The courage to be bad

"Most people don't know what they want or feel. And for everyone, myself included, it's very difficult to say what you mean when what you mean is painful. The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to.... As an artist, I feel that we must try many things -- but above all, we must dare to fail. You must have the courage to be bad -- to be willing to risk everything to really express it all."   - filmmaker John Cassavetes

"The first draft of anything is shit."  - Ernest Hemingway

"A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway."  - Junot Díaz

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."  - comic strip artist Scott Adams