Quotes About Failure

An indifferent Parliament may be much improved by the steadying effect of grave affairs; but a Parliament which has no such affairs must be intrinsically excellent, or it will fail utterly.

I've been around so long that I've seen rappers make it and plummet.

I like 'Guys and Dolls,' 'Singin' in the Rain' and 'A Star Is Born.' When it works, a musical is an amazing thing. But it rarely works.

The idea of us telling a story where a character doesn't get everything he wants at the end is one of the relatable things - dealing with failures and missteps in life - and it's something that's so rarely dealt with in movies, especially kids' movies.

I feel like if we can use the combination of basically data-driven hunches and bet on really first-class talent to deliver the shows, that I think we could do as well as the networks do, who basically have a 75 to 80 percent failure rate for new shows anyway - even after all that development and pilot work.

My success rate is about 80 percent. Two of ten dishes won't work.

A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason.

If you look at all the investments made during 'Dragons' Den,' the ratio of those that make it to those that don't is actually extremely high.

I think I was identified as a failed president because I wasn't re-elected.

It is by attempting to reach the top in a single leap that so much misery is produced in the world.

With 'Ilustrado,' I set out to change the way we read literature, and I think I failed spectacularly. In fact, I know I failed. In reaching further than I could, I may not have produced a life- or literature-changing book, but I did produce one I am proud of.

Greatness and fiasco is the same. You're reaching for something just out of your grasp, and if you get it, it's great, and if you don't, it's a disaster.

On stage, you have the instant reaction. I'm in control of my own destiny up there. If I fail, I can always say, 'I should have read that audience better. I don't know why I went in that direction.' In the commercial world, you're not writing your character.

There's always a knee-jerk reaction in our business to analyze and determine why something didn't work.

I really love idiot, enlightened characters - these characters who fail to engage with the drama of their immediate circumstances; they fail to be reactive and enrolled by drama as it happens around them.

Aspiring to a souffle, he achieves a pancake at which the reader saws without much appetite.

Once in a while, when I first started to write pieces, I would try to write to a reader other than myself. I always failed. I would freeze up.

Well, I screwed it up real good, didn't I?

A real failure does not need an excuse. It is an end in itself.

I mean if you put all of your eggs in one basket, boy, and that thing blows up you've got a real problem.

I had some terrible times - comparatively speaking. I saddled myself with a load of debt, I wasn't liked by a lot of my fellow comics and I used to blame other people for me not getting a break. But now I realise I just wasn't very good. And as soon as I became good, things took off pretty quickly.

Once I realised that my job as a model was to emote in front of the camera, I thought, 'Well now, I just have to add words, and I can do films.' But also, my success as a model made me more confident about becoming an actress because, just in case I failed, I thought, 'Well, you know, if I failed as an actress, I can do another job.'

I have realised that it has become essential to promote your film. God forbid, if a film doesn't run, I shouldn't be blamed for that.

My first show was in Patkar Hall next to Bombay Hospital. It was a total flop. I was so nervous standing in front of all those people that I completely froze. I forgot all my lines and the audience booed me off the stage. I realised that day that you have to earn the audience's appreciation. They aren't fools.