Christopher Poole Quotes

As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all we must dare to fail.

If a person is not willing to make a mistake, you're never going to do anything right.

There is no science in creativity. If you don't give yourself room to fail, you won't innovate.

The most important thing we do to encourage innovation is give people the freedom to fail. And I think you can articulate that and establish that as a value in a lot of different ways. I don't want to say celebrate the failures, but in a lot of respects, it's sort of that.

Failure isn't something to be embarrassed about; it's just proof that you're pushing your limits, trying new things, daring to innovate.

Ultimately I want to be able to create whatever I want whenever I want. And if that doesn't work, I don't mind just doing weird plays.

An artist should be taking risks. That's the whole idea of being an artist.

You do stuff that gets a reaction and you think 'that's a winner' and then it never sees the light of day. But the thing with improvisation is that 90% of what you come up with won't be used and for good reason. But you keep going for the occasional gem that you might come up with. You do a scene and a lot of the time. We wouldn't cut. So, you come up with something that might be funny and then you go, 'alright, what else'? So, you kind of throw stuff against the wall and see what happens. But you've got to be prepared to make a fool of yourself.

If you want to be inventive, you have to be willing to fail.

If you set up an environment where failing is encouraged then you want to try everything. It's obviously the best way to work.

Being myself includes taking risks with myself, taking risks on new behavior, trying new ways of 'being myself', so that I can see who it is I want to be.

Don't be afraid to stumble. Any inventor will tell you that you don't follow a plan far before you strike a snag. If, out of 100 ideas you get one that works, it's enough.

Want to increase innovation? Lower the cost of failure.

It's how creativity works. Especially in humans. For every good idea, ten thousand idiotic ones must first be posed, sifted, tried out, and discarded. A mind that's afraid to toy with the ridiculous will never come up with the brilliantly original.

If you haven't failed yet, you haven't tried anything.

We do not want to repeat ourselves [in Doctor Strange] or do what's been done before necessarily, and when you have a track record now you can either do that and keep, this seems to work and let's keep doing this - which some people accuse us of no matter what, because I don't think they pay attention, but really what we do is say, 'Okay, we have a studio that trusts us and let's us do what we want for the most part with the creative.

The show, like everything we have done and still do, is just one more experiment.

I really am passionate about making low-budget movies. You can try new stuff and unusual stuff, and you can break the rules.

If you go off the edge, it's not cooking anymore, so you have to push it to the limit... What are the limits?

I want brave people. Fearless ones. A good actor just goes out and leaps off the edge and develops wings on his way down, hopefully. That's the kind of people I really enjoy working with. Playing safe isn't much fun. I like danger. It's controlled danger, always, and that's why I hope I don't lure too many good actors down into the pits with me, because I hope they maintain their own unique talents.

If you're not having doubt, you're not pushing the boundaries far enough.

When you don't have to ask for permission innovation thrives.

[ Oval House] director, Peter Oliver, gave you the right to fail. He had a philosophy that came from Winston Churchill that you go from failure to failure with enthusiasm. So Peter gave us a go and that's how Ray [Hassett] and I ended up starting Sal's Meat Market at the Oval House.

If you invent frequently and are willing to fail, then you never get to that point where you really need to bet the whole company.

The only way to do something interesting is not care if you fail.