Quotes About Perfectionism

And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word.

People call me a perfectionist, but I'm not. I'm a rightist. I do something until it's right, and then I move on to the next thing.

I have got this obsessive compulsive disorder where I have to have everything in a straight line, or everything has to be in pairs.

I was made to be a perfectionist at everything I did. Everything was more important than what I wanted.

I'm always very nervous about the word 'dancer' next to my name because anyone who's really trained in dance will go, 'This guy's fudging so badly.'

If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?

I'm not a Perfectionist."I just don't want to get Embarrassed and Ashamed".

Perfectionism is a delusion that can rob one of a very successful, enriching life if not careful.

The limitations of literalness and an excessive reliance upon reciprocity as a principle for constructing an ultimate environment can result either in an overcontrolling, stilted perfectionism or "works righteousness" or in their opposite, an abasing sense of badness embraced because of mistreatment, neglect or the apparent disfavor of significant others.

The little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush as produces little effect after much labor.

Well, being a perfectionist seems okay from the outside, but a perfectionist never enjoys anything, no matter how well it goes, because nothing is ever perfect.

Show me a hero and I'll show you a man enslaved by his competence.

Knowing when to embrace Good Enough is what gives you the opportunity to be truly excellent when you need to be. We're not suggesting you put shit work out there. You need to be able to be proud of it, even if it's only "okay." But attempting to be indiscriminately great at everything is a foolish waste of energy.

When we start designing something, we sketch out ideas with a big, thick Sharpie marker, instead of a ballpoint pen. Why? Pen points are too fine. They're too high-resolution. They encourage you to worry about things that you shouldn't worry about yet, like perfecting the shading or whether to use a dotted or dashed line. You end up focusing on things that should still be out of focus.

The problem comes when you postpone decisions in the hope that a perfect answer will come to you later. It won't. You're as likely to make a great call today as you are tomorrow.

If you constantly fret about timing things perfectly, they'll never happen.

There is no middle ground in Hollywood you're a failure or you're a success. That mentality is wild.

What happens when people are raised on a steady diet of "You are great, you can do anything, you deserve it, you are the best, you can get what you want"? Sooner or later they find that they are not great, they can't do everything, they are not the best, and they can't control it all. Depression and denial are the only two options left.

Because when you don't perform remarkably well the next time, back to slobhood you will go! And even when you do perform well, you will be anxious about not doing so next time. So you had better like your fine performance—but not deify yourself for doing it.

I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.

I get anxious about a lot of things, that's the trouble. I get anxious about everything. I just can't stop thinking about things all the time. And here's the really destructive part - it's always retrospective. I waste time thinking of what I should have said or done.

It's a nightmare to sit and watch a film that I'm in. There's a horrible inescapability to it.

I don't watch my old films like 'Roja,' 'Dil Se' because I only see mistakes. I see five minutes of the film and I am scared I will start finding mistakes in them.

I don't think any actor really thinks they're good. I watch my own work and I'm like, Oh God, this is terrible, that's terrible.