What I love about this story is that, he is not only persistent, he is also creative. Everyone knows, at least conceptually, how to be persistent, even if they don't always live up to it. But you can't just put your foot done and say "I am going to be creative this time."<p>It's like the difference between ordinary geniuses and magicians. Ordinary geniuses are like ordinary people, only many times better. Magicians (the orginal remark was referring to feynman) however were a mystery as to how they think.<p>Then again, there is probably a significant correlation between persistence and creativity, the latter being the result of the former carried to unusual length until one starts to try wacky ideas.