“One of the most attractive elements in such an adventure for the amateur is that it has neither obligations nor dangers. He is his own boss. He is free to decide what he wants to do, and how to go about doing it, whose example to follow, and what advice to ignore. And if, by some chance, it doesn’t come out as well as he expected, he is the only one who even knows that it didn’t work; there are no penalties to pay, no harangue to listen to, and no job to lose. This freedom, which is the first asset of the amateur, is the premise upon which everything else is built. And for this reason, I personally have guarded it closely and have chosen to remain an amateur.”
— Maya Deren