Never Good Enough Quotes & Sayings

For myself, the way that I learned comedy was doing it live for four years, and only after doing sketch for four years did I feel confident enough to be like, 'Okay, I feel good about starting to put stuff on the Internet where it lives forever.' As opposed to one time at a college sketch show where it bombs and we never speak of it again. — Rachel Bloom

We don't go out there into the world and do what would make us feel happy and fulfilled with our lives, because what if it's not good enough for our parents? What if it's not cool enough for our friends? What if our choices aren't good enough for everybody else? "But know this: no matter what you do, you will never escape judgment and criticism. Don't even take this as bad news. It just is. It's what people do. They can't help it. You're getting judged either way, so you might as well do what makes you happy. — Katie Morton

It's hard enough to make a good song and a good recording of that song. But to try to tailor it to some outside force is just like - It's never been a factor in what I've done or what the band's done. — James Iha

And much more am I sorrier for my good knights' loss than for the loss of my fair queen; for queens I might have enough, but such a fellowship of good knights shall never be together in no company. — Thomas Malory

If we can't stand up to the never good enough and who do you think you are? we can't move forward. — Brene Brown

It all came down to entitlement, and one's sense of it. Marina, feeling entitled, never really asked herself if she was good enough. Whereas he, Julius, asked himself repeatedly, answered always in the affirmative, and marveled at the wider world's apparent inability to see the light. he would have to show them - of this he was ever more decided, with a flamelike conviction. But he was already thirty, and the question was how? — Claire Messud

Woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference ... It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm. — Jane Austen

The Internet is a wonder, to be sure, but it is also a curse. Part of the problem with the Internet is that it has taught generations of people to look for what they believe to be true, for confirmation of their assumption. That is never a good practice. No matter how square the fact is, if it is soft enough, it can be jammed into a round hole. The Internet is full of very squishy facts. — Sheila Horgan

When a writer's whole being is poured into a piece of work, there is never enough. The feeling of finally getting to the end of a piece of work, of making it as good as you can at that moment, is more of a relief than anything else, and then you wait for reviews. — Dani Shapiro

He was good at this because he had a variety of speeds and levels. He could go slow and be gentle or he could go fast and be hungry. It usually started with one and then moved gradually (and never fast enough but definitely good enough) through the rest. — Kristen Ashley

He never spoke with any bitterness at all, no matter how awful the things he said. Are there really people without resentment, without hate, she wondered. People who never go cross-grained to the universe? Who recognize evil, and resist evil, and yet are utterly unaffected by it? Of course there are. Countless, the living and the dead. Those who have returned in pure compassion to the wheel, those who follow the way that cannot be followed without knowing they follow it, the sharecropper's wife in Alabama and the lama in Tibet and the entomologist in Peru and the millworker in Odessa and the greengrocer in London and the goatherd in Nigeria and the old, old man sharpening a stick by a dry streambed somewhere in Australia, and all the others. There is not one of us who has not known them. There are enough of them, enough to keep us going. Perhaps. — Ursula K. Le Guin

I have never known a novel that was good enough to be good in spite of its being adapted to the author's political views. — Edith Wharton

I clinked my bottle against his. "To being the only girl a
guy with no standards doesn't want to sleep with." I said,
taking a swig.
"Are you serious?" he asked, pulling the bottle from my
mouth. When I didn't recant, he leaned toward me. "First of
all ... I have standards. I've never been with an ugly woman.
Ever. Second of all, I wanted to sleep with you. I thought
about throwing you over my couch fifty different ways, but I
haven't because I don't see you that way anymore. It's not
that I'm not attracted to you, I just think you're better than
that."
I couldn't hold back the smug smile that crept across my
face. "You think I'm too good for you."
He sneered at my second insult. "I can't think of a single
guy I know that's good enough for you. — Jamie McGuire

When you're lucky enough to have a good film made of your novel - and 'Never Let Me Go' is, believe me, a heartbreakingly good film indeed - you get wonderfully talented individuals each focusing on their special area. — Kazuo Ishiguro

I'm not a 'Twilight' boy; I'll never be as good looking as those lads, and that's fair enough. — Luke Evans

If you have never failed at anything, then you haven't been trying hard enough, aren't very imaginative, or have had such extraordinarily good luck that you have come to believe you are invincible. — Margaret Heffernan

fingers into a beak and flapped it open and shut: talk, talk. "You never know. If you pick him up, he'll just call his lawyer. You might lose your only chance to talk to him." "No, it's better we pick him up. After that, you can sweet-talk him, Duff. That's what you're good at." "You sure?" "We can't have people saying we didn't push hard enough on this guy." The comment was off key, and a doubtful expression crossed Duffy's face. We had always made it a rule not to give a shit how things looked or what people thought. A prosecutor's judgment is supposed to be insulated from politics. "You know what I mean, Paul. This is the first credible — William Landay

... the kids, they took us places we never would have gone to on our own. Some times were great... some times were wretched... And there was still no guarantee, no bulletproof glass, safety net, steel-toed boots, anything at all that would promise more good moments... so was it enough? It was. — Mary J. Koral

Love, no matter how you come at it, is a huge risk. It makes it easier for me to remember that God will never reject me because I am not good enough and that any community that has His heart will embrace me as I am. Jesus invites us into a community where imperfect people can find acceptance, love, forgiveness, and a new beginning. — Erwin Raphael McManus

When I had to leave she kissed me on both cheeks - a thing she had never done before - and said, 'There's just one thing to remember; whatever happens, it does no good to be afraid.' So I promised not to be afraid, and may even have been a fool enough to think I could keep my promise. — Robertson Davies

I may have had many projects, but I never was free to carry out any of them. It did me little good to be holding the helm; no matter how strong my hands, the sudden and numerous waves were stronger still, and I was wise enough to yield to them rather than resist them obstinately and make the ship founder. Thus I never was truly my own master but was always ruled by circumstances. — Napoleon Bonaparte

To defend something is always to discredit it. Let a man have a warehouse full of gold, let him be willing to give away a ducat to every one of the poor - but let him also be stupid enough to begin this charitable undertaking of his with a defence in which he offers three good reasons in justification; and it will almost come to the point of people finding it doubtful whether indeed he is doing something good. But now for Christianity. Yes, the person who defends that has never believed in it. If he does believe, then the enthusiasm of faith is not a defence, no, it is the assault and the victory; a believer is a victor. — Soren Kierkegaard

F
off. It's not like that. Her and me. I'm just saying
"
"That you hadn't left her for good. I never said you had. You just wanted to withdraw long enough to get used to the idea that you'd lost your chance. Lick your wounds, suck it in, and bounce back to being her friend and mentor, and be happy with just that."
"I am happy with just that. It's all I want."
"Is it? Or is that what you're telling yourself because you think you never had a shot in the first place? You'd better wake up fast, Jack, or she's going to settle for Quinn, and let me tell you, it's settling, because it's not Quinn she
— Kelley Armstrong

The older dictators fell because they could never supply their subjects with enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles, and mysteries. Under a scientific dictatorship, education will really work' with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown. — Aldous Huxley

Above all, never think you're not good enough. Never think that. In life people will take you at your own reckoning. — Isaac Asimov

I've been in real estate for my whole life, I've been trying to sharpshoot the market with my investments, I'm never right. All you need to do is get near the bottom. That's good enough. — Barbara Corcoran

Testimony in new age writing affirms the way in which embracing a love ethic transforms life for the good. Yet a lot of this information only reaches those of us who have class privilege. And often, individuals whose lives are rich in spiritual and material well-being, who have diverse friends from all walks of life who nurture their personal integrity, tell the rest of the world these things are impossible to come by. I am talking here about the many prophets of doom who tell us that racism will never end, sexism is here to stay the rich will never share their resources. We would all be surprised if we could enter their lives for a day. Much of what they are telling us cannot be had, they have. But in keeping with a capitalist-based notion of well-being, they really believe there is not enough to go around, that the good life can only be had by a few. — Bell Hooks

If you have realistic ideals and can generally live up to them, your self-esteem will not be threatened. If your ideals are exaggerated and you cannot reach them, your good feelings from successes may be short lived, and you may feel that you are never good enough.
The continued hope for the impossible, the expectation that you will or can be unconditionally loved and adored, is not facing reality but rather holding onto an idealized image of yourself and an idealized version of what others can provide. If this is the case, your sense of self may be threatened by shame and its resulting depression, or by feelings of inadequacy for not living up to your unrealistic ideals. A better understanding of shame may help you recognize your tendency to hide what you feel from yourself and others. — Mary C. Lamia

I have never thought you weren't good enough for me. The fear I always had, deep down in my heart, is that I'm not good enough for you."
Murmurs of astonishment rippled through the room but he didn't seem to notice.
"You see, I was never the one who could make you laugh." He glanced at Lawrence, then back at her.
"I was never the one who made coronets of rosebuds for your hair and told you that you were pretty."
He swallowed hard, and his chin lifted a notch, telling her as clearly as any word how difficult it was for him to reveal himself this way.
"I always wanted to say those things, do those things, but I couldn't, for a gentleman is not supposed to behave that way. A gentleman is not supposed to fall in love with the chef's daughter. But right now, today, I don't give a damn what gentlemen do. I'm just a man, and the only thing I care about is you. — Laura Lee Guhrke

Eragon said, I have a new name for pain. What's that? The Obliterator. Because when you're in pain, nothing else can exist. Not thought. Not emotion. Only the drive to escape the pain. When it's strong enough, the Obliterator strips us of everything that makes us who we are, until we're reduced to creatures less than animals, creatures with a single desire and goal: escape. A good name, then. I'm falling apart, Saphira, like an old horse that's plowed too many fields. Keep hold of me with your mind, or I may drift apart and forget who I am. I will never let go of you. — Christopher Paolini

I had given thought to acting, but I never really had a good enough opportunity or a character who made sense and paralleled my life a little bit. I feel like I'm one of the poster boys for a bad guy in a movie. I feel like I'm a good person to play a bad guy in a movie. I can say that. — Gucci Mane

But we can never change enough to impress God. And here's the reason: trying to impress God, others, or ourselves puts us at the center of our change project. It makes change all about my looking good. It is done for my glory. And that's pretty much the definition of sin. Sin is living for my glory instead of God's. — Tim Chester

Love alone is never a good enough reason to marry. — Harriet Lerner

Mercy sighed noisily. "Man ... " He shook his head. "Can I give you a piece of advice? One fucked-up whackjob to another? We don't get a whole lot of good things handed to us in this life. When a very beautiful girl is brave enough to actually want to stick around, you don't let her go." Michael lifted his brows. "You marry her, and you hope to God she never comes to her senses." The — Lauren Gilley

With you I feel like I'm already good enough; I only have to believe it. I can't lose you again." He needed to make the confession because he was realising that Lachlan meant as much to him now
as he always had.
"I know." Lachlan smiled at him and stopped in their walk to draw him into his arms.
Konnor went willingly, clinging onto him. This was exactly how they had said goodbye. It felt like the perfect way to make a promise to always be friends again.
"I love you, Konnor," Lachlan whispered in his ear.
"I love you too. If I ever try to hurt you again, lock me up, shoot me, do whatever you have to do ... but don't send me away," he begged him never to separate them again. — Elaine White

Writers need to be tough. This is not for the weak of will. And we have to realize that, yeah, it's never good enough. It's not like fixing a car where it's precise and we know what the end result will be definitively. — David Morrell

I've always been a man for details, can't get enough of them. Not a spy, not a bit of it, not really. An observer. Product of an unsentimental education. It's the least you can do - watch.
Watch it all tumbling down like the Wall - Berliner Mauer, the Antifacist Protection Rampart. Never a good sign when your wording tries that hard to fight reality, it suggests the beginning of your tumble. Yes, it does. It always does.
But I'd rather watch beauty.
And is that a denial of reality, or an attempt to embrace it? I think I am too tired to know. I hope I am too tired to know. — A. L. Kennedy

You told me never to be in a hurry to fail. That the end result should be strong enough to carry anything I did forward, not just good enough to hold it together for the time being. — Melissa Foster

The sensation of never feeling good enough or pretty enough will always be there. It's a constant dialogue, and you just learn to be more powerful than that other voice. When you hear it come up, you shut it down. — Shirley Manson

I'm not the enemy, they are. I hear them. You're not good enough so no one could ever love you. Come here," he said, pulling her into his arms and looking into her huge blue eyes that were the same color as his own. "I love you. You are lovable. They're idiots. And I love everything about you, just the way you are. Now that's my message to you. It's not theirs. It's mine. You are the most lovable woman I've ever known." As he said it, he kissed her, and tears of relief slid down her cheeks, and she sobbed in his arms. He had just told her everything she had waited to hear all her life, and had never heard before. — Danielle Steel

Who doubts that? How many very bad things are there that we do! But if we were to attempt to reform all our bad ways at once, we should never do any good thing. I am not strong enough to put the world straight, and I doubt if you are." Such — Anthony Trollope

And my own affairs were as bad, as dismal, as the day I had been born. The only difference was that now I could drink now and then, though never often enough. Drink was the only thing that kept a man from feeling forever stunned and useless. Everything else just kept picking and picking, hacking away. And nothing was interesting, nothing. The people were restrictive and careful, all alike. And I've got to live with these fuckers for the rest of my life, I thought. God, they all had assholes and sexual organs and their mouths and their armpits. They shit and they chattered and they were dull as horse dung. The girls looked good from a distance, the sun shining through their dresses, their hair. But get up close and listen to their minds running out of their mouths, you felt like digging in under a hill and hiding out with a tommy-gun. I would certainly never be able to be happy, to get married, I could never have children. Hell, I couldn't even get a job as a dishwasher. — Charles Bukowski

This was true enough, though it did not throw any light upon my perplexity. If we had heard of it to start with, it is possible that all the family would have considered the possession of a ghost a distinct advantage. It is the fashion of the times. We never think what a risk it is to play with young imaginations, but cry out, in the fashionable jargon, 'A ghost! - nothing else was wanted to make it perfect.' I should not have been above this myself. I should have smiled, of course, at the idea of the ghost at all, but then to feel that it was mine would have pleased my vanity. Oh, yes, I claim no exemption. The girls would have been delighted. I could fancy their eagerness, their interest, and excitement. No; if we had been told, it would have done no good - we should have made the bargain all the more eagerly, the fools that we are. ("The Open Door") — Mrs. Oliphant

He remembered the good times with them all, and the quarrels. They always picked the finest places to have the quarrels. And why had they always quarrelled when he was feeling best? He had never written any of that because, at first, he never wanted to hurt any one and then it seemed as though there was enough to write without it. But he had always thought that he would write it finally. There was so much to write. He had seen the world change; not just the events; although he had seen many of them and had watched the people, but he had seen the subtler change and he could remember how the people were at different times. He had been in it and he had watched it and it was his duty to write of it; but now he never would. — Ernest Hemingway,

In a way I do hate the process of writing. It's like learning a role where you never think you're going to be able to conquer it when you start and it just takes enough focus and narrowing and getting enthusiastic and not losing it and so on. It's never good enough, but you aim for something and you hope it comes somewhat close. But it is a pleasure once you have written it. — Julie Andrews

Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. — Bob Marley

I never thought anyone would be good enough for her, but God, you're like an all-American hero, — Katie Reus

This is how it always is. You have to make these huge decision on behalf of your kid, this tiny human whose fate and future is entirely in your hands. Who trusts you to know what's good and right and then to be able to make that happen. You never have enough information. You don't get to see the future. And if you screw up - if with your incomplete contradictory information you make the wrong call - nothing less than your child's entire future and happiness is at stake. It's impossible. It's heartbreaking. It's maddening. But there's no alternative."

"Sure there is," she said.

"What?"

"Birth control. — Laurie Frankel

I shook my head. "You know I ain't never going to be good enough for her. She can't fall in love with me, you know as well as I do that nothing good is going to come of her staying with me."
"Then why do you stay with her? Why, if you seem to think that this is a bad idea, do you stay with her?"
I raked my fingers through my hair. "I don't know! Maybe I'm stupid? A glutton for punishment."
Jackson pointed his beer at me. "Or maybe you love her too and that scares the shit out of you. — Magan Vernon

I never have thought I was beautiful and I never can get beautiful enough. I'm always doing whatever I can to look as good as I can, nipping and tucking if necessary. When you're older, you probably look more bizarre to people. But I don't care. I'm just totally convinced that it's more important that I be happy with me. — Dolly Parton

I will fight for you, and if you know me well enough, you know i am pretty darn good at winning. — Aleksandra Ninkovic

There's not one human being on the planet earth who has never felt, at some point, unaccepted. At some point in our lives, we feel like we're not good enough, but we have to step back and realize that we are. — Jussie Smollett

There's something about outward appearances that has always been important to me. I always thought I was so ugly. I mean, I really did. I remember being in L.A. at my mom's house as a little kid and just staring into the mirror for hours. It was like, if I looked long enough, maybe I'd finally be handsome. It never worked. I just got uglier and uglier. Nothing about me ever seemed good enough. And there was this sadness inside me - this hopelessness. Focusing on my physical appearance was at least easier than trying to address the internal shit. — Nic Sheff

I applied for a scholarship to Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. I knew I was good enough, but they turned me down. And it took me about six months to realize it was because I was black. I never really got over that jolt of racism at the time. — Nina Simone

I never wanted to be the one to break her heart, to disappoint her, to be late for dinner or to hog the bed. I never wanted to be the person to make her cry, or turn out to be a huge let-down. She meant to much to me for any of that. While I believed I could love her better than anyone in the world, I didn't really trust myself to be ... Well, good enough. — Jessica Thompson

You should never, ever, let anyone tell you you're not good enough. You have a choice whether to meet others expectations of you, or strive to meet your own. — Jennie Runk

For the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually, I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it's funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even made it to the bed. I'd squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I'm now told that this is not called "going to sleep" but rather "passing out," a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment. — David Sedaris

I do sit-ups and push-ups at home, and that's about it. I have a gym card, but I never go there. It's a front. I pay for the membership every couple of years, thinking I'll be embarrassed enough to go. But every time I go, there's like people twice my age that look twice as good! — Rachael Ray

The body doesn't always crave what's good for it. That's why attraction will never be enough for me. That's why there has to be more. Love. Devotion. Determination. — Gena Showalter

It never occurred to me that I couldn't change things that needed changing or couldn't have what I wanted if I worked hard enough and was good enough. — Kathleen Turner

I have loads of stuff that never came out because I really don't think it's good enough. — Gold Panda

If you have a story to tell, put it out there. Get the thing done. No excuses. No procrastinating. No apologies. It will never be as good as you want it to be, so forget about perfection. Just be satisfied that you've done the best work you can do at this stage in your life as an author. Then roll the rocket onto the launch pad and fire it off. After that, write another story. Always keep going. Move fast. Stay one step ahead of the forces of distraction and self-doubt. Love your characters enough to give them a good home. Love your readers enough to give them a place of refuge from life's tragedies, big and small. And love the world you live in enough to make it the world of your dreams. — James Hampton

School. I never tried to talk a student into coming to UCLA. I tried to show him what was there and what to expect, and I never told him he was going to play; I told him he would have the opportunity to play, and if he was good enough, then he'd be able to. Rosy forecasts during the "courtship" of a player can only lead to disappointment and distrust if anything fails to meet that student's expectations. — John Wooden

I'll never be satisfied in classical ballet. It'll never be good enough. I'll never be happy with most of my product. — David Hallberg

A book comes and says, 'Write me.' My job is to try to serve it to the best of my ability, which is never good enough, but all I can do is listen to it, do what it tells me and collaborate. — Madeleine L'Engle

There are times when I just can't bring myself to sit down and write and I'm never sure whether it's pure laziness or lack of courage - there's always the thought in the back of my mind that my writing won't be good enough. — Kate Cary

The mail amazes me. I sometimes get these letters that are ten pages, and handwritten, from women pouring their hearts out and, for security reasons, I can only respond with a headshot and 'Dear so and so, be good. WM.' It never feels like enough. — Wentworth Miller

Fright is something one can never get over. When a warrior is caught in such a tight spot he would simply turn his back to the ally without thinking twice. A warrior cannot indulge thus he cannot die of fright. A warrior allows the ally to come only when he is good and ready. When he is strong enough to grapple with the ally he opens up his gap and lurches out, grabs the ally, keeps him pinned down and maintains his stare on him for exactly the time he has to, then he moves his eyes away and releases the ally and lets him go. A warrior, my little friend, is the master at all times — Carlos Castaneda

Ride with an outlaw, die with him," he added. "I admit it's a harsh code. But you rode on the other side long enough to know how it works. I'm sorry you crossed the line, though."
Jake's momentary optimism had passed, and he felt tired and despairing. He would have liked a good bed in a whorehouse and a nice night's sleep.
"I never seen no line, Gus," he said. "I was just trying to get to Kansas without getting scalped. — Larry McMurtry

There's never enough time to say good-bye. Never enough time to say "I love you." Never enough time to let go. — D. Nichole King

Good enough may be an acceptable end, but it should never be an acceptable goal. — James Rozoff

It tastes good, garlic and salt in it,
with the half-sweet white wine of Orvieto
on scanty grass under great trees
where the ramparts cuddle Lucca.
It sounds right, spoken on the ridge
between marine olives and hillside
blue figs, under the breeze fresh
with pollen of Apennine sage.
It feels soft, weed thick in the cave
and the smooth wet riddance of Antonietta's
bathing suit, mouth ajar for
submarine Amalfitan kisses.
It looks well on the page, but never
well enough. Something is lost
when wind, sun, sea upbraid
justly an unconvinced deserter. — Basil Bunting

My philosophy was, if I just do good work, someone will like it enough to employ me. It never made me famous. And I'm way, way too old now, mate. That boat's sailed. — Ian Hart

Kaylee, this means something to me." His hands trailed down my arms to cup my elbows, and his gaze held mine. "With any
luck, we're going to have millions of moments over the course of eternity, and I plan to love every one of them. But we'll never
have this moment again, and this is very important to me." The twists of blue in his eyes coiled so tightly the color was almost gone,
lost among pale shades of a need so deep it couldn't possibly be captured in a kiss, or a touch. "I need to know that this is important
to you, too. I need to know that this isn't like last time. That you're not doing this just so you can say you've done it. Because that's
not good enough for me. That's not good enough for us. — Rachel Vincent

I asked myself what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard, wished hard, but I didn't pray. I had developed a certain distrust of organised religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs. Quite simply, I believed I had a responsibility to be a good person, and that meant fair, honest, hardworking and honorable. If I did that, if I was good to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to some cause, if I wasn't a liar, a cheat, or a thief, then I believed that should be enough. At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptised. — Lance Armstrong

I opened my mouth to tell her that nothing could kill me, not now, but she said, 'Not kill you. Destroy you. Dissolve you. You wouldn't die in here, nothing ever dies in here, but if you stayed here for too long, after a while just a little of you would exist everywhere, all spread out. And that's not a good thing. Never enough of you all together in one place, so there wouldn't be anything left that would think of itself as an "I." No point of view any longer, because you'd be an infinite sequence of views and points ... — Neil Gaiman

Robert, there's a creature inside of you that I'm not good enough to bring out, not strong enough to reach. I sometimes have the feeling you've been here a long time, more than one lifetime, and that you've dwelt in private places none of the rest of us has even dreamed about. You frighten me, even though you're gentle with me. If I didn't fight to control myself with you, I feel like I might lose my center and never get back. — Robert James Waller

When you love people, you see all the good in them, all the Christ in them. God sees Christ, His Son, in us and loves us. And so we should see Christ in others, and nothing else, and love them. There can never be enough of it. There can never be enough thinking about it. — Dorothy Day

If I were a first rate writer, I wouldn't mind a bit. What does depress me is this: it is so desperately hard and so obsessive and so lonely to write that, in return for all this work, one would like a little self satisfaction. And that is never going to come, for the simple reason that I do not deserve it. I cannot be a good enough writer. You see? I call it grim. But the future looks awfully clear to me. — Martha Gellhorn

You can always argue you're never good enough until you win the Super Bowl. And even then, you're going to lose players, and you're not good enough then, either. — Jeffrey Lurie

Don't ever think that somebody isn't important or not good enough, because you never know which way the road will take you. — Chris Brogan

My childhood was so inconsistent that I never expected normalcy, and it's enough for me to be able to have time and space to be good to myself and the people around me. Children are nice, but I decided to save myself instead. — Meghan Daum

You will never be good enough for the wrong person. — Stephan Labossiere

was not old enough to understand the need to go back to a place where things were simple. He had no happiness in his face, the young ranger; perhaps he had never had a place where things were simple, a place he could think about when he needed to remember happiness. Perhaps the young ranger had been unlucky - he might have no good place or good time to remember. — Larry McMurtry

She's the one who sits in the back of the classroom.
The one who never raises her hand.
The one who might be the smartest girl you'll ever know.
But ever time she speaks some one speaks their opinion before her.
She's the one who cries herself to sleep.
Who you never see in the hallways.
Who is always late to class because she wants to avoid the wretched bitterness that halls expose.
Who never tells anyone her problems.
Who slices her wrists to get rid of pain.
She is the girl who will never be the same.
She is the girl who will never think she is ever good enough.
She's the one who is feeling like she has no purpose.
She is the one that can raise her voice and stop the bullying but will never choose to.
She might be your best friend.
She might be your daughter.
She might be your girlfriend.
She might just be the girl in the back of you class.
And she will never live the same life she once did. — Sarah Mares

I remembered how, as a boy, I would stew over all the things Mama wouldn't do, things other mothers did. Hold my hand when we walked. Sit me up on her lap, read bedtime stories, kiss my face good night. Those things were true enough. But, all those years, I'd been blind to a greater truth, which lay unacknowledged and unappreciated, buried deep beneath my grievances. It was this: that my mother would never leave me. — Khaled Hosseini

I've never agreed with the conventional wisdom that 'actors are great liars.' If more people understood the acting process, the goals of good actors, the conventional wisdom would be 'actors are terrible liars,' because only bad actors lie on the job. The good ones hate fakery and avoid manufactured emotion at all costs. Any script is enough of a lie anyway. (What experience does any actor have with flying a spacecraft? Killing someone?) What's called for, what actors are hired for, is to bring reality to the arbitrary. — Rob Lowe

I never get enough of the adrenaline rush of hearing good music played live and played loud like this. Hearing these songs again snatches me out of the day-to-day and helps me forget all the things I usually waste my time worrying about. As long as the music's playing I don't have to do anything except listen, relax, and enjoy myself. — David Moody

Most writers cannot afford focus groups or A/B testing, but they can ask a roommate or colleague or family member to read what they wrote and comment on it. Your reviewers needn't even be a representative sample of your intended audience. Often it's enough that they are not you. This does not mean you should implement every last suggestion they offer. Each commentator has a curse of knowledge of his own, together with hobbyhorses, blind spots, and axes to grind, and the writer cannot pander to all of them. Many academic articles contain bewildering non sequiturs and digressions that the authors stuck in at the insistence of an anonymous reviewer who had the power to reject it from the journal if they didn't comply. Good prose is never written by a committee. A writer should revise in response to a comment when it comes from more than one reader or when it makes sense to the writer herself. — Steven Pinker

Marina, feeling entitled, never really asked herself if she was good enough. Whereas he, Julius, asked himself repeatedly, answered always in the affirmative, and marveled at the wider world's apparent inability to see the light. He would have to show them. — Claire Messud

Good enough is never good enough. — Alfred Bertram Guthrie

I never wanted to settle for 'good enough.' I wanted 'great' or nothing. — Danielle Steel

The central attitudes driving Rambo are:
Strength and aggressiveness are good; compassion and conflict resolution are bad.
Anything that could be even remotely associated with homosexuality, including walking away from possible violence or showing any fear or grief, has to be avoided at any cost.
Femaleness and femininity (which he associates with homosexuality) are inferior. Women are here to serve men and be protected by them.
Men should never hit women, because it is unmanly to do so. However, exceptions to this rule can be made for my own partner if her behavior is bad enough. Men need to keep their women in line.
You are a thing that belongs to me, akin to a trophy. — Lundy Bancroft

I just don't like to settle. Good enough is never good enough. — Josie Natori

Michael Rafferty was a good
man. A solid man. He was never going to be Hugh Jackman handsome or Bill Gates rich or King of England powerful. But he was hers and he was Sean's and that was more than enough — J.R. Ward

Everyone assumed that Norma and Ed would marry first, but Big Ed - displaying a tendency to hesitate at crucial personal moments that never showed up on the football field - neglected to pop the question before embarking for Fort Dix. Norma hadn't yet released that reticence was as much a piece of Big Ed as his inability to articulate his reasons for it. Sweet natured Norma, who had stuttered as a child and suffered from low self esteem, simply assumed she wasn't good enough. — Mark Frost

Never chase a person that doesn't know your worth because the moment you catch him you will always feel you were never good enough. — Shannon L. Alder

Mrs. Dale was a good woman, Hollis will grant her that. A busybody and a pain in the neck, but she never judged what she didn't understand and that Hollis knows, is rare. Unlike Alan and the boys in the village, she treated him fairly, but that doesn't mean he has to moan and bellyache down at the funeral parlor. Ashes to ashes, that's all there is. If you can't change a fact of life, then be smart enough to walk away from it. — Alice Hoffman

The point of this good-day-bad-day comparison is this: Regardless of our performance, we are always dependent on God's grace, His undeserved favor to those who deserve His wrath. Some days we may be more acutely conscious of our sinfulness and hence more aware of our need of His grace, but there is never a day when we can stand before Him on our own two feet of performance, when we are worthy enough to deserve His blessing. — Jerry Bridges

His ministrations were tender, his eyes hooded as he seemed to withhold certain emotions from her. She allowed him his secrets, and took what he gave with a greed that shocked her with its intensity. But he never had to know. He never had to glimpse how deeply she felt for him, or discover the secret she had always suspected and finally admitted to herself.
She loved him.
Completely. Every part of him, good and bad, her friend and lover and partner and rival. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, giving him everything, even though she knew he didn't want her. She crammed the knowledge to a secret place in- side. Then realized she'd take whatever he gave, even though it would never be enough. — Jennifer Probst