Dumb Luck Quotes

Outside of dumb luck, the number one way serial killers are caught is through the help of the public. ~ Pat Brown

Why leave your success up to dumb luck or accident when you can take a stand, make a plan, and be proactive in your pursuits and possibilities? ~ Susan C. Young

There was no reason for what happened to you, Eddie. You could have died; you just didn't. It was dumb luck. Nobody chose you for anything. Which means, truly, that you can do anything. ~ Ann Napolitano

It was luck, dumb luck, that had put them each where they were, and the best way to pay for any luck, however temporary, was just to be helpful when you could. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Project management is the art of creating the illusion that any outcome is the result of a series of predetermined, deliberate acts when, in fact, it was dumb luck. ~ Harold Kerzner

I've fought off groups before and making it out in one piece was pure dumb luck. That's it. These days it feels like alive is an accidental state of being. ~ Courtney Summers

The music that I wrote and recorded is music that I really enjoy listening to. It's just dumb luck that a lot of other people do, too. ~ Tom Scholz

Growing up in a family of gamblers, daredevils and practical jokers, I've learned a lot about timing and its first cousin, dumb luck, concepts I was introduced to while still in the womb. ~ Toby Speed

1) Every cause produces a corresponding effect, so an intelligent effect is likely caused by an intelligent cause.
2) It is statistically impossible that every of billions of intelligent effects is caused by dumb luck.
3) Even if half of all intelligent effects were caused by dumb luck, who where or what is the intelligence behind the other half? ~ Arne Klingenberg

I use three main tools in writing: instinct, hard work and dumb luck. Dumb luck is missing a train and, while you wait for the next one, writing a key word, line or verse. When this happens often enough you begin to believe in Fate. ~ David Massengill

I suppose I arrived at my charitable commitment largely through guilt. I recognized early on that my good fortune was not due to superior personal character or initiative so much as it was to dumb luck. ~ George Kaiser

By sheer dumb luck, my father was born in the right place at the right moment in time - when the whole region was going through enormous, unprecedented growth. And oh yeah, he also inherited an empire that had already been set up four generations before him. I think he looks down on people like your father - people who are self-made - because at the heart of it he is a deeply insecure individual. He knows he did absolutely nothing to deserve his fortune, and so the only thing he can do is disparage others who have the audacity to make their own money. His friends are all the same - they are frightened of the new money that's rolling in, and that's why they cluster in their little enclaves. ~ Kevin Kwan

As artists, we are so not in control most of the time of the content or the narrative of our characters, and sometimes writing takes a turn and it's not something we necessarily have control over. It's just a lot of random dumb luck, so when things click, you've just got to enjoy it. ~ Mike Colter

Ivy League bumblers and drunks who had once pulled the levers of secret gov't in an age of high anxiety...These were the bastards who beat the bastards, unless it was all just dumb luck. ~ Henry Bromell

Of course, the Grimnoir thought they were the good guys. Everybody thought they were in the right. The evilest bastards he had ever met had still thought of themselves as the good guys. It was just his dumb luck to blunder into a bunch of true believers. Sullivan closed his eyes and went back to sleep. ~ Anonymous

He stared back at me so blatantly I wanted to smack him. "I know. Like I said, that… was never my intention. It was an accident." My mouth dropped open. "Did you slip and fall on my bed? Because I don't understand how you've accidentally ended up there." Red stained the tips of his cheeks. "I check the outside, and then I check the inside just to be sure. Hybrids can get into your house, Katy, as you already know. So could Daedalus if they wanted." What would he have done if Daemon had been there? Then it struck me and I felt sick all over again. "How long do you watch at night?" He shrugged. "A couple of hours." So he'd have known if Daemon had come over most of the time, and the rest was just sheer dumb luck. Part of me wished he'd tried it just once when Daemon was there. He wouldn't be walking right for months. There was a good chance he may leave this stairwell with a limp. Blake seemed to sense where my mind went. "After I checked inside your house, I… I don't know what happened. You have bad dreams." I wondered why. I had perverts sleeping in the bed with me. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Then again, she had-through a bizarre combination of skill, dumb luck and incredible misfortune-managed to build up a file any Debunker would envy. ~ Stacia Kane

Sadly, many storytellers and artists are still addicted to the old delusions (happy is boring, evil is interesting) about the risks of good mental health. Even those who don't view peace of mind as a threat to their creative power often believe that it's a rare commodity attained through dumb luck ... .It's possible to define a more supple variety of happiness that does not paralyze the will or sap ambition ... .the number one trait of happy people is a serious determination to be happy. Bliss is a habit you can cultivate, in other words, not an accident. ~ Rob Brezsny

Dumb luck brought on the move from business to acting. I had moved to New York when I was 23, in the year 2000. On a lark, I went to audition for a soap opera. I thought, 'Hey, this will be a really fun story to tell my grandkids one day, that I auditioned for a soap!' ~ Teddy Sears

And though history sadly doesn't credit the man who first thought of tilting a bicycle's steering axis, it is more likely to be because of feet striking the wheel than an understanding of stability. ~ Robert Penn

Why hasn't anyone killed him yet?"
"Dumb luck," Wit said. "In that I'm lucky you're all so dumb. ~ Brandon Sanderson

How did I get where I am. If your answer is anything but dumb luck then you are sadly deluding yourself. ~ Steve Merrick

Dunn's Law:

Careful planning is no substitute for dumb luck. ~ Arthur Bloch

People usually lived or died of dumb luck. Not because something mystical cares. ~ Robert Buettner

I paraphrase Aristotle: If you want to be comical, write about people to whom the audience can feel superior; if you want to be tragical, write about at least one person to whom the audience is bound to feel inferior, and no fair having human problems solved by dumb luck or heavenly intervention. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

All were successful,and felt like failures.
Gold no longer pretended to understand the nature of success.Instead,he pretended not to. He knew the components that were necessary:
None,
or maybe one:
Dumb luck ~ Joseph Heller

Have you ever considered what a friendship is, or what any of your current friendships are, and thought about how to present that to a prospective new friend...How do you convince a stranger to give you their real e-mail when you are definitely going to litter their gmail dot come with dumb nonsense. ~ Samantha Irby

It's amazing because people come up to me and say, 'Chuck, you're the luckiest guy in the world to be a world karate champion and a movie and TV star.' When they say this to me, I kind of smile because luck had nothing to do with it; God had everything to do with it. ~ Chuck Norris

If you can look at a crime where everything points to one answer and not see it, you're a dumb-ass. And if you can look at the deficit and not see that the problem is that the rich stopped paying taxes, you're a Republican. ~ Bill Maher

A strategic victory seen as luck by laymen. ~ Toba Beta

Llonio said life was a net for luck; to Hevydd the Smith life was a forge; and to Dwyvach the Weaver-Woman a loom. They spoke truly, for it is all of these. But you,' Taran said, his eyes meeting the potter's, 'you have shown me life is one thing more. It is clay to be shaped, as raw clay on a potter's wheel. ~ Lloyd Alexander

I never want to dumb it down. If there's any simplification, it's just a simplification to make sure that the reader understands the point that the character is trying to make. ~ Tony DiTerlizzi

It seems I have always been fortunate to be in a certain provident, which must be my sole skill, and worth, and luck. [p. 138] ~ Chang-rae Lee

When it was suggested to Pasteur that many of his great achievements depended on luck, he replied - I'm sure with more than a little irritation - 'In the field of observation in science, fortune only favours the prepared mind.' It is not by chance that it is always the great scientists who have the luck. ~ Lewis Wolpert

You can hardly tell where the computer models finish and the real dinosaurs begin ~ Laura Dern

Long as I live large, life will be luxury,
Ladies in Lamborghinis ... love is like luck to me. ~ Redman

Luck is a light bulb that is switched on only once, after it switches off, it leaves a gap of regret and powerlessness ~ Jasper Rules

A girl with a belly button meets
A guy with a shirt of no button.

A guy takes on the belly button
A girl takes off the shirt. ~ Bhavik Sarkhedi

-The Wonderer's Dream-

Upon one lucky night I had a vision
A vision of a tree whose roots grew
Wide
Deep
and Long
And I followed it down until it lead me to another world
And in this world I learned there were worlds upon worlds
A world in which there was no slave or free
As there was nothing to be free from
This world was made of pure light
A light that radiates
In you
In me
And on the rare occasion it finds itself travelled and distant
and somehow, as luck may have it, in our world.

A poem for the Nalia Books ~ Queenbe Monyei

No one got forever. And it was a fucking crime to waste what you were given. Enough, Qhuinn thought. Enough with the excuses, and the avoidance, and the trying to be someone, anyone else. Even if he got shanked, even if his precious little ego and his dumb-ass little heart got shattered into a million pieces, it was time to stop the bullshit. It was time to be a male. ~ J.R. Ward

I am not lucky. I am the type who would go to Lourdes and drown in the waters. ~ Joan Rivers

I don't believe it can be taught as if it were a recipe. There aren't ingredients and techniques that will guarantee success. Parameters exist that, if followed, will ensure a business can continue, but you cannot clearly define our business success and then bottle it as you would a perfume. It's not that simple: to be successful, you have to be out there, you have to hit the ground running; and, if you have a good team round you and more than your fair share of luck, you might make something happen. But you certainly can't guarantee it just by following someone else's formula. Business is a fluid, changing substance. ~ Richard Branson

People generally thought that sharks are dumb eating machines. After some study, I began to realize that these 'gangsters' of the deep had gotten a bad rap. ~ Eugenie Clark

I don't want this. But the problem is I do, and I don't, and my feelings are still way too tangled for me to be able to say I don't want to spend my whole future in this place when I also can't imagine a future without it. It's dumb, but I wish for a stupid, childish second I could just stay like this forever. ~ Emma Lord

Sleep is not sweet but dumb. It is a gap in time, a gap in pain. ~ Lisa Taddeo

I'm not superstitious about good luck charms and all that. I don't have any ring or any tangible thing as a charm. But I like to have at least one of my parents with me during my shows. It gives me strength to find their faces ... or my brothers ... in the audience. It comforts me. ~ Shreya Ghoshal

Kids are Stupid and Any Adult can Learn to do what a Kid can do Within Nanoseconds because all Children are Dumb (reason to not be afraid of trying to learn something as an adult) ~ Mattias Pilhede

A trifle can be enough when luck is on your side. ~ Margi Preus

The answer to all questions of life and death, "the absolute solution" was written all over the world he had known: it was like a traveller realising that the wild country he surveys is not an accidental assembly of natural phenomena, but the page in a book where these mountains and forests, and fields, and rivers are disposed in such a way as to form a coherent sentence; the vowel of a lake fusing with the consonant of a sibilant slope; the windings of a road writing its message in a round hand, as clear as that of one's father; trees conversing in dumb-show, making sense to one who has learnt the gestures of their language... Thus the traveller spells the landscape and its sense is disclosed, and likewise, the intricate pattern of human life turns out to be monogrammatic, now quite clear to the inner eye disentangling the interwoven letters. And the word, the meaning which appears is astounding in its simplicity: the greatest surprise being perhaps that in the course of one's earthly existence, with one's brain encompassed by an iron ring, by the close-fitting dream of one's own personality - one had not made by chance that simple mental jerk, which would have set free imprisoned thought and granted it the great understanding. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Because we rejected a certain kind of critical language people just assumed that we were dumb ~ Alice Notley

If you are not lucky enough, you can't reach the future! You might be very intelligent, you might be very talented and a very good planner, but you still need 'luck' to reach tomorrow, you still need to be lucky to reach the future! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

So you're really going to the dance?"
I nodded as I sipped from the mug.
"Alone?"
"Not technically.There should be other people there too."
He raised his eyebrows. "Did my sullen daughter just make a joke?" I smiled as he gave a chuckle. "You always used to make jokes when you were nervous," he said. His smile disappeared and he put a hand on my arm. "Are you nervous?"
He knew me better than I thought. "A little."
"Then why are you doing? I mean, won't most everyone there have dates?" He cleared his throat. "Because Tommy and I have a mean game of Uno planned."
I hugged him. "Thanks,Dad. Wish me luck. ~ Brodi Ashton

SOCIETY IS DOOMED for one very simple reason: it takes dozens of men working months with millions of dollars in materials to build a building, but only one dumb-ass with a bomb to bring it down. ~ David Wong

Unlike Saturn who prefers limiting its territory to a manageable size, Jupiter actually goes out and takes chances. And surprisingly, the more chances one seems to take, the more likely one can find opportunities. ~ Cate East

As one of the dumb, voiceless ones I speak. One of the millions of immigrants beating, beating out their hearts at your gates for a breath of understanding. ~ Anzia Yezierska

I wish I could say I had some sort of master plan where one role leads to the next role, but a lot of it really is persistence and luck and being prepared when you are asked to jump on a project. There isn't any one rule that I follow. Obviously, I'll always shoot to work with the best actors, directors and filmmakers. I've been incredibly lucky to be able to do that. ~ Dermot Mulroney

All the greatest blessings are a source of anxiety, and at no time should fortune be less trusted than when it is best; to maintain prosperity there is need of other prosperity, and in behalf of the prayers that have turned out well we must make still other prayers. For everything that comes to us from chance is unstable, and the higher it rises, the more liable it is to fall. Moreover, what is doomed to perish brings pleasure to no one; very wretched, therefore, and not merely short, must the life of those be who work hard to gain what they must work harder to keep. By great toil they attain what they wish, and with anxiety hold what they have attained; meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return. ~ Seneca.

It goes without saying that what a girl goes through, boys could not even comprehend. If we get the flu, we need a week. We're idiots. But what was the most powerful realization to me was, how do single mothers with a low income cope? I can't complain about my dumb life. That's what was most revelatory to me. ~ Gavin Rossdale

THE GAMBLER,THE NUN & THE RADIO

If I live long enough the luck will change. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

You must be a rich man," she said. "Not much of a warrior, though. You keep letting me sneak up on you."
You don't surprise me," he said. "The Plains Indians had women who rode their horses eighteen hours a day. They could shoot seven arrows consecutively, have them all in the air at the same time. They were the best light cavalry in the world."
Just my luck," she said. "An educated Indian."
Yeah," he said. "Reservation University."
They both laughed at the old joke. Every Indian is an alumnus.
Where you from?" she asked.
Wellpinit," he said. "I'm a Spokane."
I should've known. You got those fisherman's hands."
Ain't no salmon left in our river. Just a school bus and a few hundred basketballs."
What the hell you talking about?"
Our basketball team drives into the river and drowns every year," he said. "It's a tradition."
She laughed. "You're just a storyteller, ain't you?"
I'm just telling you things before they happen," he said. "The same things sons and daughters will tell your mothers and fathers."
Do you ever answer a question straight?"
Depends on the question," he said.
Do you want to be my powwow paradise? ~ Sherman Alexie

I am clearly more popular than Reagan. I am in my third term. Where's Reagan? Gone after two! Defeated by George Bush and Michael Dukakis no less. ~ Marion Barry

THAT Perseus always won. That's why my momhad named me after him, even if he was son of Zeus ann I was son of Posidon. The original Perseus was one of the only heros in the greek myths who got a happy ending. The others died-betrayed, mauled, mutilated, poisoned, or cursed by the gods. My mom hoped i would inherit Perseus's luck. Judging by how my life was going so far, i wasn't too optimistic. ~ Rick Riordan

They were always nice to Jess when he went over, but then they would suddenly begin talking about French politics or string quartets (which he at first thought was a square box made out of string), or how to save the timber wolves or redwoods or singing whales, and he was scared to open his mouth and show once and for all how dumb he was. ~ Katherine Paterson

Luck is created by the prepared. ~ James Altucher

Some people are content in the midst of deprivation and danger, while others are miserable despite having all the luck in the world. This is not to say that external circumstances do not matter. But it is your mind, rather than circumstances themselves, that determines the quality of your life. Your mind is the basis of everything you experience and of every contribution you make to the lives of others. Given this fact, it makes sense to train it. Scientists and skeptics generally ~ Sam Harris

Papa always said you make your own luck.
And maybe you do. ~ Jennifer L. Holm

California: the valley of the sun. It would be just his luck that she was here, where the daylight hours seemed to last longer than anywhere else. Where, even if he found her, he'd be bound to staying in the shadows as she walked in the light. ~ Rose Blackman

There are a lot better musicians than me out there that just haven't had the luck to fall into everything like I have. ~ Glenn Tipton

They Harry Potters still enormously outnumber the likes of Petunia and Vernon Dursley in society, who just don't hold with such nonsense, perhaps reflecting how modern life seems more out of control than ever. Most people do indeed believe in magic of one sort or another, whether the thespian who shouts "break a leg" at a colleague, the student who always wears the same outfit for exams, the blushing bride who crosses her fingers for good luck or those who jump with joy when they find a four-leaf clover. Why is our belief in magic so deeply ingrained? Indeed, why do we believe in anything at all? ~ Roger Highfield

Momma used to say there were lots of ways to survive. Don't e afraid to pretend to be something you aren't, Jane. Some times a little subterfuge and chicanery is in order and the quickest way to achieve one's goal. It ain't hard to imagine Ida pretending to be just another dumb colored girl in order to make it out here. Survival by any means necessary. ~ Justina Ireland

You should have woken me. I would have taken a shift at the tiller."

"We actually considered it when you started to snore."

"I don't snore!"

"I beg to differ," Hadrian chided while chewing.

She looked around the skiff as each of them, even Etcher, nodded. Her face flushed.

Hadrian chuckled. "Don't worry about it. You can't be held accountable for what you do in your sleep."

"Still," she said, "it's not very ladylike."

"Well, if that's all you're worried about, you can forget it," Hadrian informed her with a wicked smirk. "We lost all illusions of you being prissy back in Sheridan."

How much better it was when they were silent.

"That's a compliment," he added hastily.

"You don't have much luck with the ladies, do you, sir?" Wally asked, pausing briefly and letting the paddles hang out like wings, leaving a tiny trail of droplets on the smooth surface of the river. "I mean, with compliments like that, and all."

Hadrian frowned at him, then turned back to her with a concerned expression. "I really did mean it as a compliment. I've never met a lady who would - well, without complaining you've been - " He paused in frustration, then added, "That little trick you managed back there was really great. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca

There is, perhaps, no more dangerous man in the world than the man with the sensibilities of an artist but without creative talent. With luck such men make wonderful theatrical impresarios and interior decorators, or else they become mass murderers or critics. ~ Dame Edna Everage

Yo, Y.T.," Roadkill says, " 'sup?"
"'Sup with you?"
"Surfing the Tura. 'Sup with you?"
"Maxing The Clink."
"Whoa! Who popped you?"
"MetaCops. Affixed me to the gate of White Columns with a loogie gun."
"Whoa, how very! When you leaving?"
"Soon. Can you swing by and give me a hand?"
"What do you mean?"
Men. "You know, give me a hand. You're my boyfriend," she says, speaking very
simply and plainly. "If I get popped, you're supposed to come around and help
bust me out." Isn't everyone supposed to know this stuff? Don't parents teach
their kids anything anymore?
"Well, uh, where are you?"
"Buy 'n' Fly number 501,762."
"I'm on my way to Bernie with a super-ultra."
As in San Bernardino. As in super-ultra-high-priority delivery. As in, you're
out of luck.
"Okay, thanks for nothing."
"Awwww," he begins.
"Surfing safety," Y.T. says, in the traditional sarcastic sign off.
"Keep breathing," Roadkill says. The roaring noise snaps off.
What a jerk. Next date, he's really going to have to grovel. But in the
meantime, there's one other person who owes her one. The only problem is that
he might be a spaz. But it's worth a try. ~ Neal Stephenson

Men of action are favored by the Goddess of luck. ~ George S. Clason