One of Picasso’s favourite assignments for a young artist was to have him or her try to draw a perfect circle. It can’t be done; everyone draws a circle with some particular distortion, and that distorted circle is your circle, an insight into your style. ‘Try to make the circle as best you can. And since nobody before you has made a perfect circle, you can be sure that your circle will be completely your own. Only then will you have a chance to be original.’ The deviations from the ideal give an insight into the style, and thus, Picasso says, ‘from errors one gets to know the personality.’”

From Trickster Makes This World: How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture, by Lewis Hyde.