Creativity Quote by Holly Near

Near frames failure not as a bruise to hide, but as stage direction. “Leaping away” is a kinetic choice of verb: it implies urgency, self-protection, even a little flair. She’s not “learning from” mistakes in the tidy, HR-friendly way; she’s using them as a springboard, converting embarrassment into momentum. That’s a musician’s logic. In performance, what matters isn’t the wrong note as much as what you do next - whether you freeze, apologize, or turn the recovery into something the audience believes was always part of the plan.

The subtext is a refusal of the confessional trap that often dogs women artists: the expectation to narrate pain as penance. Near doesn’t linger in the mistake to prove her sincerity. She exits with purpose. The “great force behind it” suggests that error creates pressure, and pressure creates propulsion - not because mistakes are good, but because they’re undeniable. You can’t edit them out of a life any more than you can mute history, and Near’s career has always been braided with political and personal stakes where staying static is its own kind of failure.

Then she lands on the pragmatic payoff: “It makes for great storytelling.” That line is both self-aware and slightly cheeky, acknowledging the audience’s appetite for narrative arcs. She’s telling you she’s survived, yes, but also that she knows how art metabolizes experience. Mistakes aren’t just redeemed; they’re arranged, shaped, and sung into something that moves other people forward, too.