Quotes about perfection
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“From this distance everything is so bloody perfect.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“Angel says that rich people don't like to tolerate much. Money gives you permission to just walk away from everything that isn't pretty and perfect. You can't put up with anything less than lovely. You spend your life running, avoiding, escaping.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Diary

Source: Diary

Love, Life, Money, People

“Despite my best efforts, I'm not quite perfect. Let's just say I'm like one of those Hopi blankets where they leave a tiny flaw so as to not affront the Lord.”

Jen Lancaster (1967) American writer

Source: Bitter Is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office

Effort

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

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

“WORTH IT and perfect are different things. No one’s perfect, yet in romance, everyone becomes WORTH IT. And that’s the trick.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

“Beauty and ingenuity beat perfection hands down, every time.”

Nalo Hopkinson (1960) Jamaican Canadian writer

Source: Sister Mine

Beauty, Beauty, Time

“So I buy it. The most perfect little cardigan in the world. People will call me the Girl in the Gray Cardigan. I’ll be able to live in it. Really, it’s an investment.”

Sophie Kinsella book The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic

Source: Confessions of a Shopaholic

People, World, Girl

“Nobody's perfect. Well, there was this one guy, but we killed him….”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Guy

“Warriors of the light are not perfect. Their beauty lies in accepting this fact and still desiring to grow and to learn.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

(1997)
Source: Warrior of the Light

Beauty, Light, Learning

“She was perfect, pure maddening sex, and she knew it, and she played on it, dripped it, and allowed you to suffer for it.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum

Sex, Suffering

“May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

“The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Universe

“Thanks for putting me up for it…." As V's eyes flared, Butch said, "Yeah, I looked up what the word meant. 'Beloved Friend' fits you perfect as far as I'm concerned."

V Flushed. Cleared his throat. "Good Deal, cop. Good… deal.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Revealed

Source: Lover Revealed

“Perfection is a stick with which to beat the possible.”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

Source: Hope in the Dark

“A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

Source: "Reflections on Containment", Foreign Affairs, Vol. 73, No. 3 (June 1994), p. 130

Country

“The world will fall, the gods will die, and I will never achieve a perfect score on this stupid machine.
-Dionysus”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

God, Stupidity, World

“I seek truth and beauty in the transparency of an autumn leaf, in the perfect form of a seashell on the beach, in the curve of a woman's back, in the texture of an ancient tree trunk, but also in the elusive forms of reality.”

Isabel Allende book Portrait in Sepia

Source: Portrait in Sepia

Truth, Beauty, Autumn, Reality

“if I wait to be
perfect
before I love myself
I will always be
unsatisfied
and ungrateful

if I wait until
all the flaws, chips,
and cracks disappear
I will be the cup
that stands on the shelf
and is never used”

Joyce Rupp (1943) American writer

Love, Waiting

“It's all very well to put the government in the hands of the perfect man, but what do you do when the perfect man gets a bellyache?”

David Eddings book Belgarath the Sorcerer

Source: Belgarath the Sorcerer

“I may not be perfect, but parts of me are excellent”

Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist

Parting

“There is such a thing as too much beauty in a woman and it is often a burden as crippling as homeliness and far more dangerous. It takes much luck and integrity to survive the gift of perfect beauty, and its impermanence is its most cunning betrayal.”

Pat Conroy book The Prince of Tides

Source: The Prince of Tides

Beauty, Betrayal

“You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

“There is no Mr. Right because there is no Mr. Wrong. There is whoever is in front of us, and the perfect lessons to be learned from that person.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: Return to Love

Learning, Personality

“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.”

David D. Burns (1942) American psychiatrist

Universe

“Son of Poseidon? East asked. I nodded. Took a dip in the Styx? Hudson asked. Yep. They made digusted sounds. Well that's perfect East said. Now how do we kille him?”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

“He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

Fear

“If some lives form a perfect circle, other take shape in ways we cannot predict or always understand. Loss has been part of my journey. But it has also shown me what is precious. So has love for which I can only be grateful.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Love, Way, Understanding, Loss

“AND what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Life

“Drifting off to sleep, I thought about her. How nobody is perfect. How you just have to close your eyes and breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Sleep, Heart

“We are perfect in our imperfection.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Second Helpings

“This is what I like about photographs. They're proof that once, even if just for a heartbeat, everything was perfect.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

“My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That's heaven. That's gold and anything else is just a waste of time.”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

Time

“We deny the parts of ourselves that we deem unacceptable rather than accepting the fact that we're all less than perfect.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Source: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life

Parting

“Since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Mirror Dance

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)

“I'd been told that he had been created-literally created-just for me, as my "perfect other half." Let me tell you-if Dylan was my perfect other half, then i needed to give my first half a seriouis look-see.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Angel

“It was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

“These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

The Yosemite http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/the_yosemite/ (1912), chapter 15: Hetch Hetchy Valley  <br class="br">1910s <br class="br">Context: These temple-destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar. Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.

God, Mountain, Nature

“I knew that it wouldn’t last. It was just a moment, a perfect moment, as time stood still and fleetingly everything fell back into its proper place.”

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

Source: That Summer

Time

“Don’t aim for perfection. Evolution, and life, only happen through mistakes.”

Matt Haig (1975) British writer

Source: The Humans

Life

“Perfection does not exist -- you can always do better and you can always grow.”

Les Brown (1945) American politician

“Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.”

Guy De Maupassant book Suicides

"Suicides"

Life, World, Universe, Memory

“Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable.”

Primo Levi book If This Is a Man

If This Is a Man (1947)
Context: Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition, which is opposed to everything infinite. Our ever-insufficient knowledge of the future opposes it: and this is called, in the one instance, hope, and and in the other, uncertainty of the following day. The certainty of death opposes it: for it places a limit on every joy, but also on every grief. The inevitable material cares oppose it: for as they poison every lasting happiness, they equally assiduously distract us from our misfortunes and make our consciousness of them intermittent and hence supportable.

Life, Happiness

“In order to be a perfect member of a flock of sheep, one has to be, foremost, a sheep.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Um ein tadelloses Mitglied einer Schafherde sein zu können, muß man vor allem ein Schaf sein.
The New Quotable Einstein
variant translation from Ideas and Opinions: "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."
1950s, Essay to Leo Baeck (1953)

“I'm not perfect, either. In the end, it's only God's judgement that matters, and I've learned enough to know that no one can presume to know the will of God.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

God, Learning

“Perfectionism is a shield that we carry with a thought process that says this, 'If I look perfect, live perfect, work perfect, and do it all perfectly, I can avoid or minimize feeling shame, blame, and judgement.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Feeling

“I looked for perfection, and I found something better.”

Orson Scott Card book Xenocide

Source: Xenocide

“Yet man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, and that is half the battle.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Learning

“I have to admit, an unrequited love is so much better than a real one. I mean, it's perfect… As long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Love

“He took my hand, made me stand on the branch and asked, "What can you see from here?"
"Nothing" I said,
"Know what I can see? From this distance everything is so bloody perfect".”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.”

Primo Levi book The Periodic Table

Source: The Periodic Table

“We survived. You and I. And those who survive have a duty. Our duty is to do our best to keep on living. Even if our lives are not perfect.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

“People are screwed up in this world. I'd rather be with someone screwed up and open about it than somebody perfect and ready to explode.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

People, World

“If you can believe the God who is perfect loves you then you can believe that you are worth loving.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Beauty for Ashes: Receiving Emotional Healing

Love, God

“The yard was full of tomato plants about to ripen, and mint, mint, everything smelling of mint, and one fine old tree that I loved to sit under on those cool perfect starry California October nights unmatched anywhere in the world.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

Love, World, Tree, Night

“Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Change

“Good things come, but they're never perfect; are they? You have to twist them into something perfect.”

Maud Hart Lovelace (1892–1980) American writer

Source: Betsy and the Great World / Betsy's Wedding

“To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Winston Churchill (June 23, 1925), His complete speeches, 1897–1963, edited by Robert Rhodes James, Chelsea House ed., vol. 4 (1922–1928), p. 3706. During a debate with Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden.
Often misquoted as: To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.
Early career years (1898–1929)

Wise, Change

“When you have a kid, you sign on for the whole package: good, bad, everything in between. you can't just dip in and out, picking and choosing the parts you want and quitting when it's not perfect.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

Parting