Quotes About Approval

Somewhere along the way, we adopt this dangerous and debilitating belief system: I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it. Please. Perform. Perfect. Healthy striving is self-focused—How can I improve? Perfectionism is other-focused—What will they think?

Just as a reminder from Chapter 4, perfectionism is not teaching them how to strive for excellence or be their best selves. Perfectionism is teaching them to value what other people think over what they think or how they feel. It's teaching them to perform, please, and prove. Unfortunately, I have many examples from my own life.

We either own our stories (even the messy ones), or we stand outside of them—denying our vulnerabilities and imperfections, orphaning the parts of us that don't fit in with who/what we think we're supposed to be, and hustling for other people's approval of our worthiness.

But I have plenty of experience with trying to meet everyone's expectations so they won't reject me. It's easy to become a slave to that - to lose yourself in it.

there is no kind of flattery so irresistible as this, at second hand.

for, by whatever means you get into the polite circle, when you are once there, it is sufficient merit for you that you are there.

We please the people we don't care for, we displease those we do!

Such a healthy, simple, approving glance as if he were saying to himself: "Ah, spring is coming!" And God knows, when spring comes to Paris the humblest mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise.

All anybody needs to know about prizes is that Mozart never won one.

What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?" "Sing out for him!" was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed voices. "Good!" cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically thrown them. "And what do ye next, men?" "Lower away, and after him!" "And what tune is it ye pull to, men?" "A dead whale or a stove boat!

I met the Coens here a few years ago and they said they liked my work.

Once you succeed at what you're doing, your parents see that what you were doing wasn't so bad after all, though they'd prefer to see you in a secure lifestyle where you have a contract for years and years, or you have a diploma or degree.

In every place there are 100 people who can say no and only one person who can say yes. You have to get a good piece of material to the right person.

Say yes to everything. 'You want me to buy you some food?' Yes. 'You want me to buy you a car?' Yes.

While I was doing stand-up, I thought I knew for sure that success meant getting everyone to like me. So I became whoever I thought people wanted me to be. I'd say yes when I wanted to say no, and I even wore a few dresses.

When Peter Schneider first approached me about adapting 'Sister Act' for the stage, it wasn't a slam dunk to say yes.

Say yes to everything.

If you say 'yes' to good things, you will get good things.

I said yes, which turned out to be the right answer.

Over time, yes, countries will need to look at specific GMO products like they look at drugs today, where they don't approve them all. They look hard at the safety and the testing. And they make sure that the benefits far outweigh any of the downsides.

If you appear in the 'Atlantic' or 'Harper's' or the 'New Yorker,' by God, you must be a writer, because everybody says so.

I also have two dogs, a Chihuahua and a Yorkshire terrier, so if they like him, that's a good sign.

What you guys want, I'm for.

You're basically getting on stage and asking people, 'Do you guys like me? Do you like who I am?' But you grow pretty thick skinned. And the less scared you seem, the more people like you anyway.