I was writing poetry. But I found the theater such an exciting experience that one day I went home to try. I had one character say to the other guy, “Hey, man, what’s happening.” And the other guy said, “Nothing.” I sat there for twenty minutes and neither of my guys would talk. So 1 said to myself, “Well, that’s all right. After all, I’m a poet. I don’t have to be a playwright. To hell with writing plays. Let other people write plays.” I didn’t try to write a play for a number of years after that first experience.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

That's a real challenge and a real issue. Reading the statistics, they had a ranking of quarterbacks, and the statistic was the percentage of a touchdown drive after an interception. To me, that is a telling statistic. The guys that have a high percentage are the guys that have short memories. They talk about having amnesia as a quarterback. You better move along from it. It is hard to say you forget about it, because you want to learn from it. You want to address it. You can't just say it never happened.

about 95% of the experiments we do are total failures, and that’s because we’re out there on the leading edge of what’s possible, and most of the time it isn’t quite possible.

I'd need a great business partner. I'm glad we're talking about it because it's been a great frustration in my life. I can't seem to find the right person to help me do that.

Realising adults don't know everything.

Frogs and public speaking.

I won't allow people's shit limit what I do.

Forgetfulness. I leave valuable possessions scattered around the globe.

I don't want to look sexy in photographs. I think it's an easy option. I'm so sick of girls pushing their boobs up in Myspace photographs. I hate the way women want to be "hot" all the time.