Quotes & Sayings About Accidents Happen

Accidents, and particularly street and highway accidents, do not happen - they are caused. — Ernest Greenwood

I think that in the process of writing, all kinds of unexpected things happen that shift the poet away from his plan and that these accidents are really what we mean when we talk about poetry. — John Ashbery

If an accident happens in a plant, the aftermath will be unimaginable. — Zhou Shengxian

I think that everyone's life is controlled by a series of events. They choose what they want and if it is in their control they can reach it. Sometimes luck shines on them and sometimes it doesn't. I also think accidents happen and we are placed in situations where we have to do things for those we love that we don't want to do. — Abbi Glines

You've got to let accidents and strange things happen - let it work, so it's got an organic sort of quality ... By trying to remove yourself you can see some fantastic things sometimes. — David Lynch

A lot of my work comes through accidents or circumstances that just happen to present themselves. I have to realize that something is presenting itself. Otherwise it slips right by. — Ari Marcopoulos

Along the (writing) way accidents happen, detours get taken ... But these are not "divine" accidents; I don't believe in those. I believe you have constructive accidents en route through a novel only because you have mapped a clear way. If you have confidence that you have a clear direction to take, you always have confidence to explore other ways; if they prove to be mere digressions, you'll recognize that and make the necessary revisions. The more you know about a book, the freer you can be to fool around. The less you know, the tighter you get. — John Irving

We must look back over our lives and look at some of the accidents and curiosities and oddities and troubles and sicknesses and begin to see more in those things than we saw before. It raises questions, so that when peculiar little accidents happen, you ask whether there is something else at work in your life. — James Hillman

Here is a man," said the Captain, addressing himself to his fair auditors, and indicating the commander with his outstretched hook, "that has fell down more than any man alive; that has had more accidents happen to his own self than the Seamen's Hospital to all hands; that took as many spars and bars and bolts about the outside of his head when he was young, as you'd want a order for on Chathamyard* to build a pleasure-yacht with; and yet that got his opinions in that way, it's my belief, for there an't nothing like 'em afloat or ashore. — Charles Dickens

In a city where you walk around, it's impossible to plan your day and your life as accidents will happen, you'll overhear things, bump into people, and take unexpected turns. — Jason Schwartzman

There are those who imagine that the unlucky accidents of life
life's "experiences"
are in some way useful to us. I wish I could find out how. I never knew one of them to happen twice. They always change off and swap around and catch you on your inexperienced side. — Mark Twain

Accidents happen all the time. — Lemony Snicket

Harmony doesn't happen by accident, accidents happen by accident. — Nityananda Das

Most people neglect their lives and allow all kinds of accidents, mishaps and misfortunes to happen to them. — Sunday Adelaja

The years move forward and everyone is attending to their life's priorities, focusing on how to be happy, make a living, raise a family. The years turn into decades and sooner or later, (hopefully later) sickness or accidents happen and all are again confronted with the big questions: Why? What's next? What has this life that I've lived been about? As one begins to consider their own eventual departure: What have I been able to do to make things a little better? What have I passed along to make others' lives more beautiful? — Gene O'Neil

Now the sun is wide awake, baring its teeth, making the sweat run down people's back. Before it will make its way across the sky and into the waiting arms of the Arabian Sea, so much will have happened: migrations into the city, births, marriages, dowry deaths, illicit love affairs, pay raises, first kisses, bankruptcy filings, traffic accidents, business deals, money changing hands, plant shutdowns, gallery openings, poetry readings, political discussions, evictions. Every event in human history will repeat itself today. Everything that ever happened will happen again today. All if life lived in a day. A day, a day. A silver urn of promise and hope. Another chance. At reinvention, at resurrection, at reincarnation. A day. The least and most of all of our lives. — Thrity Umrigar

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don't let yourself believe it will happen to you. — Muhammad Ali

Sometimes accidents happen in life from which we have need of a little madness to extricate ourselves successfully — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

You know, it would be very easy for Gilmore to break his neck on these stairs," Matt offered with a hopeful air. "Accidents do happen."
"That won't be necessary, thank you," Virginia said.
"Just a leg perhaps? — Amanda Quick

The time is gone when mere accidents could still happen to me; and what could still come to me now that was not mine already? What returns, what finally comes home to me, is my own self and what of myself has long been in strange lands and scattered among all things and accidents. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Do not ride in cars: they are responsible for 20% of all fatal accidents. Do not stay at home: 17% of all accidents occur in the home. Do not walk on the streets or pavements: 14% of all accidents occur to pedestrians. Do not travel by air, rail, or water: 16% of accidents happen on these. Only .001% of all deaths occur in worship services in church, and these are usually related to previous physical disorders. Hence the safest place for you to be at any time is at church! — Mark Leslie

Filmmaking is a completely imperfect art form that takes years and, over those years, the movie tells you what it is. Mistakes happen, accidents happen and true great films are the results of those mistakes and the decisions that those directors make during those moments. — Jason Reitman

Once you decide that strangers are more than just dangerous accidents waiting to happen, you will find yourself able to listen. How much sadness could be averted by taking the time to notice all the people we have come to ignore? Would we in fact be safer and not more at risk if we asked someone to voice his feelings rather than wait until he looked for other means of making himself heard? — Ann Patchett

Half of all home accidents happen in the kitchen, and the family has to eat them. — Sam Ewing

It's going to be a season with lots of accidents, and I'll risk saying that we'll be lucky if something really serious doesn't happen. — Ayrton Senna

I came to Party Crashing because accidents happen. People you love will die. Nothing you treasure will last forever. And I need to accept and embrace that fact. — Chuck Palahniuk

Everyone makes mistakes, even if some are worse than others. Accidents happen. — Nicholas Sparks

Like accidents, marriages result because those involved happen to arrive at what might be the wrong place, at the same time. — Margaret Yorke

I never thought before how life is so accidental, how it can so easily and quickly be made, and then gone again, in the space of minutes. It makes me appreciate everything more, but it also makes me think about how much of our fate are set by chance, and how many little accidents had to happen to make me what and who I am. — Abigail Tarttelin

That doesn't mean that you should just sit back and just let accidents happen to you. No, you have to go out and cause them yourself. That way you're in control of the situation. — P. J. O'Rourke

About 70 percent of everything is really sketched out on my keyboard beforehand, because I do want accidents to happen in the studio. — Scott Walker

In live action movies, you just hope that everything works. Because the actor may had a bad morning and doesn't play good, or accidents happen continuously. Many things contradict what you are trying to say. But in cartoons, nothing contradict what you want to say. — John Hench

Happy accidents are real gifts, and they can open the door to a future that didn't even exist. It's kind of nice sometimes to set up something to encourage or allow happy accidents to happen. — David Lynch

In the case of all things which have a certain constitution, whatever harm may happen to any of them, that which is affected becomes consequently worse; but in like case, a man becomes both
better ... and more worthy of praise, by making the right use of these accidents. — Marcus Aurelius

Don't be a scaredy-human," called Emerald. "Gran-Doyen says I can't burn you up, so I won't." Then under her breath, she added, "Though accidents do happen." (Emerald to Ethan) — Jackie Castle

What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.' I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen. — Rand Paul

And in this city a man will go mad with paresis, another with terror, a third will drown himself and the newspapers will report death from cancer and cerebral hemorrhage among our leading citizens, and there will casual mention of various epidemics, of lust murders, of famine and starvation, and the decline of Utilities on the New York Exchange. But all that's forgotten tonight, God's asleep. And if you have any questions to ask about the chaotic conditions on this little spherical toy of his, you'll have to refer them to his secretary, who will send you form letter No. X99 explaining that accidents will happen and that of course God's ways are necessarily rather obscure to man. — Tennessee Williams

Chubs is useful," I reminded her. "Please try not to kill him."
"Yeah, yeah we'll see. All I'm saying is, accidents happen. — Alexandra Bracken

The Act of God designation on all insurance policies; which means, roughly, that you cannot be insured for the accidents that are most likely to happen to you. — Alan Coren

Lucky accidents seldom happen to writers who don't work. You will find that you may rewrite and rewrite a poem and it never seems quite right. Then a much better poem may come rather fast and you wonder why you bothered with all that work on the earlier poem. Actually, the hard work you do on one poem is put in on all poems. The hard work on the first poem is responsible for the sudden ease of the second. If you just sit around waiting for the easy ones, nothing will come. Get to work. — Richard Hugo

In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen — William S. Burroughs

Having a large amount of leverage is like driving a car with a dagger on the steering wheel pointed at your heart. If you do that, you will be a better driver. There will be fewer accidents but when they happen, they will be fatal. — Warren Buffett

This is the story, this is your character, I have the sense of the landscape, I have the sense of the scene, I have all that stuff. But I'm also looking for something else to happen, an accident or something. You're focused on the story you intend to tell and then you have to have a peripheral net out to catch these accidents. — Gore Verbinski

Of course, accidents will happen in wild-folk families just as among us humans, only in a wild-folk family, an accident is more apt to be fatal. — Samuel Scoville Jr.

The reality of any location in Britain being used in a TV program of a film is that something bad is going to happen! That's the nature of drama. Most of the things that get made or basically grisly detective shows about murders, accidents or medical dramas. — Ben Wheatley

Accidents on big mountains happen when people's ambitions cloud their good judgment. Good climbing is about climbing with heart and with instinct, not ambition and pride. — Bear Grylls

At root, I think that any given technology (think nuclear power, gunpowder, the written word ... ) has the potential to improve our lives, wound it, and also to create unexpected accidents. It's not the technology that's the problem, it's us, the users. However angelic or demonic, or thoughtful or thoughtless we happen to be is then amplified by our technologies. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Oh sure, I have lots of fears. My job is to conquer my fears. The irony of being a performer is that I have huge insecurities. Each of us is responsible for what happens in our lives. When good things happen, we take ownership, but when bad things happen we often don't take responsibility. There are no mistakes or accidents. Consciousness is everything and all things begin with a thought. We are responsible for our own fate. We reap what we sow, we get what we give and we pull in what we put out. — Madonna Ciccone

No one's fated or doomed to love anyone.
The accidents happen, we're not heroines,
they happen in our lives like car crashes,
books that change us, neighborhoods
we move into and come to love.
Tristan and Isolde is scarcely the story,
women at least should know the difference
between love and death. No poison cup,
no penance. Merely a notion that the tape-recorder
should have caught some ghost of us: that tape-recorder
not merely played but should have listened to us,
and could instruct those after us:
this we were, this is how we tried to love,
and these are the forces they had ranged against us,
and these are the forces we had ranged within us,
within us and against us, against us and within us. — Adrienne Rich

Enlightenments, like accidents, happen only to prepared minds. — Herbert Simon

You have to be very flexible and understand as a director, especially as a writer/director, that you cannot hang onto stuff really hard. You have to be ready to accept those happy accidents and to anticipate that they are going to happen and capitalize on them. — David M. Evans

You never learn anything in school. Think about how many car accidents happen every day. Driver's ed? What's up? I still haven't been to driver's ed because if everybody I know has been in an accident, I can't see how driver's ed is really helping them out. — Jaden Smith

Some people might laugh at me for being too cautious, but stupid accidents happen all the time, and the ones who get killed or badly wounded are usually the ones who were laughing. — Haruki Murakami

Um, accidents happen. Especially if there's a co-star that you're not that fond of - you might 'accidentally' deck him. But no, I'm a professional. I'm just saying that can happen. — Timothy Olyphant

Is it not indeed, possible that, while a high order of genius is necessarily ambitious, the highest is above that which is termed ambition? And may it not thus happen that many far greater than Milton have contentedly remained "mute and inglorious"? I believe that the world has never seen - and that, unless through some series of accidents goading the noblest order of mind into distateful exertion, the world will never see - that full extent of triumphant execution, in the richer domains of art, of which the human nature is absolutely capable. — Edgar Allan Poe

It's hard to believe, but anything can happen. Accidents do happen, unfortunately, it happened at the worst time. — Tiger Woods

Accidents will happen in the best regulated families. — John Dos Passos

I mean, accidents happen. You learn from them and you try to make sure they don't happen again. — Joe Lieberman

Accidents did not just happen. From time to time they were carefully plotted, calculated, and arranged to one's advantage-all, of course, under the cloak of happenstance. — Jodi Picoult

Accidents happen, get lost! — Tommy Vercetti

The case for individual freedom rests chiefly on the recognition of the inevitable and universal ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievement of our ends and welfare depend. It is because every individual knows so little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it. Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preservation of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen. — Friedrich Hayek

Accidents happen. That's what everyone says. But in a quantum universe there are no such things as accidents, only possibilities and probabilities folded into existence by perception. — J. Michael Straczynski

Andy was receptive, like a deep vessel into which life was poured. If this terrible particular thing hadn't been poured into her, she would have been happier
it goes without saying
but less of a person. She was filled out by her fate. I actually think that this is quite rare, the capacity to become the whole shape of the accidents that happen to you. — Tessa Hadley

Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn't care to, or he doesn't exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely.
The only sense to make of tragedies like this is that terrible things can happen to perfectly innocent people. This understanding inspires compassion.
Religious faith, on the other hand, erodes compassion. Thoughts like, 'this might be all part of God's plan,' or 'there are no accidents in life,' or 'everyone on some level gets what he or she deserves' - these ideas are not only stupid, they are extraordinarily callous. They are nothing more than a childish refusal to connect with the suffering of other human beings. It is time to grow up and let our hearts break at moments like this. — Sam Harris

He'd tried to explain it to her, how accidents happen but we really are safe. But there was, already, the sense that nothing he said touched what was really bothering her, which was the realization that you can't stop bad things from happening to other people, other things. And that would be hard forever. He'd never quite gotten used to it himself. — Megan Abbott

I'm riveted by extreme sports like big-wave surfing, 'megaramp' skateboarding and half-pipe snowboarding. I'm fascinated partly because the sports are so exhilaratingly acrobatic. But I'm also captivated by the fear that a terrible accident might happen at any moment. And accidents do happen. — Lucy Walker

Tom, don't let anybody kid you. It's all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of shit every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it's personal as hell. You know where I learned that from? The Don. My old man. The Godfather. If a bolt of lightning hit a friend of his the old man would take it personal. He took my going into the Marines personal. That's what makes him great. The Great Don. He takes everything personal Like God. He knows every feather that falls from the tail of a sparrow or however the hell it goes? Right? And you know something? Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult. — Mario Puzo

My theory is, the more pictures you take, the better you get. It's like a sport. I never wait to get a particular shot because wonderful accidents can happen when you shoot a lot. — Tina Barney

Fatal accidents never happen because of just one mistake. It takes a whole chain of stupids lining up just so to put a full stop at the end of an epitaph. — Charles Stross

Accidents happen, whether they're car accidents, friendly fire, drug overdoses. Accidents happen, and they're tragic. It's like a bomb that goes off and pieces of shrapnel rip into the flesh of the family. It's the families that need the compassion, because everywhere they walk, every day, someone reminds them of their loss. — James Belushi

In pitch dark I go walkin' in your landscape Broken branches trip me as I speak Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean it's there We are accidents waiting Waiting to happen — Thom Yorke

Purity doesn't happen by accident; it requires obedience to God. — Joshua Harris

Accidents happen. Our bones shatter, our skin splits, our hearts break. We burn, we drown, we stay alive. — Moira Fowley-Doyle

My mom says . . . there are bad people who hurt others for fun . . . and there are good people who do it by accident. Like, they make a mistake?

I think you're a good person. — Svetlana Chmakova

The accidents are things that audiences always remember most, I've found on my own movies. The things that they like the most are the things that were just by accident. So you have to create a situation where nothing but accidents can happen the entire time. — Robert Rodriguez

The random quantum fluctuations of my brain are historical accidents that happen to have decided that the concepts of dynamic scoping and lexical scoping are orthogonal and should remain that way. — Larry Wall

Accidents happen. I will, um ... I will pay to have your house rebuilt."
"And my barn?" a woman called out.
Liam sighed. "Yes, and your barn, too."
"And my golden carousel?" shouted another man. "Will you pay for that?"
Liam raised an eyebrow. "The giant smashed your golden carousel?"
"No," said the man. "I'd just like to have a golden carousel. — Christopher Healy

It's a chain of accidents. When you step into Hollywood, you wind yourself into thousands of chains of accidents. If all of the thousands happen to come out exactly right-and the chance of that figures out to be one in eight million-then you'll be a star. — Clark Gable

Many accidents happen to white people because they don't believe their dreams. — David Grann

Don't you know medicine cats don't have kits?" hissed Yellowfang furiously. "But I heard you were a warrior before that," Firepaw ventured. "I have no kits!" Yellowfang spat. She snatched her tail away from him and sat up. "Anyway" - her voice suddenly lowered, and she sounded almost wistful - "accidents seem to happen to kits when I'm around them. — Erin Hunter