So the poet who wants to be something that he cannot be and is a failure in plain life makes up fictitious versions of his predicament that are interesting even to other persons because nobody is a perfect automobile salesman.

I think everyone shares a fear of failure - that you're only as good as your most recent collection. That's definitely a fear but it's a fear that fuels me that makes me want to work harder that makes me take on more challenges.

In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for after all habit is relative to a stereotyped world and meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes two persons things situations seem alike.

Los Angeles was an impression of failure of disappointment of despair and of oddly makeshift lives. This is California? I thought.

Success is not a good teacher failure makes you humble.

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.

Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.

My time at Shell was a most valuable experience because it taught me to look at the world in a long-term way. Shell takes a 20-year view on events and plans for different scenarios. It makes you see the world as a kind of large matrix.

We certainly want those at the top to do well but if you base your entire presidency and your entire economic platform on helping them do even better you're missing what makes the economy tick. Because not everyone has been as fortunate as Mitt Romney you cannot base your whole approach on a life experience as rarified as his.