ETA: Okay, I’ve recently found out that this quote is not Vonnegut, although he did write something similar to this in a letter to schoolchildren. That letter was posted to three–ring’s blog with her commentary posted below. Her commentary was copy-pasted to Facebook as being written by Vonnegut, and it’s been passed around that way ever since. Proof here.
I’m fixing this post with proper attribution. I did do a quick web search before posting this, but apparently it was too quick. Bleagh.
Linus Torvalds said something similar in an interview, don’t think it was that long ago.
He took up building guitar pedals as a hobby. He doesn’t even play guitar. But it was something different from coding. He wanted to understand analog circuits better, and so that’s the vehicle he chose.
But what he said about it was the best part – it’s important to have a hobby where it’s okay to suck. Failure has to be an option.
If sucking at it means that bad things will happen, then it is no longer a hobby.