Abi Morgan Quotes

Nothing you write, if you hope to be good, will ever come out as you first hoped.

I still feel I need to do things 10 times better than other players. Just to be accepted and to improve myself.

Sorry, no, I'm never satisfied with my drumming.

To be honest, I rewrote 'Wicked Nights' a number of times. I just wasn't happy with the end result.

I'm not suggesting that the play is without fault; all of my plays are imperfect, I'm rather happy to say-it leaves me something to do.

One of the by-products of being a perfectionist and constantly trying to improve myself are sobering feelings of low-grade anxiety and a nagging sense of inadequacy. But this is not anxiety without a purpose. No, this anxiety keeps me humble. It creates a healthy tension that serves as the catalyst that drives me to fulfill my limited potential.

I rarely like the music I make. It's like nothing's good enough. I just stay in my head, waiting on the next best beat, so I can do something better than what I did.

I don't think I've ever made something that I'm totally satisfied with. That feeling of doubt, or wanting to do more, is my engine to move forward and make the next iteration.

A lot of what keeps me going is wanting to be better, thinking I'm not good enough.

Seeing the first edit is the worst.

I write a lyric, but when I reread it, I think it's awful and either hide it or crumple it up.

I start a book and I want to make it perfect, want it to turn every color, want it to be the world. Ten pages in, I've already blown it, limited it, made it less, marred it. That's very discouraging. I hate the book at that point. After a while I arrive at an accommodation: Well, it's not the ideal, it's not the perfect object I wanted to make, but maybe—if I go ahead and finish it anyway—I can get it right next time. Maybe I can have another chance.

I've spent so long on some paintings that I no longer know what to think of them, and I am definitely getting harder to please; nothing satisfies me.

Aiming for perfection causes frustration at best and paralysis at worst.

I've always hated rejection; I only want to go out there when I know I've got it right.

I second-guess and overthink and rethink every single thing that I do.

Painting is damned difficult - you always think you've got it, but you haven't.

Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough - that we should try again.

A face in the picture would bother me, so I'd rub it out with the turpentine and do it over.

I never made a film which fully satisfied me.

So fear helps me from making mistakes, but I make lot of mistakes.

Mistakes I've made in the past make me afraid to try new things in the future. I want to be perfect.

If you get a sense that your writing isn't quite working, change it. Or cut it out. Don't just tell yourself it'll do, because it won't.

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

I had such high expectations of myself. I was going to be the best mother, the best housewife, the best entertainer, the best nurse, you know - what it was, I was going to be the best. And I could never live up to my expectations.