The festive season is the busiest time of the football calendar which players, managers, owners and fans alike approach with a mix of bonhomie, optimism and trepidation.

Even for people who live in the country, there is a trepidation now about going outside to play. But it never occurred to us to be fearful when we were young.

I always say that characters must drive plots, never the reverse. Writing about large-scale events creates the risk that the scope of the events themselves can overwhelm the characters. I emphatically do not want that. That was the only trepidation I felt when I started 'The Twilight War.'

When I talk about intersex, people ask me, 'But what about the locker room?' Yes, what about the locker room? If so many people feel trepidation around it, why don't we fix the locker room? There are ways to signal to children that they are not the problem, and normalization technologies are not the way.

The idea of collaborating with anyone else was quite daunting. If Battles had any trepidation in asking me, I can assure you I had more after agreeing to do it.

In my 20 years in football, I was fortunate enough never to have experienced relegation. And while there is the pressure of expectations at the top of the league, at the bottom it comes in fear and trepidation, which is almost worse.

I turn to the 'Telegraph's' obituaries page with trepidation.

In my teens, I eyed my adulthood with trepidation, as if stalked by a stranger - one who would seize control as if by demonic possession and regard my fledgling incarnation with contempt.

I believe that we're not alone. How can we be alone in an infinite universe? I'm using the word 'alien' with a little trepidation because I know that sparks so many different versions of that word, and there are so many different images that come into one person's head when someone says it.

The good thing about not being drop-dead gorgeous is that as time passes, I don't have much to worry about. I have friends who are actors and every day they look in the mirror with trepidation.

You are not thinking hard enough if you are sleeping well. And you would have to be unhinged to take on a subject like the French Revolution, or Rembrandt, and not feel some trepidation. There is always the possibility that you will crash and burn, and the whole thing will be a horrible, vulgar, self-indulgent mess.

Without the compassionate understanding of the fear and trepidation that lie behind courageous speech, we are bound only to our arrogance.

If you don't have nerves and a little trepidation about any new project, then I don't think you're really alive.

Nearly everybody, when they first meet me, seems to have this sense of trepidation.

That was the only trepidation I had about 'Will & Grace.' It had nothing to do with the sexuality of the character. It was more, 'This could be the next 7 to 10 years of my life.'

I had some trepidation about working with someone else, especially a family member. You don't want work to affect your personal relationship.

I always feel trepidation at the beginning of every project. I worry about so many things. Time to get it right, the skill to do it justice, the will to finish. I also worry about more mundane things, like what if my computer crashes and I've forgotten to back up the manuscript?

I told Mother of my decision to study medicine. She encouraged me to speak to Father... I began in a roundabout way... He listened, looking at me with that serious and penetrating gaze of his that caused me such trepidation, and asked whether I knew what I wanted to do.

We all approached doing a sequel with great trepidation and skepticism.

Being at the centre of a film is a burden one takes on with innocence the first time. Thereafter, you take it on with trepidation.