Mara Wilson Quotes

My grades in high school were not very good. I was that kind of perfectionist that figured if you can't do it perfectly, why do it at all?

It's a very American trait, this wanting people to think well of us. It's a young want, and I am ashamed of it in myself. I am not always a good daughter, even though my lacks are in areas different from her complaints. Haven't I learned yet that the desire to be perfect is always disastrous and, at the least, loses me in the mire of false guilt?

As I wrote more I became more critical of myself and I think that you have to be your harshest judge. I don't ever believe that what I write is my best work. I always think that I can hone it. I can always think that I can make it a little bit better.

If I hear a film clip, or I happen to see some image from a film - you go to a film festival, and they show some clip of the movies you've been in, most of the time I sit there and go, "Oh God, I should have... should have... that was terrible." But I think that's a natural part of this work, because really, your work is never over. Of course I can leave it alone and walk off the set and never think about it again when it's done. But your work is really ongoing all the time.

My brain . . . it cannot process failure. It will not process failure. Because if I sit there and have to face myself and tell myself, 'You're a failure' . . . I think that's almost worse than death.

I think most writers can't really think about their work without a kind of revulsion. And I think that's probably why we keep going back and trying again, trying to do better each time.

Does any woman ever count the grains of her harvest and say: Good enough? Or does one always think of what more one might have laid in, had the labor been harder, the ambition more vast, the choices more sage?

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.

I don't think I write well - just better than anyone else.

I'm the kind of person where you're never done, you just keep perfecting and perfecting and perfecting, or trying to fix things that drive you crazy. Often times when you watch a film, "if I could just get through this minute, I'll be fine." So I think I'm just hard on myself.

I definitely think I put more pressure on myself. I can be hard on myself and super-critical and very rarely satisfied or happy. I am my biggest critic.

Every time I make a movie I think that it's going to be my last one, I think that no one is going to show up. I always have this sense that they're all going to fail. I am scared to death.

I don't ever feel like I've had a moment where I am like, "There it is; perfect and holy in all ways."

I'm super hard on myself anytime I think of an idea for a collaboration. I will rack my brain trying to think of one. I wait for the right person. It stresses me to think that I'd do a collaboration with someone and not make it the best possible opportunity.

I'm never satisfied with what I do.

There's something I find highly embarrassing about it. As soon as I think I've written something smart, the next day I've got nausea, thinking, "Don't even try to be smart, it's absurd."

No matter at what speed I move forward, I am never satisfied.

A lot of actors lack confidence - even if you're doing really well, you kind of feel like this might be your last job. I enjoy the feeling of, "Maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew," and then working really, really hard and thinking, "Wow, I like that. I did that." Don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of person who jumps out of planes and enjoys bungee jumping or anything like that, but I definitely enjoy living quite spontaneously and going with the wind.

If we can’t stand up to the never good enough and who do you think you are? we can’t move forward.

I hope I can improve. I'm far from perfect. Sometimes, I wonder what would happen if I fought myself. I think it would be a one-round KO. But if I was fighting myself, I know I could take my best punch. No, make that two rounds. I would knock myself out in two rounds.

No matter what you are, you're a mess." That's what the world tells us. "Every other woman is your competition. You feel bad about yourself and every other woman think she's perfect.

I don't think anyone could ever be wholly satisfied with their performance.

I think that, right now, I am travelling in many different directions in my mind, on where I wanted to be. So much is wantin' to go back, but I still gotta move forward. But I think it's just that I'm my worst critic at all times, you know? And when I make somethin', it may be five or ten cuts later before I actually call it what it is. I've always been that kind of artist. I'm gonna put myself through the sweat for it, because I think, as an artist, that's what made me iller, is the fact that I didn't wanna just put out anything and everything. It's just a process, you know what I mean?

I don't think I've reached perfection by any stretch of the imagination, but maybe someday I'll become a perfectionist.