Quotes About Failure

Too much of our society looks for people to fail.

My record label dropped me, and I'd been spending way too much money.

You know what? I did a lot of things that were deliberate, and they all backfired. I was trying desperately to become Will Ferrell or Adam Sandler, and it did not work for me. I took a lot of leaps that I shouldn't have, traditionally speaking. I paid the price for that. I was not as hire-able for a while. But then I just gave all that up.

I think improvisation is a technique and a tool. I think that even the best of them fail most of the time, and in the end, the audience is not interested in how you got there but in what you're saying. The more clearly and concisely and artistically you say it, the more effective it is.

Founders have continually struggled with and adapted the 'big business' tools, rules, and processes taught in business schools when startups failed to execute 'the plan,' never admitting to the entrepreneurs that no startup executes to its business plan.

When I got to law school, I didn't do very well. To put it mildly, I didn't do very well. I, in fact, graduated in the part of my law school class that made the top 90% possible.

You can be on top of the world one day and the next day you can go 0-for-4 with four strikeouts.

Most girls are taught to avoid risk and failure. We're taught to smile pretty, play it safe, get all A's. Boys, on the other hand, are taught to play rough, swing high, crawl to the top of the monkey bars, and then just jump off headfirst.

Of course, I'm not often the top dog, but sometimes it's better not to be top dog, because you last longer. If a movie or play flops, you always blame the lead. They say, 'He couldn't carry it.' They always blame him. But they rarely blame the second or third banana.

It's good to go down because then you know you have to climb back to your old spot. And you can't be on top and not know that you can only go down.

I think the fact that people are even talking about the prospect of the Tories coming second is less about anything the Tories have done and more about the failures of Labour to set out, in any kind of coherent sense, what it's for anymore.

I teach students that what people say about failure in politics is mostly wrong. People always told me, 'They'll praise you on your way up and kick you on your way down.' That wasn't my experience. I can't walk down the street in Toronto without someone coming up and saying hello.

Mental health is a case study in Tory failure.

I don't know whether it was my fault or someone else's fault, but I was extremely disappointed that my first film was a total washout.

Today, everybody is more or less conscious of the total failure of the Cuban revolution to produce wealth, to produce a better standard of living for the Cubans. With the exception of small radical parties, Latin Americans know that it's a brutal dictatorship and the longest in Latin American history.

One of the best things that ever happened to me was Rocky Horror being a total flop in New York as a play. I mean, it was a disaster, and it was the night of the long knives as far as the critics were concerned.

Success can be destructive to the creative process. I say it all the time: success is as dangerous as total failure.

In hindsight, everything in my life looks a little rosy. But the reality is that with, say, 'Swingers,' when we finished, it was considered a total failure.

I'm totally an anxious mess all the time. There's a constant dialogue going on in my brain, and it's just reminding me of all the failures that I have had, and all of the things I need to do, and all of the things I'm not doing good enough.

In every business I had ever started, even ones that had totally failed, I had kept good relations with the investors.

I want to let you in on a little secret: I don't always feel like I'm a success. That's right. There are plenty of times when I feel like I've just totally messed up and failed to connect with the people I'm trying to communicate with.

I am the servant of all great individuals and, alas, of all failures, as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures.

If at first you don't succeed, look in the trash for the instructions.

There are only really a few stories to tell in the end, and betrayal and the failure of love is one of those good stories to tell.