Sigrid Nunez Quotes

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.

If I didn't do something perfectly, I had to do it again... I grew up with a glue gun pointed at my head.

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've always been like this - insecure - because I'm striving for something that can't be attained. I don't just want to be OK at this: I want to be the best at it, and I've never achieved that in my mind.

The relentless pursuit of perfection has been my problem over the years. It's maybe held me back.

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.

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.

Needing to have things perfect is the surest way to immobilize yourself with frustration.

People mistake their limitations for high standards.

It's pretty disabling sometimes, the terror of not living up. My expectations are the worst.

But I always feel that whatever I do, I could do better. I suppose it is perfectionism.

I'm neurotic. I complain all the time. I'm a workaholic. And I'm never satisfied.

It's almost like the better I do, the more my feeling of inadequacy actually increases, because I'm just going, 'Any moment, someone's going to find out I'm a total fraud, and that I don't deserve any of what I've achieved. I can't possibly live up to what everyone thinks I am and what everyone's expectations of me are.'

I want to be perfect. I don't want to fail. And you always fail.

What keeps me up is always raising the bar, and what makes my team happiest and also most worrisome is I'm always asking for more.

Four More Shots' is high on the glamour quotient and has perfect looking women. But to constantly look perfect is quite exhausting.

I didn't have stage parents and sometimes I've envied people who did because I felt like, I guess, I'm compulsively worried I'm not accomplishing enough.

Perfectionism rarely begets perfection, or satisfaction - only disappointment.

Oh, I am 1,000 percent too hard on myself.

During those years with the Iron Maidens, I felt I had to be great and really prove myself at every single show.

Sometimes when people ask a lot of me, or they're not liking what I'm turning in, especially when I'm working one on one with someone, I can get really insecure.

Sometimes it seemed like it was never good enough, no matter what I did.

You always feel pressure to do your best, and when you know that the story revolves around you, it can become very overwhelming.

I struggle with perfection.

I kind of felt like I was never good enough. I always wanted more.