Quotes About Perfectionism

In the past, I put too much pressure on myself. I went out there and I tried so hard to get the ball in the hole, I tried so hard to hit the perfect shots.

Occasionally, I would focus on a particular school project and become obsessed with, what seemed to my mother, to be trivial details instead of apportioning the time I spent on school work in a more efficient way.

I've driven people mad on films that I've made - I want more takes; I want to try new lines. Then I want to interfere in the editing process, and I want to interfere in the advertising process - everything, everything. Pretty much Barbra Streisand in trousers, I am!

I can find every jacket under the sun that I like. But I cannot find trousers cut the way I want them. They're all really tight at the bottom. Nobody does a boot cut on a trouser leg. It drives me crazy.

I'm a really a fanatical reviser, and there comes a point where I have to declare a truce with the text, or I'll keep fooling with it forever.

I made 'True Detective' like it was going to be the only thing I ever made for television. So put in everything and the kitchen sink. Everything.

There's this trouble with books for me because I'm terrible at thinking of titles. The truth is, even with the titles that I've landed on in the end, they always feel wrong. I think it's because of this whole problem of having to package your book in a certain way.

What I am looking for is a masterpiece. I don't want to waste my time. I am tired of experiments.

I'm not used to seeing the ball go wherever she wants. As a pitcher, I like to be - I don't want to say perfect, but I want to know what the ball is going to do.

The grandest seduction of all is the myth that DOING EVERYTHING BETTER gets us where we want to be. It gets us somewhere, certainly, but not anywhere worth being

I've always been the type of person to make everybody happy and get things done. I want everything to be 100% perfect.

When you're playing such brilliant music every day, then the last thing you ever want to do is try to write something of your own that's crude and not as good.

Mannerism always wants to be finished and doesn't enjoy the process. Genuine, truly great talent, however, finds its greatest satisfaction in the production.

Every time before a collection, I say, "I don't want it to come out. I want to cancel it. It's not good. I haven't achieved anything."

Want to be happy? Stop trying to be perfect.

I'm definitely not very insecure, but I have perfectionist tendencies, and I'll want things to be a certain way.

You can never make someone punctual who is not, or quick who is slow, or lively who wants to plod on carefully. I have learnt that every fault is an exaggerated quality, nothing else.

As a director, you have to go in with a really, really, really clear picture of what you want. That's the point of my commentaries. It's so difficult because you're the harshest critic.

~[My daughter is] very artistic, but she's also a perfectionist. I feel a little bad: That's the part I see in her that's like me - and you don't want them to have that at age 5.~

I'm obsessive. I want to know the answer to how good I am. Most people aren't.

Kessa ran her fingers over her stomach. Flat. But was it flat enough? Not quite. She still had some way to go. Just to be safe, she told herself. Still, it was nice the way her pelvic bones rose like sharp hills on either side of her stomach. I love bones. Bones are beautiful.

I had become obsessed with the control-freak aspect of photography and with the rising importance of the image in our social media age it ended up working.

Europe seems a little softer, but in America it's harsh. In L.A., where I live, it's all about perfectionism.

The biggest insecurity I had was my singing. Even though I had sold 70 million records, there was this feeling like, I'm not good at this.