Arthur Leonard Schawlow Quotes

The best is the enemy of the good.

The thing I love about making movies is the peace of mind that I know I don't have to be perfect the first time. I can be perfect the second time or the third time.

Failing is part of my process. A new bit never works the first time. I figure I have to bomb 7 times to make it good. So I tweak it.

To do something right it must be done twice. The first time instructs the second.

The more you do, the more experience you have and the next time it will be easier to choose the right thing.

You only get better by playing.

Learn by practice.

The insistence on a perfect cure often results in no betterment whatsoever.

Bring your work back to the workshop twenty times. Polish it continuously, and polish it again.

It is always possible to do a thing better the second time.

I think all good writing is a struggle. To write as well as you feel you can has to be a struggle, almost by definition, because you could always improve.

One thing you notice is, there's a lot of people with raw talent, and then there's people who take that talent and work hard.

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly until you learn to do it well.

I wouldn't say I'm a very original thinker, but if I have a good experience with something, I'll want to take it further or adapt it in some way.

Few ideas work on the first try. Iteration is key to innovation.

You need to make mistakes in rehearsal because that's how you find out what works and what doesn't.

More can be learned from what works than from what fails.

You can work hard to sharpen your talent, to get better at whatever it is that you do, and I think that's what it comes back to.

I cannot now change my style, which I acquired, as you can imagine, by dint of labour.

I may not be able to re-record a song, but I can do a better job each time I sing it.

If you rewrite a paragraph fifty times and forty-nine of them are terrible, that's fine; you only need to get it right once.

Much can often be learned by the repetition under different conditions, even if the desired result is not obtained.

Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.

I do better on the first three takes; I won't be better at 20 takes.

Practice without improvement is meaningless.