"I am pretty fearless, and you know why? Because I don't handle fear very well; I'm not a good terrified person"
About this Quote
Stevie Nicks flips the usual mythology of fearlessness on its head: she is brave not because she’s built different, but because she’s too human to stay afraid for long. The line is funny in that wry, self-deprecating way that makes a pop star feel like a friend, but it also lands as a small philosophy of survival. Fear isn’t romanticized here; it’s treated like an ill-fitting costume. She can’t “handle” it, so she refuses to wear it.
The subtext is control. Nicks has spent a career performing in a culture that expects women to be either delicate or unbreakable, muse or monster. By admitting she’s “not a good terrified person,” she claims agency over that binary. Terror becomes a skill you can be bad at, not a verdict on your character. That’s liberating: if fear is a behavior, not an identity, you can outgrow it, perform past it, or simply decide it’s not worth the psychic rent.
In the context of her public persona - the witchy mystique, the velvet-drenched Fleetwood Mac drama, the stage-as-confessional - the quote reads like a backstage truth. The “fearless” icon is revealing the mechanics underneath: courage as a workaround, a hack. It’s a neat reversal of the inspirational poster version of bravery. Nicks is saying the real engine isn’t confidence; it’s intolerance for the feeling of being small.
The subtext is control. Nicks has spent a career performing in a culture that expects women to be either delicate or unbreakable, muse or monster. By admitting she’s “not a good terrified person,” she claims agency over that binary. Terror becomes a skill you can be bad at, not a verdict on your character. That’s liberating: if fear is a behavior, not an identity, you can outgrow it, perform past it, or simply decide it’s not worth the psychic rent.
In the context of her public persona - the witchy mystique, the velvet-drenched Fleetwood Mac drama, the stage-as-confessional - the quote reads like a backstage truth. The “fearless” icon is revealing the mechanics underneath: courage as a workaround, a hack. It’s a neat reversal of the inspirational poster version of bravery. Nicks is saying the real engine isn’t confidence; it’s intolerance for the feeling of being small.
Quote Details
| Topic | Fear |
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