Quotes About Perfectionism

If you're a perfectionist and you know you're about to do something at which you cannot be perfect, then that is daunting because you know what your heart is like and the way you approach your work.

Your best work always seems to have been done by someone else.

I revise and revise and revise. I'm not even sure "revise" is the right word. I work a story almost to death before it's done.

I work hard to make the poems as good as they can be, and if they're not good enough I scrap them. I find it difficult after a gap of a few years to tinker - I'm more likely to destroy.

Work hard to seem infallible and others will work to find our flaws. Admit our shortcomings and others will work to help us be infallible.

We're always hardest on our own work, I guess.

I never lose that terror of 'this is my last job, I'll never work again.' You can never relax and rely on whatever reputation you've built.

perfectionism is the enemy of art. Since art is essentially divine play, not dogged work, it often happens that as one becomes more professionally driven one also becomes less capriciously playful.

I never understand how writers can succumb to vanity - what you work the hardest on is usually the worst.

You should just go, go to work, work hard, be a perfectionist, be a workhorse. If you work 10 years straight, you'll be comfortable and set for life. That is a fact.

We are perfectionists. We are hungry to work all the time. We are entertained by every aspect of business and we never want to stop working.

[Warren Beatty] will sometimes spend hours on a very small detail to make sure he gets it right. After the kind of work that he's made, he certainly doesn't have to be doing that.

When you work with Sir Anthony there are days when he will do a lot of takes if he's really enjoying a scene.

I'm not patient, and some things drive me crazy. In my work, I get incredibly upset when people don't get it right or don't respect others' needs.

I check fashion magazines when I'm published in them to make sure that my work looks good, and then I kind of put it aside.

It's one thing to be a perfectionist when you're alone, but when you're trying to make it work in an ensemble that's a whole different deal.

I aim to be content with what I produce. It's an aim I never achieve, but I go over my work word by word, time and again, so as to be as little dissatisfied as possible.

There are good photographers who might elevate themselves to the ranks of the great simply by burning most of their work.

I've actually always been fussy about the work I do.

I'll probably never put out another album because I'm a tough critic of my work, and I don't think I could come up to those standards any more.

In terms of work, I never felt that I've done it right. I always want to have done it differently, to have done it better, a different way.

One of the reasons writers are never satisfied with their work is because they're always striving to do better.

If you have a perfectionist streak - and who doesn't? - running can kill the perfectionist inside you.

My favorite caricaturist is Al Hirschfeld. I'm always trying to give my caricatures that streamlined quality - and I often fall short.