Patti Smith Quotes

I will never reach perfection.

I'm the type of person who is always going to be somewhat dissatisfied with myself. I'm never going to be smart enough. I'm never going to be a good enough father and husband. I'm never going to be a good enough actor for myself. I just never will be, and I have to get comfortable with waking up every day and trying to move some little increment closer to the person I have always dreamed of being. This is the journey.

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.

I always say I've given 24 insufficient performances and I'm looking forward to the time in my life when I'll do something that I think is good. There's always stuff you can do better, stuff that maybe you didn't uncover enough. But if you do something that you truly believe is perfect, then that's got to be the last movie you do.

I'm not perfect, but I'd like to be perfect. I'm working on it.

It's not possible to be perfect - you can always do something better. I'm never proud of what I've done. Sometimes, I'm not ashamed.

I never feel like anything I have done is perfect. I feel like there is always room for improvement.

The moment you achieve perfection, you are dead. The word exists because we are all imperfect. That is true about performance as well.

If we pretend to have reached either perfection or satisfaction, we have degraded ourselves and our work. God's work only may express that, but ours may never have that sentence written upon it, Behold it was very good.

People can live up to high standards, but they can't live up to perfection.

All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection.

There have been a few moments when I have known complete satisfaction, but only a few. I have rarely been free from the disturbing realization that my playing might have been better.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

We can't be as good as we'd want to, so the question then becomes, how do we cope with our own badness?

I too have my own demons, and I have struggled. I've made my own mistakes, and I'm not proud of them.

As I have got older, I have become easier on myself. It's about realising things can't be perfect.

No one is perfect and everyone wishes they could change something about themselves.

I've never felt completely satisfied with what I've done. I tend to see things too critically. I'm trying to get over that.

No one has a resume that they are 100% comfortable with, nor does anyone have a life that they are 100% comfortable with.

Nobody can be perfect unless he admits his faults, but if he has faults how can he be perfect?

I'm not perfect, but I strive for it.

I was deeply uncertain of who I was and who I wanted to be. I really thought I wanted to be a much cooler guy than what I was.

Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.

My work is of me; it's not me. I want it to be far more extraordinary than I am.