بریده‌های کتاب Very good lives: the fringe benefits of failure and the importance of imagination

Unlike any other creature on this planet, human beings can learn and understand without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's places.

Life is not a checklist of acquisition or achievement.

The fears that my parents had had for me, and that i had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard i was the biggest failure i knew.

I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all___ in which case, you fail by default.