Ambitious Quote by Vladimir Nabokov

The bottom line is that I like my first drafts to be blind, unconscious, messy efforts; that's what gets me the best material.

— Jennifer Egan

Being realistic is the quickest path to mediocrity

— Will Smith

Mediocrity is excellent to the eyes of mediocre people

— Joseph Joubert

“A hallmark of true expertise and insight is making a complex subject understandable. A hallmark of mediocrity and bad strategy is unnecessary complexity—a flurry…

— Richard Rumelt

What I love about drafts is the experimental nature of them. The draft is what you know about writing a poem running up against…

— Cornelius Eady

Mediocrity is underrated.

— Mary-Louise Parker

We have these ambitions that are very hard to accomplish because life puts us in our place. We have this battle with mediocrity.

— Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Only mediocre ideas can be tested.

— George Lois

“Productive mediocrity requires discipline of an ordinary kind. It is safe and threatens no one. Nothing will be changed by mediocrity. . . . But genius is…

— Adam M. Grant

Getting that first draft out is a horribly hard grind, but that (perversely) is where the joy of it lies.

— Jonathan Stroud

“No one seems to have thought of the fact that life is absurd, being a brilliant success has no greater value than being a…

— Muriel Barbery

I've found that my first drafts are not so special. But the more I work on them, the better they get. They are more…

— George Saunders