Julia Cameron Quotes

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

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.

If you set your bar at 'amazing' it's awfully difficult to start. Your first paragraph, sketch, formula, sample or concept isn't going to be amazing. Your tenth one might not be either. Confronted with the gap between your vision of perfect and the reality of what you've created, the easiest path is no path. Shrug. Admit defeat. Hit delete. One more reason to follow someone else and wait for instructions. Of course, the only path to amazing runs directly through not-yet-amazing. But not-yet-amazing is a great place to start, because that's where you are.

Competing with other women wastes a lot of time, and I'm just not very good at it.

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

The more I come to understand music, the more I feel like a numbskull because there is always more to learn. The more I do it, the more I'm humbled. I'm just always trying to get better at it. I pick up a few tricks along the way.

I've never been happy with the quality of my work. I always felt as though my musicianship was lacking and that I should have worked harder at it when I was younger. As I sang and sang, I improved.

I am never happy with what I do, so I try not to watch stuff that is filmed with me in it because I am always like, 'Oh, I could have done that a little bit better,' or, 'I could have done that differently - that riff could have been a little better.'

Usually I throw away what I don't get right the first time.

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.

Realize that everyone that you think is perfect feels like they're not good enough, too.

If I was doing something that I really, really enjoyed I want to be perfect at it and not make mistakes and do everything right. And when inevitably I made mistakes, because that's what humans do, I would get very angry, very disappointed, very discouraged.

All work is a process of failure. Every single thing I write, I look at it and go, 'Do better. That's not good enough. Do better.' And so, that keeps me up at night.

No matter how accomplished or how many awards you get, you're always still thinking there's somebody out there who's better than you.

If I'm not playing well, I do get down on myself because I am a perfectionist. [So I need] someone who believes in me more than I believe in me, someone willing to work as hard as I work. I don't understand what no means or what failure means; I only understand what yes means and try again means.

I've let go of being a super perfectionist on every single note and wanting the pitch to be absolutely perfect all of the time. I grew up watching the best of the best.

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.

Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self- solitude is the enemy of well- being.

I'm constantly striving to break through to something new. You try to maintain a neutral approach to your work, and not be too hard on yourself.

By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

Everything has already been done. every story has been told every scene has been shot. it’s our job to do it one better.

What you create doesn't have to be perfect.

Every time you reject yourself, you idealize others

A "take" is an opportunity to fail ... and we think that we have to get it right all the time.

I can't believe that I've written my best work yet. If I believed that, then I wouldn't bother releasing music anymore.