If you're not pushing your own technique to its own limits with the risk that it might just crumble at any moment, then you're not really doing your job.
“I hadn't accepted he was seriously ill. The idea that someone so close to you couldn't wake up was utterly incomprehensible. Then the doctor came in... Maurice had no brain left. There wasn't any activity at all.”
“It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win.”