Julia Cameron Quotes

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.

I don't very often think I've done a good job. I don't like the majority of what I do. I shouldn't say I don't like it, but I'm not satisfied with almost everything that I do.

Perfectionists are their own devils.

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.

Perfectionism rarely begets perfection, or satisfaction - only disappointment.

Perfectionism becomes a badge of honor with you playing the part of the suffering hero.

We're taught at such a young age that you can always be better and that you're never perfect and that you're never good enough.

Actually, I can't imagine anything more tedious than a perfect person, especially if it was someone who also demanded perfection from me.

I'm probably my own harshest critic. If I get a hundred good reviews and one really bad one, it's that one out of a hundred that I remember. I think we actors are hard on ourselves, and I don't know why that is.

I'm never happy with my performance.

I do feel like, especially nowadays, we are inundated with the message that, 'Oh my God, you aren't making your own clothes? You didn't make your own bread? And you also don't have a career, and you don't look unbelievable, and you have 5 pounds on your frame? Where is your book that you haven't published yet?'

When I'm tough on myself, I'm never satisfied.

I'm supposed to be perfect.

Regardless of what I do, no matter how good it is, it's never, in my mind, 'flawless.'

Most of the stuff I do is garbage.

I criticize my own work pretty harshly.

I constantly experience failure in that my work is never as good as I want it to be. So I live with failure.

I'm totally an anxious mess all the time. There's a constant dialogue going on in my brain, and it's just reminding me of all the failures that I have had, and all of the things I need to do, and all of the things I'm not doing good enough.

And it is easy to believe you are not good enough if you listen to everybody else.

Many people think of perfectionism as striving to be your best, but it is not about self-improvement; it's about earning approval and acceptance.

I'm usually convinced that what I'm working on is a total disaster.

It sounds funny, but my biggest fear is that I'm not perfect. I'm a perfectionist, and I get upset when things go wrong or when I don't do well.

I think all my videos suck.

My stories are never quite good enough.

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.