"Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough - that we should try again"
About this Quote
Perfectionism gets sold as ambition with good posture, but Julia Cameron flips it into something darker: a self-protective addiction to dissatisfaction. Her line works because it refuses perfectionism the one thing it craves - moral prestige. Instead of “high standards,” she frames it as an internal heckler that keeps moving the goalposts, turning effort into evidence for the prosecution. The sting is in “pursuit of the worst in ourselves”: perfectionism isn’t aimed at excellence; it’s aimed at shoring up a story of inadequacy.
Cameron’s intent is pragmatic, not merely diagnostic. As a creativity teacher (The Artist’s Way era), she’s naming the mechanism that keeps artists stuck in revision loops, forever “almost ready,” safely distant from the risks of finishing and being seen. The subtext is that perfectionism is less about quality than control: if the work is never done, it can never be judged, rejected, or misunderstood. “We should try again” sounds virtuous, but she exposes it as the voice of delay dressed up as discipline.
The context matters: Cameron writes from a late-20th-century self-help and creative-recovery tradition that treats blocks as learned patterns, not personality traits. By calling perfectionism “the worst,” she’s giving readers permission to treat it like an intruder rather than an identity. It’s a rhetorical reframe with teeth: once perfectionism is understood as self-sabotage, “good enough” stops being resignation and becomes an act of creative courage.
Cameron’s intent is pragmatic, not merely diagnostic. As a creativity teacher (The Artist’s Way era), she’s naming the mechanism that keeps artists stuck in revision loops, forever “almost ready,” safely distant from the risks of finishing and being seen. The subtext is that perfectionism is less about quality than control: if the work is never done, it can never be judged, rejected, or misunderstood. “We should try again” sounds virtuous, but she exposes it as the voice of delay dressed up as discipline.
The context matters: Cameron writes from a late-20th-century self-help and creative-recovery tradition that treats blocks as learned patterns, not personality traits. By calling perfectionism “the worst,” she’s giving readers permission to treat it like an intruder rather than an identity. It’s a rhetorical reframe with teeth: once perfectionism is understood as self-sabotage, “good enough” stops being resignation and becomes an act of creative courage.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Improvement |
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