Daily Inspiration Quote by Ken Hill

“Mistakes can be good things” is the kind of line that sounds like a bumper sticker until Ken Hill tags it with a sly little pivot: “because it is an unexpected thing.” That last clause is the tell. Hill isn’t selling self-help resilience; he’s defending surprise as an artistic principle. For a playwright, the “mistake” is often just another name for deviation: an actor flubs a line, a prop fails, a scene lands differently than rehearsed. In the live-wire ecology of theatre, those disruptions don’t merely happen; they create a new set of conditions the room has to respond to in real time.

The intent is permission-giving, but with teeth. Hill frames error not as moral failure but as narrative opportunity. “Unexpected” is the operative word because it’s what audiences pay for without admitting it: the feeling that something might go off-script, that the story could tilt. Subtextually, he’s nudging writers and performers away from perfectionism, which is usually just fear in a nicer outfit. A perfectly controlled show can be technically impressive and emotionally dead; a slightly risky one breathes.

Context matters, too. Hill worked in popular, music-driven theatre adaptations (including Phantom of the Opera), where timing, rhythm, and audience energy are everything. In that world, a “mistake” can be a crack where spontaneity gets in. The line argues that art isn’t the elimination of chaos; it’s the skillful use of it.