Jack Levine Quotes

It frustrates me if I'm not good at something, so I do it until I get good at it.

Trying is always enough.

I learn the most from trial and error. I learn about what I'd like to be able to do from people like Barbara Mason. Saying I want to sing like Barbara Mason and doing it, it's two very different scenarios.

I wasn't the most confident of cooks, but I just persevered, and I wanted to learn, and I wanted to be a sponge, and I wanted to be better than the next person, and I wanted to learn as much as I could, so I just kept pushing, and it took me a long time actually to be confident in my technique and my ability as a cook.

Nobody's a natural. You work to get good and then work to get better. It's hard to stay on top.

When you are not practicing, someone else is getting better.

I'm just going to keep dialing it in and keep practicing.

For me, novel-writing, by its nature, contains months of feeling lost, gloomy, fatally misguided. The challenge has always been in assuring myself that by setting one foot in front of the other, I will eventually make my way out of the desert.

I can always get better at what I'm doing because I'm not nearly as good as I think I can be. I'm going to try to improve every chance I get.

When you are through trying to improve, you are through.

You can accomplish virtually any goal you set for yourself, as long as the goal is clear and you persist long enough.

You just work at it. You just keep grinding away, keep trying to get better, and if you got the ability, one day you have a chance.

It pays no matter what comes after it, to try and do things, to accomplish things in this life and not merely to have a soft and pleasant time.

I don't think I've mastered anything. I'm still wrestling with the same frustrations, the same issues, the same problems as I always did. That's what life is like.

I believe that with enough practice and good faith, you can learn to recognize when the work is achieved.

No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn't trying.

Try and keep on trying until that which seems difficult becomes possible and that which seems only possible becomes habit and a real part of you.

Most things are difficult at the beginning and they become fun, something you love, only after you've worked at them.

Frustration is the first step towards improvement. I have no incentive to improve if I'm content with what I can do and if I'm completely satisfied with my pace, distance and form as a runner. It's only when I face frustration and use it to fuel my dedication that I feel myself moving forwards.

I move on as quickly as possible. I tend to be really hard on myself anyway, which is great for work ethic and such, but sometimes outcomes are just out of your control and there was nothing you could've done anyway. If I'm at fault, I make note and do my best to try again. "No" isn't really a word I understand.

The greatest successes grow out of great failures. In numerous instances the result is better that comes after a series of abortive experiences than it would have been if it had come at once; for all these successive failures induce a skill which is so much additional power working into the final achievement.... The hand that evokes such perfect music from the instrument has often failed in its touch, and bungled among the keys.... Every disappointed effort fences in and indicates the only possible path of success, and makes it easier to find.

I never was content unless I was trying my skill...or testing my endurance.

Man can learn everything if he will but try.

I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.

If you don't succeed at first, there's no need for the F word (Failure). Pick yourself up and try, try again.