"That you might need to break a lot of pots, and write a lot of drafts, and that not everyone is going to like what you do. Which is why, however your work is received by "them," you need a good, true, decent friend or two—a friend or family member like Melville had, a writer pal or a bunch of fellow potters, actual practitioners of art—to believe in you and to understand and bear with you throughout the long hard work of creating your art, of your trying to live a life of making art."

This excerpt is from a great piece written by Rebecca Brown on "Failure". The complete article can be found here:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/failure/Content?oid=3393599