Other than obvious errors like forgetting a line, often I can’t see any difference between take one and take 20.

I put a lot of pressure on myself. I think something’s not good enough, and I won’t stop until I feel like I’ve made it. I’m never satisfied.

I have my flaws too, but I am a professional who doesn’t like to miss or lose.

Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard.

A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.

The movie business is a big gamble.

I have an immense amount of respect for acting. I’ve always loved movies and was always fascinated by movie-making. But to become an actor, I wanted to commit myself.

A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they’re stuck in that safe place.

When I’m making an American film, it’s more safe because there are so many people on the set to watch me. Whatever I do, they say, ‚What are you doing!? Tell me first!‘ There are so many restrictions.

A man cannot make a pair of shoes rightly unless he do it in a devout manner.

In America there’s no way I can make the kind of movie I like to make.

Playing big, heroic characters with heart is always a lot of fun. I enjoy making movies like that, and a lot of people love to live vicariously through those characters.

Where I think the most work needs to be done is behind the camera, not in front of it.

‚House of Balloons‘ was special because I had no deadlines, and nobody knew me, so there were no expectations. Spent a year making it perfect. Every song had at least, like, 7 different versions to them before picking the right one.

If you’re waiting for the perfect moment, you’ll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I have no foolproof anything. There’s nothing foolproof.

Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best. Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth; it’s a shield.

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

In art the best is good enough.

If I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.

In 3-D filmmaking, I can take images and manipulate them infinitely, as opposed to taking still photographs and laying them one after the other. I move things in all directions. It’s such a liberating experience.

I’m very picky; I’m never happy with anything. It’s so hard to give the record away and accept that you’re done.

Never neglect details. When everyone’s mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.

Jiro Ono serves Edo-style traditional sushi, the same 20 or 30 pieces he’s been making his whole life, and he’s still unsatisfied with the quality and every day wakes up and trains to make the best. And that is as close to a religious experience in food as one is likely to get.

When we talk about how movies used to be made, it was over 100 years of film, literal, physical film, with emulsion, that we would expose to light and we would get pictures.

Perfectionists demand perfection from themselves first and foremost.

I’m chasing perfection.

First I shake the whole Apple tree, that the ripest might fall. Then I climb the tree and shake each limb, and then each branch and then each twig, and then I look under each leaf.

If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow.

A lot of stuff I do out of pure obsessiveness.

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.

You can scream at me, call me for a shoot at midnight, keep me waiting for hours – as long as what ends up on the screen is perfect.

I used to make little movies when I was younger. I’d make my friends be in them and then edit them.

An exceptional company is the one that gets all the little details right. And the people out on the front line, they know when things are not going right, and they know when things need to be improved. And if you listen to them, you can soon improve all those niggly things which turns an average company into an exceptional company.

Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

On ‚Mystic River,‘ I had to cut my salary and everyone else’s to get it made.

I don’t know if I ever feel totally great about a record when I put it out. With every record that I put out, someone has literally got to come pry it from me because when I listen to my own music, I just hear flaws in it.

This is what customers pay us for – to sweat all these details so it’s easy and pleasant for them to use our computers. We’re supposed to be really good at this. That doesn’t mean we don’t listen to customers, but it’s hard for them to tell you what they want when they’ve never seen anything remotely like it.

I’m not into albums that are meant to sound perfect.

Being a stunt coordinator, I have to take care not only of myself but I have to make sure everyone is safe.

No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there is wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick.

Dancing was always part of my culture growing up in Barbados. When I shot my 1st video I worked really hard with my choreographer to perfect the routines.

There’s an inherent danger in letting people think that they have perfected something. When they believe they’ve ‚nailed it,‘ most people tend to sit back and rest on their laurels while countless others will be labouring furiously to better their work!

It doesn’t bother me when people try to deconstruct my songs – because at least they’re looking at the lyrics, and paying attention to the way the story is told.

I’m one of them guys that tries to make everything the best of the best, so sometimes I’m out of control with it.

I loved the material when I first read it, and the experience of making the film was a great one. So when we came around to complete the trilogy, I just signed on board without even reading the scripts because the experience of the first film was so good.

When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back.

Oh, the difference between nearly right and exactly right.

I’m like a recovering perfectionist. For me it’s one day at a time.

I rewrote the ending to ‚Farewell to Arms,‘ the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.

I have a slight bit of OCD, I think. I’m not walking around flipping light switches. But when I say I’m going to do something, I have to do it.

I have an eye for detail.

You make a movie, and if somebody reads something into it, then great, more power to him.

If I am a cup maker, I’m interested in making the best cup I possibly can. My effort goes into that cup, not what people think about it.

The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.

If you check your ego at the door when it comes to comedy, you’ve got a pretty good shot at making a great movie that you can commit yourself to, you can jump off the proverbial cliff with, and have a great time, and the audiences respond to that.

The best is the enemy of the good.

You just don’t know when you get in the editing room what you will need as a link or a tool for a transition. If you’re in a room, and there’s a kettle boiling, get a shot of it. Don’t worry if people think you’re nuts.

I’m a big perfectionist! I’m trying to channel super-confident women like Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey and Beyonce, because I realized that if you want something, you really have to go for it, just like they do.

In the successful organization, no detail is too small to escape close attention.