Sublime

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is... See more

In 1979, struggling to write a script for a weeklong series on “Going to School,” he wrote in a note to himself: “Am I kidding myself that I’m able to write a script again? Am I really just whistling Dixie? I wonder. Why don’t I trust myself? Really that’s what it’s all about . . . that and not wanting to go through the agony of creation. AFTER ALL

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If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way. The show was successful because I micromanaged it—every word, every line, every take, every edit, every casting. That’s my way of life.

You have to understand a field well before you develop a good nose for what needs fixing. You have to do your homework. But as you become expert in a field, you'll start to hear little voices saying, What a hack! There must be a better way. Don't ignore those voices. Cultivate them. The recipe for great work is: very exacting taste, plus the

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Their guest is Charles Broskoski, the co-founder and CEO of Are.na, and the first part of the podcast is devoted to an essay he wrote about “all of the important reference points (like books, artworks, people, etc) that have changed who I am (or maybe helped me become who I am).”

The creators and innovators whom I meet, if they do struggle with criticism and perfectionism, also understand the importance of allowing their product to be judged by the marketplace, and the opportunity that users’ feedback presents to make the product better as a result. They know that they need an abundance of feedback to dial in their product.

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We like to think of ourselves as consistent, rational beings, possessing certain attributes and not others. Yet a person who is completely consistent, who possesses no contradictions, comes across as less real. Wooden. Plastic. The most truthful and irrational aspects of ourselves are often hidden, and our access to them lies through the creation

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Adam Moss: I was hoping we could discuss the relationship of anxiety to drive, because I think it’s an important note for the book, and people often, at least implicitly, bring it up. And you’re candid and articulate enough to— Ira Glass: Nice flattery! As a fellow interviewer, I’m respecting the flattery. All right. I need a harsh deadline to get

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