Time & Perspective Quote by Raymond E. Feist

Failure, in Raymond E. Feist's telling, isn't a tragedy; it's a cost-cutting measure. The line has the plainspoken pragmatism you hear from someone who builds worlds for a living and knows exactly how often the scaffolding collapses. "Often I'll try things" frames experimentation as routine rather than heroic. He's not romanticizing the muse. He's describing a workflow: draft, test, discard, repeat.

The real pivot is the relief he locates in critique. "Hearing that they're not working" treats external feedback as a kind of early-warning system, not an ego wound. Subtext: the fastest way to waste your creative life is to protect your first idea like it's a family heirloom. Feist is quietly arguing for a professional relationship with your own ambition. You can want something badly and still admit it's not functioning on the page.

"Wear and tear" does double duty. It's physical language for an emotional problem: the cumulative damage of pushing the same broken approach, book after book, scene after scene. He isn't just saving time; he's saving spirit. That makes the sentence resonate beyond writing. It's about learning loops: the humility to accept data, the discipline to adjust, the maturity to see "not working" as information instead of judgment.

Contextually, it reflects the long-haul mentality of a career novelist. In series fiction especially, persistence is non-negotiable, but so is revision. Feist's intent is almost mentorship-by-osmosis: stop bleeding for ideas that won't cash out, and let honest feedback shorten the distance between effort and improvement.