Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

I think there's a time as a writer when you want to see the best things in life, and you go out wherever you go with your dreams as a writer or a composer.

But I always feel that whatever I do, I could do better. I suppose it is perfectionism.

What is it men love in Genius, but its infinite hope, which degrades all it has done? Genius counts all its miracles poor and short. Its own idea it never executed.

Talent seduces us into interpretation. My sister could draw wonderfully, but she would never have hit upon the idea of becoming a painter. I never had that extreme talent.

If you are never satisfied with what you write, that is a good sign. It means that your vision can see so far that it's hard to come up to it. Again I say - the only unfortunate people are the glib ones, immediately satisfied with their work. To them, the ocean is only knee-deep.

The relentless pursuit of perfection has been my problem over the years. It's maybe held me back.

I know, speaking for myself, no matter what I'm able to do, no matter what book comes out and ends up on paper, I always had something bigger and grander in my head.

Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.

Movie directors, or should I say people who create things, are very greedy and they can never be satisfied... That's why they can keep on working. I've been able to work for so long because I think next time, I'll make something good.

In truth, the only restrictions on our capacity to astonish ourselves and each other are imposed by our own minds.

A theatre is the most important sort of house in the world because that's where people are shown what they could be if they wanted and what they'd like to be if they dared to and what they really are.

I can't say I've ever finished a film and been particularly thrilled with myself or patted myself on the back. And maybe that's what keeps me going, and that's a good thing. It speaks volumes about how I perceive myself.

I've always been too hard on myself to behave like I've arrived or even to enjoy whatever success I've had. I've always envisioned myself higher than where I was and I still do. With each success I think, 'That's nice but I'm supposed to go there!'

To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.

I have a lot of what you might call creative self-loathing - I have pretty high expectations, and they seem to consistently be higher than what I'm able to accomplish.

I've always wanted to do a photo book, but I've never done one because I've never felt ready; I just didn't feel my work was good enough.

I don't think there's ever a point when you turn to yourself and go, 'Yes, I've made a success of this career path.' You never feel like you've done your best work. You always think you could be better.

I never really got on my own case about my own acting. I know a lot of other people have, and probably very justifiably. But I don't worry about stuff like that too much.

Even as a kid in drawing class, I had real ambition. I wanted to be the best in the class, but there was always some other feller who was better; so I thought, 'It can't be about being the best, it has to be about the drawing itself, what you do with it.' That's kind of stuck with me.

An artist's career always begins tomorrow.

I don't believe in perfection. I don't think there is such a thing. But the energy of wanting things to be great is a perfectionist energy.

There is in most Americans some spark of idealism, which can be fanned into a flame. It takes sometimes a divining rod to find what it is; but when found, and that means often, when disclosed to the owners, the results are often extraordinary.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

Some of the best songs that I know are the ones I haven't written yet, and it doesn't even matter if I don't ever write them, because it's only small potatoes compared with the big picture.

People would say to me, 'Who do you want to be as an artist?' And I would just look at them because I didn't know.