Mishap Quotes & Sayings

I don't expect you to understand. You're only a magnet for mishap, Miss Mitchell, while I am a magnet for sin. — Sylvain Reynard

JFK had a way of grabbing grandeur from mishap. — David Pietrusza

For where there is true love, a man is neither out of measure lifted up by prosperity, nor cast down by mishap; whether you give or take away from him, so long as he keeps his beloved, he has a spring of inward peace. Thus, even though thy outward man grieve, or weep downright, that may well be borne, if only thy inner man remain at peace, perfectly content with the will of God. — Johannes Tauler

Our past cannot be changed, and to be preoccupied with it is inefficient in time and effort. Likewise, by fretting over the future, we only exhaust ourselves, making us less able to effectively respond when the future is actually upon us. By worrying about a mishap that may or may not take place, we're forced to undergo the event twice - once when imagining it and once again if and when we actually experience it. — H.E. Davey

In comedy, the witty style wins out over every mishap of the plot. — Mason Cooley

No one, I fancy, would discredit a story that the Archbishop of Canterbury slipped on a banana skin merely because he found that a similar comic mishap had been reported of many people, and especially of elderly gentlemen of dignity. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The chief tragic event of the old man's life, so far as I could judge, was his mishap with a certain goose, which lived and died some twenty or forty years ago: a goose of most promising figure, but which, at table, proved so inveterately tough, that the carving-knife would make no impression on its carcase, and it could only be divided with an axe and handsaw. — Anonymous

He has hazel eyes " Nachari remarked in astonishment.
He looked over at Jocelyn with approval.
"Yeah well " Marquis grumbled "we can toughen him up make up for that one little...feminine mishap."
Nachari feigned insult. "My eyes are green as well Marquis."
Marquis shrugged. "Yeah...and you became a wizard. — Tessa Dawn

You are not an accident. Your birth was no mistake or mishap, and your life is no fluke of nature. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did ... Long before you were conceived by your parents, you were conceived in the mind of God. He thought of you first. It is not fate, nor chance, nor luck, nor coincidence that you are breathing this very moment. You are alive because God wanted to create you! — Rick Warren

WHATEVER MISHAP MAY BEFALL YOU, IT IS ON ACCOUNT OF SOMETHING WHICH YOU HAVE DONE."
Prophet Muhammad. — Michael Francis John

I am very competitive, so when I fail I use what I learned from that mishap to fuel success. — Tara Lipinski

I needed Hack to think that I would comply, that I'd go along with his nonsense because that would be the only way to discover the truth. I needed him to think he was in control so that he could slip up. All it would take was one mishap on his end, that was all I would need.
One mistake and I would be able to figure out what he was hiding.
So instead of allowing my anger to guide me, I chose to allow hope to lead me in the right direction.
Hope was my ammunition.
And I was the weapon. — Nicole Sobon

If you could only speak the devil fair enough, he might save you the cost of the doctor. Such strange lingering echoes of the old demon-worship might perhaps even now be caught by the diligent listener among the grey-haired peasantry; for the rude mind with difficulty associates the ideas of power and benignity. A shadowy conception of power that by much persuasion can be induced to refrain from inflicting harm, is the shape most easily taken by the sense of the Invisible in the minds of men who have always been pressed close by primitive wants, and to whom a life of hard toil has never been illuminated by any enthusiastic religious faith. To them pain and mishap present a far wider range of possibilities than gladness and enjoyment: their imagination is almost barren of the images that feed desire and hope, but is all overgrown by recollections that are a perpetual pasture to fear. — George Eliot

Jane, if you'd been able to read these books, would you have felt more prepared, or would you have worked yourself into an information-overload-fueled frenzy, convinced that you could arrange the whole wedding yourself, and eventually killed one of your loved ones in a glue-gun-related mishap?" she asked, her lips quirked. "Probably that second one," I admitted. — Molly Harper

Thus we see that the lot of the duck hunter is not a happy one. He is the child of frustration, the collector of mishap, the victim of misfortune. He suffers from cold and wet and lack of sleep. He is punished more often than rewarded. Yet he continues. Why? Because one great day
and great days do come, days when the ducks are willing and the gun swings true
repays him many fold for all the others. — Ted Trueblood

He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another's mishap. — Publilius Syrus

This sense of the brain's remarkable plasticity, its capacity for the most striking adaptations, not least in the special (and often desperate) circumstances of neural or sensory mishap, has come to dominate my own perception of my patients and their lives. So much so, indeed, that I am sometimes moved to wonder whether it may not be necessary to redefine the very concepts of "health" and "disease," to see these in terms of the ability of the organism to create a new organization and order, one that fits its special, altered disposition and needs, rather than in the terms of a rigidly defined "norm. — Oliver Sacks

Of all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst, and the mishap is the more calamitous in a drawn-out and detailed one — Walter Savage Landor

You're hurt."
"No. No, I'm fine. It's not blood. The militiamen were adjusting Sir Lewis's trebuchet, and there was a mishap. You took a melon for me." She smiled, even though her lips trembled. — Tessa Dare

Now I stand on the edge of a new world, a new life; pondering what type of fortunes and catastrophes await me. Bring it on, I've handled a generous amount of profound and weird shit in my lifetime that the universe could sling at me and I have always walked away more seasoned. Through blunder and mishap I've grown wise and callused, and I've risen from the aftermath as a warrior, a grandmaster, a champion of bad virtues and noble intentions. — J.C. Wickhart

Maybe" she said. "I just wish we'd have a little mishap.It would be reassuring — Sarah Dessen

Yourself into an information-overload-fueled frenzy, convinced that you could arrange the whole wedding yourself, and eventually killed one of your loved ones in a glue-gun-related mishap — Molly Harper

I have never seen the swing from "Hosanna!" to "Crucify!" more graphically evoked than in the virtually insane way the crowd goes berserk when the toreador makes an adroit turn, and they immediately follow this with insane howling and whistling when some mishap occurs. The momentary character of this mass mood goes so far that they applaud for the bull and against the toreador if, for example, the latter proves to be cowardly and
quite understandably
his courage fails him for a moment. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

That from small fires comes oft no small mishap. — George Herbert

A rent in your clothes is a mishap, a stain on them is a vice. — Honore De Balzac

Traveling is all about talking to new people. That's the ball game. That's the whole point, travel to an exotic place, meet the people, immerse in their culture, and find out why they're so fucked up. If you're not going to spill your guts to complete strangers, why take the trip? You might as well just stay home abusing sex toys until that mishap that brings paramedics and you become the talk of the neighborhood. But communication is easy for me because I'm a listener. I love to hear people gab about themselves. Every single person is special. Everyone has great stories. Like you. I'll bet you have a million. How old are you? Sixty? — Tim Dorsey

It was the nearest to a casualty on the Spray in her whole course, so far as I know. The young man having come on board with compliments made the mishap most embarrassing. — Joshua Slocum

Weddings seem to be magnets for mishap and for whatever craziness lurks in family closets. In more ways than one, weddings bring out the ding-dong on everybody involved. — Robert Fulghum

Down the mine I dreamed of cricket; I bowled imaginery balls in the dark; I sent the stumps spinning and heard them rattling in the tunnels. No mishap was going to stop me from bowling in the real game, especially this one. — Harold Larwood

Your birth was no mistake or mishap, and your life is no fluke of nature. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He was not at all surprised by your birth. In fact, he expected it. — Rick Warren

Wrath is one of the seven deadly sins," she remarked, turning away from him to gaze out the window, trying to alleviate the burning sensation in her middle.
He laughed bitterly. "Remarkably, I have all seven; don't bother counting. Pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, lust."
She lifted an eyebrow but did not turn around. "Somehow, I doubt that."
"I don't expect you to understand. You're only a magnet for mishap, while I am a magnet for sin. — Sylvain Reynard

If he was dull as a statesman he was more dull in private life, and it may be imagined that such a woman as his wife would find some difficulty in making his society the source of her happiness. Their marriage, in a point of view regarding business, had been a complete success, - and a success, too, when on the one side, that of Lady Glencora, there had been terrible dangers of shipwreck, and when on his side also there had been some little fears of a mishap. — Anthony Trollope

Does a population have informed consent when that population is not taught the inner workings of its monetary system, and then is drawn, all unknowing, into economic adventures? — Frank Herbert

When actors encounter a mishap during a stage performance,
they transform it for good purpose by employing a technique called,
"use the difficulty." How can you "use the difficulty" in your life? — Gina Greenlee

And what if thou, sweet May, hast known
Mishap by worm and blight;
If expectations newly blown
Have perished in thy sight;
If loves and joys, while up they sprung,
Were caught as in a snare;
Such is the lot of all the young,
However bright and fair. — William Wordsworth

Who strive not for objects unattainable, grieve not for what lost and gone be,
Who suffer not mind clouded amid mishap, have intellect with wisdom truly.
[26] - 33 Mahatma Vidur — Munindra Misra

My mortal foe can no ways wish me a greater harm than England's hate; neither should death be less welcome unto me than such a mishap betide me. — Elizabeth I

We regard our living together not as an unfortunate mishap warranting endless competition among us but as a deliberate act of God to make us a community of brothers and sisters jointly involved in the quest for a composite answer to the varied problems of life. Hence in all we do we always place man first and hence all our action is usually joint community oriented action rather than the individualism.. — Steven Biko

He sees, and smells, that the mishap was caused by a large human turd. — David Mitchell

Sometimes thoughts merely pass through a man's head without mishap, but sometimes they fall out of his mouth on the way through. — Penelope Wilcock

Before Westcliff could launch into an unwanted diatribe regarding Annabelle, Simon sought to distract him. "You don't seem to rub on well with Miss Bowman," he remarked.
As a diversionary tactic, the mention of Lillian Bowman was supremely effective.
Westcliff responded with a surly grunt. "The ill-mannered brat dared to imply that Miss Peyton's mishap was my fault," he said, pouring a brandy for himself.
Simon raised his brows. "How could it be your fault?"
"Miss Bowman seems to think that, as their host, it was my responsibility to ensure that my estate wasn't 'overrun with a plague of poisonous vipers,' as she put it."
"How did you reply?"
"I pointed out to Miss Bowman that the guests who choose to remain clothed when they venture out of doors don't usually seem to get bitten by adders."
Simon couldn't help grinning at that. — Lisa Kleypas

At times it seems a Herculean Task to accomplish some goals without the loss of our personal integrity. The eternal ethical question remains: Isn't the man lucky who doesn't have the luxury of personal moral standards? Who is only occupied with practical matters rather than the philosophy of Right and Wrong. But in a mishap isn't it the money of the practical man that bails out the noble/honorable man? — Nora A.M. Crown

the invention of beer. Picture a bucket of barley left to soak overnight to soften the tough outer husk. Wild yeast would have found its way into the bucket, and someone would have thought to taste the strange, foamy mixture that resulted from the yeast going to work on all those sugars. There it was: beer! Yeasty, bubbly, mildly intoxicating beer. The priorities of people in the waning years of the Stone Age must have undergone a rapid reshuffling as society organized itself around the need to reproduce this glorious mishap on a larger scale. — Amy Stewart

Henry York, aka Whimpering Child, aka WC (hair sample included), is hereby identified as Enemy, Hazard, and Human Mishap to all faeren in all districts, in all ways, and in all worlds. — N.D. Wilson

I missed my entrance in a production of 'Blade to the Heat' at Thick Description in San Francisco. I came into the scene very late and hugged the punching bag. I had no idea what to do! Unfortunately, that mishap was recorded for archives at UC Berkeley. It goes down in history. — Colman Domingo

Be aware, then, that every human condition is subject to change, and that whatever mishap can befall any man can also happen to you. — Seneca.

The cause of it all was a slight oversight, one small operation out of order. Sure, it was her fault, her responsibility, if it came to that, but from where I stood it seemed like a common enough mishap. A momentary lapse and - glitch! Could have happened to anyone. But not to her. A tiny crack in her head widened into a fissure, eventually becoming a gaping chasm. She wouldn't, she couldn't take another step. At a total loss for words, she froze in place. She was a sorry sight, a ship sinking slowly in the night sea. — Haruki Murakami

When you stand by and let bad things happen, your child experiences the twin disappointments that something went wrong and you did not seem to care enough about her to lift a finger to help prevent the mishap. — Alfie Kohn