Success Quote by Bryan Ferry

Bryan Ferry slips a whole career philosophy into a line that sounds like offhand studio banter. On paper, “failure rate” belongs to engineering, venture capital, the cold-blooded math of outcomes. Ferry drops it into the soft, subjective world of collaboration, then quietly rigs the numbers: if you “choose people that you really like the sound of,” the odds tilt in your favor. It’s a pragmatic statement disguised as taste.

The phrase “the sound of” does double duty. He’s talking literally about musicianship, yes, but also about vibe, voice, attitude - the intangible signature that makes a collaborator feel inevitable rather than merely competent. Ferry came up in a scene where style wasn’t decoration; it was the thesis. Roxy Music’s glamour, irony, and polish worked because the personnel were chosen like elements in an image: each part had a texture, a sheen, a posture. In that context, “liking the sound of” someone is less friendship than curatorial instinct.

The subtext is a gentle rebuttal to the myth of the lone genius who triumphs by sheer will. Ferry suggests success is often selection, not struggle: the quiet power move is filtering early, surrounding yourself with people whose instincts already align with the world you’re trying to build. It’s also a neat inversion of failure itself. If you define “right” by a sensory recognition - I know it when I hear it - then misfires stop feeling like disasters and start looking like mismatches you could have avoided. Taste becomes risk management, and cool becomes a strategy.