Quotes & Sayings About Happy Accidents

It came to me then, I am sure, for the first time, how promiscuous, how higgledy-piggledy was the whole of that jumble of mines and homes, collieries and potbanks, railway yards, canals, schools, forges and blast furnaces, churches, chapels, allotment hovels, a vast irregular agglomeration of ugly smoking accidents in which men lived as happy as frogs in a dustbin. Each thing jostled and damaged the other things about it, each thing ignored the other things about it; the smoke of the furnace defiled the potbank clay, the clatter of the railway deafened the worshipers in church, the public-house thrust corruption at the school doors, the dismal homes squeezed miserably amidst the monstrosities of industrialism, with an effect of groping imbecility. Humanity choked amidst its products, and all its energy went in increasing its disorder, like a blind stricken thing that struggles and sinks in a morass. — H.G.Wells

That's the way it happens - some characters you set out to use, some are happy accidents. As long as it works, it doesn't really matter how you got them. — Kurt Busiek

My grandfather used to say: Life is astoundingly short. To me, looking back over it, life seems so foreshortened that I scarcely understand, for instance, how a young man can decide to ride over to the next village without being afraid that -not to mention accidents- even the span of a normal happy life may fall far short of the time needed for such a journey. — Franz Kafka

Scientists have, in fact, assembled long lists of scores of such "happy cosmic accidents." When faced with this imposing list, it's shocking to find how many of the familiar constants of the universe lie within a very narrow band that makes life possible. If a single one of these accidents were altered, stars would never form, the universe would fly apart, DNA would not exist, life as we know it would be impossible, Earth would flip over or freeze, and so on. — Michio Kaku

The future is not what it used to be. — Yogi Berra

A student: "I wonder why I did what I did, maybe it was an accident" A Teacher: "Everything is a mere accident. Be it, a love or friendship. We are born by an accident, we die by an accident, we study by an accident, and sometimes, we live by an accident. However, it is not we who perform these accidents. We are just like a remote control operated by unknown creature. But worry not; your heart makes happy accidents. — Santosh Kalwar

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

The rational transparency and beauty of the universe are surely too remarkable to be treated as just happy accidents. — John Polkinghorne

I really believe there's no such thing as accidents, only opportunities. God gives everyone the ingredients to a good, happy life. It's up to us to make the most of them. — Rachael Ray

Being creative is my idea of heaven. I'm just incredibly fortunate that I can do it in artwork. Watercolor is what I started out with. What I love about watercolor is that a lot of happy accidents occur. — Jane Seymour

There are numerous studies looking at people that won the lottery and their happiness levels. After six to 12 months, most lottery winners are about as happy or unhappy as they were before winning. Likewise, those who suffer crippling accidents return near to their previous levels of happiness in a similar time frame. What determines our happiness is more choice than circumstances, more skill than luck. — Douglas A. Smith

I respect deeply that each project brings its own secret and wonderful gifts and happy accidents. — Lake Bell

We don't have mistakes here, we just have happy accidents. — Rob Ross

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

Creating and producing creative work, to me, those are all happy accidents. — Jim Lee

Adventures are funny things.
Many are merely happy accidents - a single spark that ignites an unexpected chain of events.
But some adventures are meant for you and you alone.
And whether you want them or not, they seek you out of a great crowd and take you somewhere you never thought you'd go.
Often, these unlooked for adventures require a sacrifice too great to imagine. — Wayne Thomas Batson

Road accidents, psycho killings, plane crashes abound - we don't know which day will be our last, so why not make today the happiest day and be thankful for all that we have? — Maddy Malhotra

The thing that always fascinated me about improv is that it's basically a happy accident that you think you're initiating. — Tina Fey

A lot of the times the first take was the best, because the actors are not analyzing themselves as much; they just do it. I believe in happy accidents and I'm not necessarily into actors getting the dialogue exactly as I wrote it; I'm much more into them understanding the motivations and have it come out in a natural way, and maybe catch something that I didn't expect. — Storm Saulter

As for thinking time versus writing time, well, that's up to you. But - and I wish it were otherwise - books don't get written by thinking about them, they get written by writing them. And that's when you make discoveries about what you're writing. That's when you get the happy accidents. — Neil Gaiman

His life had seemed horrible when it was measured by its happiness, but now he seemed to gather strength as he realised that it might be measured by something else. Happiness mattered as little as pain. They came in, both of them, as all the other details of his life came in, to the elaboration of the design. He seemed for an instant to stand above the accidents of his existence, and he felt that they could not affect him again as they had done before. Whatever happened to him now would be one more motive to add to the complexity of the pattern, and when the end approached he would rejoice in its completion. It would be a work of art, and it would be none the less beautiful because he alone knew of its existence, and with his death it would at once cease to be.
Philip was happy. — W. Somerset Maugham

My life has been a whole series of accidents, some of them happy, some not. — Randy Bachman

To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages today that determine success
the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history
with a society that provides opportunities for all. — Malcolm Gladwell

If we have fear, we can't be completely happy. If we're still running after the object of our desire, then we still have fear. Fear goes together with craving. We want to be safe and happy, so we begin to crave a particular person or object or idea (such as wealth or fame) that we think will guarantee our well-being. We can never fully satisfy our craving, so we keep running and we stay scared. If you stop running after the object of your craving - whether it's a person, a thing, or an idea - your fear will dissipate. Having no fear, you can be peaceful. With peace in your body and mind, you aren't beset by worries, and in fact you have fewer accidents. You are free. If — Thich Nhat Hanh

There are no mistakes, only happy accidents. — Bob Ross

We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Improvise when obstacles present themselves. Happy accidents are magic! Have an open mind. — Matthew Bonifacio

We don't make mistakes, we just have happy accidents. — Bob Ross

My whole career is just terror, from beginning to end. That's kind of my thing. A lot of happy accidents happened. — Patrick J. Adams

Someone once described entrepreneurship to me as a series of happy accidents. — Kevin Systrom

In improv there are no mistakes, only beautiful happy accidents. And many of the world's greatest discoveries have been by accident. — Tina Fey

Half happy. We wander among Mayflowers, among the lonely paths in the woods. We hover over gatherings of people, over the scene of accidents, gardens, festivals. We cower in chimneys of dwelling places and behind the bed curtains. Give me your hand. We don't associate with each other, but we see and hear everything that is going on in the world. We know that everything is stupidity, everything that men do and contend for, and we laugh at it. — Frank Wedekind

The process of art-making is full of happy accidents - what fun! — Max Elliott Slade

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

In terms of how the music developed, it was my normal process, which I would say is really a hybrid process of sketching on bits of paper, playing the piano, playing synthesisers, using the computer, staring out of the window, finding things I'd forgotten about, happy accidents, failed plans, best intentions, equipment failures. It is a multidimensional process incorporating a lot of planning and intention and a lot of randomness. Ultimately I just follow the material where it wants to go a lot of the time. — Max Richter

We dont make mistakes. We have happy accidents. — Bob Ross

I sometimes feel my entire life is a series of accidents and chances- not that I am complaining. One can be very happy having relinquished all expectation of control. — Kate Morton

The best artists are the ones that work the hardest, and if you work hard enough, you'll eventually experience the happy accidents that are art. — Julian Casablancas

We were happy a hundred years ago. We knew that there were exploiters and exploited, wealthy and poor, and we had a perfect idea of how to get rid of injustice; we would expropriate the owners and turn the wealth over to the common good. We expropriated the owners and we created one of the most monstrous and oppressive social systems in world history. And we keep repeating that in principle everything was all right, only some unfortunate accidents slipped in and slightly spoiled the good idea. Now let us start afresh ... — Leszek Kolakowski

I don't believe in fate," she said at last. "But I do believe in ... loopholes. I think a lot of what keeps the world going is the result of accidents - happy or otherwise - and taking advantage of these. — Robin McKinley

The world gobbles us and chews us and swallows us," Hatcher said, in that uncanny way he had of reading her thoughts. "I think happy endings must be accidents."
"But we hope for them all the same," Alice said. She looked sadly at the remains of those hopeful faces. Above all, we hope not to die in terror. — Christina Henry

It's ridiculous. My life's been a series of happy accidents. — Lucas Neff

Single life should be experimental in nature and open to accidents. Some accidents are happy ones. — Barbara Holland

It is often to the wary that the events in life are unexpected. Looser types-people who are not busy weighing and measuring every little thing-are used to accidents, coincidences, chance, things getting out of hand, things sneaking up on them. They are the happy children of life, to whom life happens for better or worse. — Laurie Colwin

Don't try to be perfect. Life isn't; no one is. Use mistakes and mishaps as opportunities to grow tolerance and to teach. There is such a thing as happy accidents. And love, love, love and listen, listen, listen. — Teri Hatcher

We must judge of a form of government by it's general tendency, not by happy accidents — Thomas B. Macaulay

There are no mistakes, just happy accidents. — Bob Ross

We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents. — Bob Ross

A lifetime's experience urges me to utter a warning cry: do anything else, take someone's golden retriever for a walk, run away with a saxophone player. Perhaps what's wrong with being a writer is that one can't even say 'good luck'
luck plays no part in the writing of a novel. No happy accidents as with the paint pot or chisel. I don't think you can say anything, really. I've always wanted to juggle and ride a unicycle, but I dare say if I ever asked the advice of an acrobat he would say, 'All you do is get on and start pedaling'. — J.G. Ballard

The connection being that in my head all language began in song and that the best stories inevitably reutrn to song, to a state of rapture. For years, I had assumed that throwing beautiful words at the page would make my prose feel true. But I had the process exactly backward. It was truth that lifted the language into beauty and toward song. It was a matter of doing what Joe Henry did, of pursuing characters into moments of emotional truth and slowing down. The result was a compression of sensual and psychological detail that released the rhythm and melody in language itself, what Longfellow called the happy accidents of language. — Steve Almond