Fear hadn’t come to him yet. Pain hadn’t come where pain would come. There was only the feeling of having done something perfect at last—the taste of a drink from a cold, pure spring.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I’ve watched you for a very long time now. And in this time, I’ve come to discover just as I first suspected. We are perfect for one another.

— Paloma Beck

Perfection is a paradigm meant to keep us striving and learning and growing. Like a wondrous sunset, perfection may be beyond our reach, but it is within our view and well worth seeking after.

— Richelle E. Goodrich

It does not matter what religion you are, so long as your conscience guides your words and actions. We are all reflections of God means we are all reflections of his image — which is LIGHT. There is only one God and that is the cosmic heart of the universe — whatever you choose to call him or her. The heart within us is what connects us to God (the heart of the universe). This super basic concept is preached in all religions. God is TRUTH and LIGHT, and only through your conscience do you connect to him. Any person who does not use their conscience is very disconnected from God. Because again, the language of light can only be decoded by the heart.

— Suzy Kassem

In the constant pursuit of perfection, junk food will always be a rather painful stumbling block.

— C.S. Woolley

Our inventions have long been ahead of us in terms of efficiency and sanity, productivity and predictability. Oh, how we’ve wished we could be manmade, too. What has been keeping us back, keeping us messy? The animal impediment, within and without. Eliminating these impediments, we will surely be catching up with our machines, resembling them more and more impeccably.

— Amy Leach

We have all been expelled from the Garden, but the ones who suffer most in exile are those who are still permitted to dream of perfection.

— Stanley Kunitz

A distaste for the new is not always fear of the unknown, but sometimes ambition. Some people don't like the new way simply because they never got a chance to master the old way.

— Criss Jami

No matter how hard we try, we are at best imperfect people. When we allow sin, we allow our imperfections to show.

— Bidemi Mark-Mordi

That's the lesson in this for people like me who sometimes get wound up about doing things perfectly: 90 percent of the people in your life won't know the difference between, say, fresh and frozen, or handmade and store-bought, and the 10 percent who do notice are just as stressed-out as you are, and your willingness to choose simplicity just might set them free to do the same.

— Shauna Niequist