Quotes About Perfectionism

Our first album sold a million copies. Because we had such a big hit on the first album, it's always like, 'You can't top the first album.'

I fix things all the time. Every time I do a solo, I re-check it and correct things that don't hit the mark.

When I do solo material I definitely tend to overthink it. I make a lot of rules for myself that are a little bit arbitrary and... it's just painful.

Every time I listen back to solos of mine I'll hear something I like and then another phrase that I can't stand. You have to live with what you play. And the recording medium puts that on us. When I play live gigs I don't think so much like that.

Imagine someone so infatuated by a band that they have every different pressing of every album the band made. Most of the time, the only difference in the album is the matrix number or a different 'made in' notation on the back cover or label. This is enough to make some people extremely excited. Actually, much more than excited.

When we relate to ourselves with loving kindness, perfectionism naturally drops away.

I was afraid that if I didn't maintain the professional demeanor of a maiko at all times I would simply fall apart.

I quarreled with every word, every phrase and expression, every image and letter as if they were the last I was ever going to write. I wrote and rewrote every line as if my life depended on it, and then rewrote it again.

Writing is essentially re-writing and re-writing everything to death, so I spend a lot of hours there in the studio trying to make the language work to paint each picture in the reader's mind and generally deploring how lousy my efforts turn out to be. Like most writers, I suppose.

picture of Percy throwing away the first pancakes she'd made after they were married because they weren't perfectly round flashed through her mind. She quickly hit the mental "Delete" button, determined that she was never going to think about him again.

She knew she was deliberately finding flaw with everything about herself, and finding very little to celebrate. She second-guessed everything she said and did.

I always have the same thing - which is the fear of not getting a laugh - that I've had from the time I was a kid; obsessing over, 'This joke doesn't quite work, we've got to get this right.' I was always like that, whether I was a member of a six-person ensemble or whether I'm the center of a show.

I put the most pressure on myself. I'm so critical and I think that's a hard mentality to live with. You're not really satisfied with anything you do.

I should mention something that nobody ever thinks about, but proofreading takes a lot of time. After you write something, there are these proofs that keep coming, and there's this panicky feeling that 'This is me and I must make it better.'

I'm always thinking 'Don't mess this up.'

I hate mess. I have the worst OCD so I'm not a hoarder of clothes.

I'm never happy about anything, playing-wise. I always think there's things I messed up on, things I should've done differently that could've, A, made us win, or B, made the win easier.

Unless I play like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, it'll be hard to give myself 100 out of 100.

Messing up lines is always embarrassing for me.

I don't like messing up. I think that's just a part of my personality. I don't like to mess up or do anything wrong. When I'm in gymnastics, I like to see my hit percent as high as possible.

I think some people get just locked into 'this is the way it has to be,' and they're afraid of messing something up. I don't ever want to be that way with shooting or with anything, really - not just shooting.

My working method has always been, 'Work really hard and get it right the first time.'

I don't have session players come in and guitars, I'm doing the drums, I'm doing the scratching, I'm doing every sound you hear and that's always been my way. And not only that, I'm very meticulous about it just sounding right.

I'm not really Type A, but A minus.