If your work is filled with the hope and longing for applause, it’s no longer your work—the dependence on approval has corrupted it, turned it into a process where you are striving for ever more approval.

Who decides if your work is good? When you are at your best, you do. If the work doesn’t deliver on its purpose, if the pot you made leaks or the hammer your forged breaks, then you should learn to make a better one. But we don’t blame the nail for breaking the hammer or the water for leaking from the pot. They are part of the system, just as the market embracing your product is part of marketing.
~Seth Godin~