Dinah Maria Mulock Quotes

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

When I realized that nothing is perfect and no one is perfect, I was able to overcome my initial fears. I was holding myself to some weird standard that I was putting outside of myself, i.e., the director or casting director - they're not expecting perfection. I had all these strange trappings I would put myself in.

I am not a perfectionist. Perfection doesn't exist in real life. It's a wrong title for me.

Perfectionism rarely begets perfection, or satisfaction - only disappointment.

I think that I set such high standards for myself that sometimes I expect other people to live up to these standards, and it's not fair because they're not setting the same goals for themselves.

If you're looking for perfection, look in the mirror. If you find it there, expect it elsewhere.

Perfection' is man's ultimate illusion. It simply doesn't exist in the universe.... If you are a perfectionist, you are guaranteed to be a loser in whatever you do.

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

Perfectionism is self-destructive simply because there is no such thing as perfect. Perfection is an unattainable goal. Additionally, perfectionism is more about perception - we want to be perceived as perfect. Again, this is unattainable - there is no way to control perception, regardless of how much time and energy we spend trying.

So many women around the world in so many different career paths and places are expected to be perfect and I know that it sounds cliché, but none of us are.

One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.

The maxims tell you to aim at perfection, which is well; but it's unattainable, all the same.

Perfectionism is self destructive simply because there's no such thing as perfect. Perfection is an unattainable goal.

You’re not supposed to dislike your own child. You were supposed to like them no matter what, even if they were not what you wanted.

We accept women being complete c-nts if they’re doing it for a child.

People who, as children, were intellectually far beyond their parents and therefore admired by them, but who also therefore had to solve their own problems alone. These people, who give us a feeling of their intellectual strength and will power, also seem to demand that we, too, ought to fight off any feeling of weakness with intellectual means. In their presence one feels one cannot be recognized as a person with problems just as they and their problems were unrecognized by their parents, for whom he always had to be strong.

Parents are flawed human beings who are given a role that more approximates that of God than of mere mortals.

People don't want to see wrinkles, because if they see wrinkles in actors then they have to face that they have wrinkles, too. They'd rather see perfection up there. And so then you get rocket scientists who are 22 years old.

The reason I stopped modeling was because I wasn't pleased with trying to portray something that is impossible to reach. Even when I do photo shoots now for films, I'm just not interested in trying to look my best all the time anymore. That pursuit of an impossible perfection seems ridiculous to me now. I'd rather show my vulnerabilities or my doubts than try to be something that no one is.

High people, sir, are the best; take a hundred ladies of quality, you'll find them better wives, better mothers, more willing to sacrifice their own pleasures to their children, than a hundred other woman.

I say the last 10 percent of the way to perfection takes so much of your life that it isn't worth the effort. This overzealous attitude is what creates religious fanatics, body Nazis, and athletes who are exceedingly dull to converse with.

Parenthood abruptly catapults us into a permanent relationship with a stranger, and the more alien the stranger, the stronger the whiff of negativity. We depend on the guarantee in our children's faces that we will not die. Children whose defining quality annihilates that fantasy of immortality are a particular insult; we must love them for themselves, and not for the best of ourselves in them, and that is a great deal harder to do. Loving our own children is an exercise for the imagination.

You are your own worst enemy. If you can learn to stop expecting impossible perfection, in yourself and others, you may find the happiness that has always eluded you.

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

It seems to me that the most fundamental mistake most parents make with children is to expect them to be grateful. Children are never grateful. ... The 'sacrifices' you made were not for them, they were for you.