Some failure in life is inevitable. 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 have failed by default. Failure gave me an inner security that I had never obtained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things that I could not have learned any other way. I discovered I had a strong will and more discipline than I had suspected.

Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination (ed. Little, Brown, 2015) - ISBN: 9780316369145