Brennan Manning Quotes

The ideal man doesn't exist. A husband is easier to find.

Our society nurtures the illusion that all the rewards go to the people who are perfect. But many of us are finding out that trying to be perfect is costly.

Life does not measure up to performing... Performing is perfect.

Who is ever adequate? We all create situations each other can't live up to, then break our hearts at them because they don't.

Mother set impossibly high standards for us, creating tremendous pressures and undermining our ability to accomplish whatever modest aims we may have set for ourselves.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.

The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.

They very seldom let me lose my cool. They made me like I was Polly Perfect, which was ridiculous so that when I bump into kids on the street they'd say 'I wish my Mom were like you.'

It is too bad that the public expects from me, always, perfection which it is impossible for me always to attain. I am not a machine. I am a human being.

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.

People expect me to be thin and perfect... I'm not.

You know one of the causes of modern despair is the fact that we have had proposed to us, from various quarters, an impossible perfection.

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is wrong.

I think there is a lot of pressure on people to be perfect all the time, and so there is this fairytale image of everything, but at the end of the day we are just like other people.

I'm such a perfectionist and I want to do everything right, kick every goal, do everything perfectly, but that is not reality.

Perfectionism rarely begets perfection, or satisfaction - only disappointment.

I'm very hard on myself. Sometimes too hard on myself. When I lost in the Wimbledon finals, I was so sad, I cried. I had the runner-up trophy! It's still a great accomplishment, but I was so mad.

I'm supposed to be perfect.

When people insist on perfection or nothing, they get nothing.

Nothing the writer can do is ever enough.

Life isn't all diamonds and rose... but it should be.

Reaching for the stars, perfectionists may end up clutching at air.

I don't think it's realistic for someone to have an undying loyalty to everything you ever make.

If you expect perfection from people your whole life is a series of disappointments, grumblings, and complaints.

You cannot be completely nice. It's impossible. Who is it? Who is the perfect guy? Show him to me! It doesn't exist. And thank god.