"knowing is better than wondering, waking is better than sleeping. And even the biggest failure, even the worst most intractable mistake beats the hell out of never trying"
Wiki says it is from Grey's Anatomy
yeah i know, i have no clue what it means though... 
Making mistakes is fine - it is better for an individual to make them, and fail...rather than to not have tried at all.
Basically, It's about the differences in failing between trying and not succeeding to win and failure by not trying, period.
Some interpretation required here? I shall make an attempt to make some sense of this quote for you! Okay, here we go:
"Knowing is better than wondering"- As far as I can tell this means that to know something, to find out and be certain of it, is better by far than to wonder; to be curious about something but never actually do anything to satisfy your curiosity.
"Waking is better than sleeping"- This assumes that one who is asleep is, by definition, doing nothing constructive & making no particular use of time. Whilst someone who is awake by contrast, is actually doing something- theoretically anyway. It could also mean that someone who is awake is aware of their environment, and what is going on around them, whilst someone who is asleep is essentially ignorant of all that.
"And even the biggest failure, even the worst, most intractable mistake, beats the hell out of never trying"- This would mean that anyone who made a mistake, no matter what mistake, at least had the guts and conviction to try something, even if they didn't succeed. By contrast, someone who never tries anything will never achieve anything, even if they never fail at anything either.
That's my interpretation of it anyway. I hope that made some sense of it for you!
