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“We like to stress the commonness of heroes. Essences seem undemocratic. We feel oppressed by the call to greatness. We regard an interest in glory or perfection as a sign of mental unhealthiness, and have decided that high achievers, who are called overachievers, owe their surplus ambition to a defect in mothering (either too little or too much). We want to admire but think we have a right not to be intimidated. We dislike feeling inferior to an ideal. So away with ideals, with essences. The only ideals allowed are healthy ones -- those everyone may aspire to, or comfortably imagine oneself possessing.”
― Susan Sontag, The Volcano Lover

“Many of us learned that keeping busy…kept us at a distance from our feelings...Some of us took the ways we busied ourselves—becoming overachievers & workaholics—as self esteem…But whenever our inner feeling did not match our outer surface, we were doing ourselves a disservice…If stopping to rest meant being barraged with this discrepancy, no wonder we were reluctant to cease our obsessive activity.”
― Maureen Brady, Beyond Survival: A Writing Journey for Healing Childhood Sexual Abuse

“Too many Americans are spurred to achieve, rather than to attach.”
― Thomas Lewis, A General Theory of Love

“While a necessary lesson, it was always a disappointment to discover he wasn't the fastest or smartest or best at everything.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“You don’t need to be an overachiever, you just need to be a quality achiever.”
― Drue Grit

“Not only was he getting a new partner but he was getting an over-achieving new partner, a liberal, over-achieving new partner. He imagined him pulling up in his hybrid vehicle, his Starbuck’s save-the-rainforest bottled water and soy latte, no doubt anxiously waiting to discuss the plight of the polar bears while recycling his gum wrappers.”
― Michiko Katsu, Burdened By Guilt

“That’s what 4.0 students do, they take on other projects. Things that seem like homework but are also fun. Because they are capable of that. They are capable of more than others.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“If Abbie knew about this, she'd say that he'd let The Race down. She said colored people (sometimes she just said The Race) had to be cleaner, smarter, thriftier, more ambitious than white people, so that white people would like colored people. The way she explained it made him feel as though he were carrying The Race around with him all the time. It kept him confused, a little frightened, too. At that moment The Race sat astride his shoulders, a weight so great that his back bent under it.”
― Ann Petry, The Narrows

“When I turned 15, my father let me drive our old â€�66 Chevy Impala and I was finally able to get a “realâ€� job â€� at a fast-food restaurant. Where else at that age? I never stopped working. For most of my life, I worked a good 15-20 hours a day, for years, and I made the mistake of thinking I was damn near invincible, only to eventually find out I wasn’t.”
― Scott C. Holstad