When I got Jacob's Latter I was nervous because I felt I wasn't allowed to fail. I felt that they were waiting for one little failure and that would prove them right and I'd be 'out of there.'

We decided to try in vitro because both Peter and I felt we couldn't handle another failure. When I miscarried after that we had to come to terms with the possibility that this wasn't meant to be.

Why do we capital-N Nerds love Mars so much? Because it's beautiful it's tough it's buried in our mythic childhood memories. It's covered with human triumphs but also with sad stories of failure.

American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the poorest and most ignorant part of the society.

Successful entrepreneurs find the balance between listening to their inner voice and staying persistent in driving for success - because sometimes success is waiting right across from the transitional bump that's disguised as failure.

I'm fascinated by failure and I'm fascinated by finality. Shakespeare's historical plays are more universal than his comedies because they relate to the finality of life. Without finality life would not be beautiful.

We can't have a failure in Iraq but we also can't be there for the next 10 years because if we are it's going to become I think a failure in and of itself.

Has Bill Clinton inspired idealism in the young as he himself was inspired by John F. Kennedy? Or has he actually reduced their idealism? Surely part of the answer lies in Clinton's personal moral lapse with Monica Lewinsky. But more important was his sin of omission - his failure to embrace a moral cause beyond popularity.

The failure of Socialism since 1945 is that whilst encouraging us all the creators of wealth to produce less through strikes it has caused us all to demand a higher level of our own product.

I made a very conscious effort to finish 'The Cypress House' before 'So Cold the River' launched because I thought that would help build a buffer between my writing and any impact that came from either the success or the failure of that first book.

Jobs for every American is doomed to failure because of modern automation and production. We ought to recognize it and create an income-maintenance system so every single American has the dignity and the wherewithal for shelter basic food and medical care. I'm talking about welfare for all. Without it you're going to have warfare for all.

You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes make all you can. Because remember that's where you'll find success - on the far side of failure.

My big philosophy is: Try and work with good people because the process is your life. That's going to be really really hard. I'm glad I learned the lesson 'Failure is OK.'

I think there's something quite interesting about the almost tragic quality of a lot of overwrought prose because it has a much more self-conscious awareness of its own failure to touch the real.

My failure during the first five or six years of my art training to get set in the right direction and the disappointment which it caused me drove me the more persistently into writing as an alternative.

The pressures are intense because the rewards for success and the penalty for failure are more and more.

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.