling, isn't a stop sign; it's a starting gun. The line has the plainspoken snap of a working songwriter: no therapy-speak, no mythologizing, just a practical method for staying in motion. "The more afraid I am" sets up fear as a reliable diagnostic tool, a signal that something matters or that the stakes are real. Then she flips the expected response. Instead of retreating, she accelerates, not out of bravado but out of impatience with dread itself.

The key phrase is "to get the fear over with". That's the subtextual tell. She's not claiming fear disappears through enlightenment; she's describing a craftsperson's approach to anxiety as wasted time. Fear becomes an annoying pre-show loop you can shorten by walking onstage. It's exposure therapy with a deadline, the emotional equivalent of ripping off the Band-Aid because you still have a song to finish.

Coming from Weil, who helped write the American pop canon alongside Barry Mann ("You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", "On Broadway"), the quote also maps onto the realities of making hits: pitching, rewriting, hearing "no", watching tastes change, and doing it again anyway. Pop success is built on repeated public risk, and the only way to survive that churn is to treat discomfort as part of the job, not a referendum on your talent. The intent isn't motivational poster cheer. It's a credo for artists who understand that fear doesn't mean you're failing; it means you're close to the edge where new work happens.