How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure?
Recorded Tasuku Honjo said elsewhere, not written here
No, no. Well, you know, biology is such a complex system. It’s totally different from the engineering. We cannot design. Many people tried to find the therapy for cancer, but all failed. And myself, I never expected my research, working on the immune system, would lead to the cancer therapy. But, in a sense, I’m very fortunate that I also thought about it. You know, you have to try many things and if you’re lucky you can hit, but you have to pursue. That’s my feeling.

Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded shortly after the prize announcement, Nobel Prize Outreach, 1 October 2018 source ↗

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Derek Sivers Founder of CD Baby; author of Anything You Want
In the end, I had to pay $3.3 million dollars to buy back that 90%.
Recorded Essay on sive.rs, Derek Sivers, 27 May 2009 source ↗
Anthony Romero American lawyer; executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union
We have failed seven times up at bat, and we strike out, and I think, "How can I learn from that failure? What went wrong? What could I have done differently?" You have to take it apart to understand your failures. Failures teach you much more than your successes. Sometimes it is better just to pause on a setback, on a failure, on a screw-up, and say, "What did I learn from this?" You learn how to do it better and you recommit yourself.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interviewer, Academy of Achievement interview, New York, New York, 1 April 2005 source ↗
Elinor Ostrom Political economist; laureate of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, 2009
Yes. Having lived through an era, where I was thinking of going to graduate school and was strongly discouraged because I would never be able to do anything but teach in a city college … Ah ha ha, life has changed!
Recorded Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded immediately after the prize announcement, Nobel Prize Outreach, 12 October 2009 source ↗
Robert Ballard American oceanographer who discovered the wreck of the RMS Titanic in 1985
People not believing me. It's getting a little easier, but it's funny how people will say, "I don't think you can do that." Then you do it, and they say "That was great" and you say, "Well, I've got this other idea." "Naw, I don't think you can do that." So you do it again. When I said I was going to find the Titanic , no one believed it. When I said I was going to find the Bismarck , everyone believed it, and then I failed in my first attempt to find the Bismarck . So people expect you to succeed, but they don't want to stick their own necks out, and so risk-taking can be very lonely at times. You know that classic saying, which is very true: "Failure is an orphan, but success has many fathers." I'll tell you, when I'm most at risk, I look around, and there are not a whole lot of people there. But as soon as I succeed, they say, "We were always there." And I say, "Yeah, but 500 miles behind me."
Recorded Academy of Achievement interviewer, Academy of Achievement interview, San Diego, California, 1 May 1991 source ↗

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