Worst Case Quotes & Sayings

I must have wondered if the police were right, if the entire story was a figment of my imagination. This is the worst impact of severe trauma: the victim loses faith in the evidence of her own senses. And this is the great gift Paul Macone gave to me. He believed what I told the police back then. He believed me enough to try to solve the case, and he did.
Perhaps because I've sought out evil in this world, attempting to understand and tame it, I am particularly moved by goodness. There is a light that animates an act of generosity, when a person is kind - not to call attention to his own goodness, or to make a pact with God, but just because he feels it's right. I see this light in Paul Macone. Still, his kindness is almost too much to bear. I feel shy around him, despite this conversation. I even feel shy writing this down. (184) — Jessica Stern

And the very important fact that I'm here to worry with you and go through all of this - every little bit of it - by your side, even your worst-case-scenario, should it somehow come to that. You wouldn't be doing any of it alone.'
Her voice drops and she looks down at our hands, fingers entwined, resting on her lap. 'Whatever happens, there will always be us. — Tabitha Suzuma

And people like my father are the problem. Instead of helping others, people use the worst-case scenarios to excuse their own selfishness and greed. — Colleen Hoover

Another way to be prepared is to think negatively. Yes, I'm a great optimist. but, when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst case scenario. I call it 'the eaten by wolves factor.' If I do something, what's the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves? One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist, is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don't worry about, because I have a plan in place if they do. — Randy Pausch

She gave me the jabs and said I was covered for every worst-case scenario, including being bitten by a dirty chimp. I told her this is why we have over-population problems. Why are idiots who annoy dirty chimps being protected? — Karl Pilkington

My anthology continues to sell & the critics get more & more angry. When I excluded Wilfred Owen, whom I consider unworthy of the poets' corner of a country newspaper, I did not know I was excluding a revered sandwich-board Man of the revolution & that some body has put his worst & most famous poem in a glass-case in the British Museum
however if I had known it I would have excluded him just the same. He is all blood, dirt & sucked sugar stick (look at the selection in Faber's Anthology
he calls poets 'bards,' a girl a 'maid,' & talks about 'Titanic wars'). There is every excuse for him but none for those who like him ... (from a letter of December 26, 1936, in Letters on Poetry from W. B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley, p. 124). — W.B.Yeats

When we got to the marina we saw this beautiful boat named Tara waiting for us. Fredo, Carin, Ryan, Dan, Kenny, Allison, my mom, and me were all together to enjoy that extraordinary day. As the boat pulled away from the city, its skyline vanished into the horizon. The captain took us to this area where we sailed through caves and lush hilly landscapes. All of a sudden, the captain pushed the throttle all the way down and we started bombing across the water like we were in a James Bond movie. Everyone's hair was blowing all over the place, especially the girls'. Of course, mine was perfect (ha,ha), but theirs ended up looking like the worst case of bed head I've seen! It was so funny. — Justin Bieber

Everyone needs to remember that Ebola was not a worst-case scenario. Preparedness for the future means preparedness for a very severe disease that spreads via the airborne route or can be transmitted during the incubation period, before an infected person shows telltale signs of illness. — Margaret Chan

Of course it had been in the air - as the endgame, the worst-case scenario, an inevitability or relief. The word was weighted, ca me pese, a condition of adulthood. In childhood, words are weightless - I shout I hate you and it means nothing, the same can be said for I love you - but as an adult, those very words are used with greater care, they no longer slip out of the mouth with the same ease. I do is another example, a phrase that in childhood is only the stuff of playacting, a game between children, but then grows freighted with meaning. — Katie Kitamura

There's always a worse case than your worst case, and more often than not, it happens. — Joe Abercrombie

In my mind, being overdressed is not a bad thing at all. What's the worst case scenario? That you are the best-dressed person in the room? Who cares! — Rachel Zoe

Wrong' is why we have this office. 'Wrong' is why we both have the bank accounts we do. 'Wrong' is what our readers, our viewers, our subscribers ... what the public wants to see. 'Wrong' is why you and I are rich.

For the next two or three weeks, until you turn in that winning ticket, I will be the one person in the world you will need to trust. I will be the architect of the new life the two of you are about to embark on. I know your best case scenarios and a whole lot of the worst case scenarios you might run into.

Any publicity for you is publicity for us too. You might not understand it, but as far as the world is concerned, Celebrity Bounty owns you and your family. — Michael Vraa

Accident - A statistical inevitability. Some nuclear power plants are built on fault lines, but ever mine, dam, oil rig, and waste dump is founded upon a tacit acceptance of the worst-case scenario. One a long enough timeline, everything that can go wrong will, however small the likelihood is from one day to the next. The responsible parties may wring their hands about the Fukushima meltdown - and the Gult of Mexico oil spill, and the Exxon Valdez, and Hurricane Katrina, and Chernobyl, and Haiti - but accident is no accident. — CrimethInc.

The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare, and cronyism at their worst. — Paul Ryan

Apropos of nothing at all except that it has been on my mind and I think I had better say it because it accounts for a good deal of my behaviour. There is a strong streak in me that wishes not to exist and really does not believe that I do, so that I tend to become unnerved when these curious ideas are proved to be not really true because someone (in this case you) has responded to something I have said or done just as if I were an actual person the same as you (especially) or anyone else. Some of it is, I guess, just the worst sorts of arrogance and irresponsibility , but not all of it, as I really don't think I exist a lot of the time, so I'm asking you to bear with it, me, whatever, for the sake of what? - friendship I suppose, which I want to be capable of, which is obviously not enough. More brains might help, but enough unseemly remarks for eight o'clock in the morning and the shivering in pyjama bottoms syndrome. — Edward Gorey

I glared at the man. "You know, Dr. Russell, most doctors would have found a more tactful way to break the news."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Perry," Dr. Russell said. "I don't want to seem unconcerned. But it's really not a problem. Even on Earth, testicular cancer is easily treatable, particularly in the early stages, which is the case here. At the very worst, you'd lose the testicle, but that's not a significant setback."
"Unless you happen to own the testicle," I growled. — John Scalzi

Imagining the worst has always been a great comfort to me. If there is turbulence there is an imminent crash. If she doesn't pick up the phone, she is fucking someone. If there is a lump it is a tumor. By thinking like this I protect myself from disappointment. And if anything other than the worst-case scenario unfolds, what a pleasant surprise! — Marc Maron

James Blish told me I had the worst case of "said bookism" (that is, using every word except said to indicate dialogue). He told me to limit the verbs to said, replied, asked, and answered and only when absolutely necessary. — Anne McCaffrey

I've always had this in a kind of worst-case dark imagination. I want to know what the dark form in the window is. I want to know what the noise under the staircase is. — Lisa Unger

There's never a right or wrong side in a divorce case, but, given the human capacity for hate, the breakup of a legal relationship so tied to emotion often brought out the worst in people. — Kenneth Eade

That's where you come in. I want into that guy's mind, and you need to tell me how to do it."
Ad shrugged. "Personally, I'd just use a hacksaw, but - "
"There are potential consequences and side effects," Eddie said carefully.
"Like what?"
"Well, worst case ... he could end up like Adrian. — J.R. Ward

The worst will happen. Think of me, children, when that day comes. I have foreseen it and predicted it. Our age is corrupt. It stinks. Think of me - I smelled it out. I am not deceived. I sense the coming catastrophe. It will be like nothing that has ever happened. Everything will be swallowed up, which will be no loss-except in my case. Everything that exists will fall apart. It is rotten. I have sensed it, tasted it and cast it away from me. When it comes, it will bury us all. I pity you children, for you will not be able to live your lives. Whereas I have had a beautiful life — Klaus Mann

Katya talked about how the Russian language is being destroyed by poor education and by the sloppiness of nonnative speakers who ignore case endings and have no conception of verb aspects and don't care. You find the worst speech in the street markets, she said. She called the new, bad Russian that's spreading everywhere "market language" (bazarnii yazyk). — Ian Frazier

Whenever I take a position, I like to imagine what it would be like under the worst-case scenario. In doing so, I minimize the confusion if that situation actually develops. In my view, losses are a very important part of trading. When a loss happens, I believe in embracing it. — Gil Blake

There's no more place in the euro zone for well-meaning laxness when dealing with deficits and failings. If the demands on Greece aren't taken seriously, we'll get stuck in quicksand. In the worst case, this would make it acceptable for one tranche to not be paid out. It is in the Greeks own interest not to test that. — Peer Steinbruck

The next time you are filled with worry, try Carrier's strategy: 1. Define the worst case. Ask yourself honestly, What's the worst thing that can happen? Once you do that, you'll find that your imagination is getting the best of you. The reality is usually not that bad, once you clearly define it. It has the most power when it remains a mystery. 2. Accept it as survivable. Act as if the situation were a foregone conclusion, and let it go as a lesson to be learned. At the very least, admit that there will be some negative repercussions, regardless of your best efforts. 3. Make a goal out of beating the worst-case scenario. Develop a set of responses that can help you trim your losses and mitigate damages. — Tim Sanders

The girls you meet are never very far from their worst-case scenario. — Chuck Palahniuk

There are times in life when the imagined worst-case scenario proves better than reality. When the images cultivated in your mind are not nearly as horrifying as the truth. When the desire to turn back time and do things differently burns through your body so fiercely that it singes the very fiber of your being, forever changing you. — Amber Lynn Natusch

For my own part, my constant prayer is that I may know the worst of my case, whatever the knowledge may cost me. I know that an accurate estimate of my own heart can never be otherwise than lowering to my self-esteem; but God forbid that I should be spared the humiliation which springs from the truth! The sweet red apples of self-esteem are deadly poison; who would wish to be destroyed thereby? The bitter fruits of self-knowledge are always healthful, especially if washed down with the waters of repentance, and sweetened with a draught from the wells of salvation; he who loves his own soul will not despise them. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Sometimes I hesitate to use the term sexual abuse. It conjures up worst-case scenarios in our minds, and we think, "That will never happen to my kids." And we never begin the conversation regarding sexual abuse with our children. But one violation left in secret can cause significant pain. — Carolyn Byers Ruch

Petra Ral, 10 kills, 48 assists. Oluo Bozado, 39 kills, 9 assists. Eld Jinn, 14 kills, 32 assists. Gunther Schultz, 7 kills, 40 assists. "Come back home alive, and you're a full-fledged member," is the common view in the Survey Corps ... but *those people* have lived through hell again and again, producing results all the way. They've learned how to live ... When facing a titan, you never know enough. Think all you want. A lot of the time, you're going into a situation you know nothing about. So what you need is to be quick to act ... and make tough decisions in worst-case scenarios. Still, that doesn't mean they've got no heart. Even when they had their weapons pointed at you, they had strong feelings. However ... they have no regrets. — Hajime Isayama

Mom taught me not to look away from the worst but to believe that we can all do better. She never wavered in her conviction that books are the most powerful tool in the human arsenal, that reading all kinds of books, in whatever format you choose - electronic (even though that wasn't for her) or printed, or audio - is the grandest entertainment, and also is how you take part in human conversation. Mom taught me that you can make a difference in the world and that books really do matter: they're how we know what we need to do in life, and how we tell others. Mom also showed me, over the course of two years and dozens of books and hundreds of hours in hospitals, that books can be how we get closer to each other, and stay close, even in the case of a mother and son who were very close to begin with, and even after one of them has died. — Will Schwalbe

Obama seemed poised to realign American politics after his stunning 2008 victory. But the economy remains worse than even the administration's worst-case scenarios, and the long legislative battles over health care reform, financial services reform and the national debt and deficit have taken their toll. Obama no longer looks invincible. — Dee Dee Myers

Dear Child of God, I write these words because we all experience sadness, we all come at times to despair, and we all lose hope that the suffering in our lives and in the world will ever end. I want to share with you my faith and my understanding that this suffering can be transformed and redeemed. There is no such thing as a totally hopeless case. Our God is an expert at dealing with chaos, with brokenness, with all the worst that we can imagine. God created order out of disorder, cosmos out of chaos, and God can do so always, can do so now
in our personal lives and in our lives as nations, globally ... Indeed, God is transforming the world now
through us
because God loves us. — Desmond Tutu

Reality usually delivers results a little worse than the 'worst-case scenario'. It's called the planning fallacy, and the best way to fix it is to ask how long things took the last time you tried them. That's called using the outside view instead of the inside view. But when you're doing something new and can't do that, you just have to be really, really, really pessimistic. Like, so pessimistic that reality actually comes out better than you expected around as often and as much as it comes out worse. It's actually really hard to be so pessimistic that you stand a decent chance of undershooting real life. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

The strictly theoretical and so attractive dream of possible equality had been traded for the worst authoritarian nightmare in history when it was applied to reality, understood, with good reason (more, in this case), as the only criterion of truth. — Leonardo Padura

It would be normal for anybody running a high-profile, politically controversial operation in China to anticipate worst-case scenario, and to do everything possible to guard against them. — Rebecca MacKinnon

I've always thought of fantasy as a genre of best-case scenarios, and horror as a genre of worst-case scenarios. — Brian K. Vaughan

Youth is a marvelous garment. How misplaced is the sympathy lavished on adolescents. There is a yet more difficult age which comes later, when one has less to hope for and less ability to change, when one has cast the die and has to settle into a chosen life without the consolations of habit or the wisdom of maturity, when, as in her own case, one ceases to be une jeune fille un peu folle, and becomes merely a woman, worst of all, a wife. The very young have their troubles, but they have at least a part to play, the part of being very young. — Iris Murdoch

Turkey's NATO membership is one thing that is forestalling the worst-case scenario - open conflict between Russia and Turkey - because neither Moscow nor the West wants a Russian NATO conflict to erupt. — Peter Kenyon

Most people, on waking up, accelerate through a quick panicky pre-consciousness check-up: who am I, where am I, who is he/she, good god, why am I cuddling a policeman's helmet, what happened last night?
And this is because people are riddled by Doubt. It is the engine that drives them through their lives. It is the elastic band in the little model aeroplane of their soul, and they spend their time winding it up until it knots. Early morning is the worst time -there's that little moment of panic in case You have drifted away in the night and something else has moved in. This never happened to Granny Weatherwax. She went straight from asleep to instant operation on all six cylinders. She never needed to find herself because she always knew who was doing the looking. — Terry Pratchett

The dirty secret she'd learned about grief was that nobody wanted to hear about your loss a week after the funeral. People you'd once considered friends would turn their heads in church or cross to another side of a shopping mall to avoid the contamination of your suffering. "You might imagine I'm coping day by day," she murmured. "But it's more a case of hour by hour, and during my worst times, minute by minute. — Susan Dormady Eisenberg

People get stuck a lot because they're afraid to act; in the worst case, ... we get so attached to some end result that we can't function. We need help just to move on, only life doesn't wait. — Bernie Glassman

If, in the case of the worst sinners and those who formerly sinned much against God, when afterwards they believe, the remission of their sins is granted and no one is held back from baptism and grace, how much more, then, should an infant not be held back, who, having but recently been born, has done no sin, except that, born of the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of that old death from his first being born. For this very reason does he [an infant] approach more easily to receive the remission of sins: because the sins forgiven him are not his own but those of another — Cyprian

Cynics fooled themselves into thinking they had sussed out the worst-case scenarios and were invariably surprised by how life trumped them. Dreamers were often disappointed - but seldom in themselves. — Laura Lippman

The history written, taught, and sworn to as 'the unvarnished truth' by the establishment - any establishment, left or right, conservative or liberal, capitalist or socialist or fascist - is generally revisionist, narrow in perspective, monolithic, and agenda-driven. In the worst case, it consists of one part denial and one part propaganda - in other words, a self-serving pack of lies. — Thomas W. Knowles

When you start out as an actor, you read a script thinking of it at its best. But that's not usually the case in general, and usually what you have to do is you have to read a script and think of it at its worst. You read it going, "OK, how bad could this be?" first and foremost. You cannot make a good film out of a bad script. You can make a bad film out of a good script, but you can't make a good film out of a bad script. — George Clooney

I could be your worst enemy. But i would rather have friends then enemies, and i go to great length to make that the case. There's much more reward in having friends. — Jared Leto

For years I played the what-if game. Maybe you're acquainted with this pastime. The rules are simple:

Rule #1: You're only allowed to think of worst-case scenarios.

Rule #2: You're never allowed to win this game. You can only lose.

Rule #3: The more you play, the greater your losses. — Craig Groeschel

Pity the poor novice Dominant who attempts to "break" or "discipline" a Warrior Princess Submissive without her explicit consent. The best case result in that scenario is likely to involve a great deal of frustration and humiliation for him. The worst-case outcome is a little too gruesome to contemplate. — Michael Makai

Apart from all theology and its contentions, it is quite clear that the world is not good and not bad (to say nothing of its being the best or the worst), and that the terms "good" and "bad" have only significance with respect to man, and indeed, perhaps, they are not justified even here in the way they are usually employed; in any case we must get rid of both the calumniating and the glorifying conception of the world. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm a worst-case scenario person. I'm only interested in a story because I kind of go, like a magnet, to the worst thing that can happen. — John Irving

For those that dare to stand up
against those that want to knock you down." The dedication from Worst Case Scenario: Bug Out - Book 2. — G. Allen Mercer

Perhaps it had something to do with the case becoming too neat, all the evidence suddenly lining up and cooperating with their theory. Or maybe his doubts were based on something as unreliable as "intuition," though Carlson had never been a big fan of that particular aspect of investigative work. Intuition was often a way of cutting corners, a nifty technique of replacing hard evidence and facts with something far more elusive and capricious. The worst investigators Carlson knew relied on so-called intuition. He — Harlan Coben

I always embrace the worst-case scenario. — Conor Oberst

Mathematicians tend to prefer a worst-case analysis, a kind of paranoia that is especially understandable if you live in Israel! — Noga Alon

Ove looks at the group assembled around him, as if he's been kidnapped and taken to a parallel universe. For a moment he thinks about swerving off the road, until he realises that the worst case scenario would be that they all accompanied him into the afterlife. — Fredrik Backman

Counting on each other became automatic. When I found a sweater in Texas I wanted, I learned to buy two, which was easier than seeing the look of disappointment on Caroline's face when I returned home with only one. When she went out from the boathouse on a windy day, she gave me her schedule in advance, which assuaged her worst-case scenario of flipping the boat, being hit on the head by an oar, and leaving Lucille stranded at home. I still have my set of keys to her house, to locks and doors that no longer exist, and I keep them in my glove compartment, where they have been moved from one car to another in the past couple of years. Someday I will throw them in the Charles, where I lost the seat to her boat and so much else. — Gail Caldwell

Human beings should only use technology which if the worst case happens, it leads to an acceptable damage. Definitely nuclear energy is not in that category. I want an industrial world where people are allowed to make errors. Because human creativity has to do with being allowed to make errors. We want an error-friendly environment. — Hans-Peter Durr

I find some comfort in running through the worst-case scenario in my mind and seeing how it's all going to go down. — Laurel Nakadate

The world is a worst case scenario and I'm afraid that all you sense is true — Stephen King

Sis, you said in your last letter that you did not know as you ever would sees me again, that may be the case, but I hope not. At any rate you must not think that untill you are ablidge to, and if it shood be the case I am in hopes that we may meat hearafter wheir their is no way, but let ous both hope for the best. It will be time anough to get downhearted when the worst has com. — Guy C. Taylor

My model, such as it is, is a mentorship model, which is to say that I care personally, and I involve myself personally/emotionally with the work of each student, and I try to make it such that they want to reach for more, do better, risk more, try new things, abandon limited objectives, individuate, and so on. For me it is personal, to the best of my ability, and it is about making more of the writer and of the writer's task in each case. I also think it's possible to do this, to teach in this way, in a classroom free of rancor and backbiting and competitive jostling. So: my class should be a place of peace, a place where anything is possible, where the code of realism is in disrepute, and the worst thing you can say, the absolutely verboten thing, is the phrase: The New Yorker. — Rick Moody

Worst case I'll bring Rain Man here. I'll tell him it's a date.
Aha, so he's cute, then?
Tasty. And smart. Can't beat that witha stick. — Alex Adams

It was every detective's nightmare. The worst-case scenario. A lead ignored or bungled, allowing something awful to be loose in the world. Something dark and evil, destroying life after life as it moved through the shadows. It was true that all detectives made mistakes and had to live with the regrets. But Bosch instinctively knew that this one was malignant. It would grow and grow inside until it darkened everything and he became the last victim, the last life destroyed. — Michael Connelly

Contract law is essentially a defensive scorched-earth battleground where the constant question is, if my business partner was possessed by a brain-eating monster from beyond spacetime tomorrow, what is the worst thing they could do to me? — Charles Stross

I like to pretend that I'm covering my tracks, bracing for any contingency. Ready for the worst, and all that jazz. I always feel better if there's a plan in place. And in this case, the plan was, Leave the blind guy in charge of the juvenile delinquents and everything will be just fine. Probably. — Cherie Priest

He will lunch with you at your flat tomorrow at one-thirty. Please remember that he drinks no wine, strongly disapproves of smoking, and can only eat the simplest food, owing to an impaired digestion. Do not offer him coffee, for he considers it the root of half the nerve-trouble in the world."
"I should think a dog-biscuit and a glass of water would about meet the case, what?"
"Bertie!"
"Oh, all right. Merely persiflage."
"Now it is precisely that sort of idiotic remark that would be calculated to arouse Sir Roderick's worst suspicions. — P.G. Wodehouse

A great philosopher has stated that the worst evil of poverty is, that it makes folks ridiculous; by which, I hope, he only means that, as in the above case, it places them in incongruous positions. — James Payn

Look, I think the worst case scenario is obvious. I think first of all it doesn't work for very long. It's an unstable government that raises taxes and destroys the image we're building for Canada as a strong place to invest. — Stephen Harper

Don't spend a lot of time imagining the worst-case scenario. It rarely goes down as you imagine it will, and if by some fluke it does, you will have lived it twice. — Michael J. Fox

Hansel and Gretel had breadcrumbs, she had plastic spiders. Worst-case scenario, she could find her way back by following the trail of dead birds that had choked on them. — Jeff Strand

I learned to embrace risk, as long as it was well thought out and, in a worst-case scenario, I'd still land on my feet. — Eli Broad

I said to myself as Junction Point embarked on the Epic Mickey journey that, worst case, we'd be 'a footnote in Disney history.' Looking back on it, I think we did far better than that. — Warren Spector

If you fixate on the worst-case scenario and it actually happens, you've lived it twice. — Michael J. Fox

Walter Mischel says the worst-case scenario for a kid from eighteen to twenty-four months of age is "the child is busy and the child is happy, and the mother comes along with a forkful of spinach...
"The mothers who really foul it up are the ones who are coming in when the child is busy and doesn't want or need them, and are not there when the child is eager to have them. So becoming alert to that is absolutely critical. — Pamela Druckerman

Will you have kids?"
"You make such an attractive case for the reproductive plunge. I don't know, Duncan. Childhood is so exhausting."
"As a parent?"
"I mean as the child. Not sure it's fair to drop somebody else into life without giving them a choice in the matter."
"You'll find it's kind of tough to canvass the opinion of sperm."
"I prefer asking the eggs - they're more articulate. Anyway, aren't you the guy who's always bemoaning the future of humanity? Saying how the worst jerks always have millions of babies, meaning the world gets worse every generation?"
"Exactly why decent people need to have kids. — Tom Rachman

He knew he tended toward gloom. It made him consider blood poisoning and heart attacks when someone else might see a touch of indigestion. Those carefully considered worst-case scenarios made him a good doctor, but they also made him feel like a dark little raincloud.
When Lydia Charingford was around, though, he felt like a smiling dark little raincloud. — Courtney Milan

And this is because people are riddled by Doubt. It is the engine that drives them through their lives. It is the elastic band in the little model aeroplane of their soul, and they spend their time winding it up until it knots. Early morning is the worst time - there's that little moment of panic in case You have drifted away in the night and something else has moved in. — Terry Pratchett

Yet few leaders exploit the power of this rapid wake-up call. Rather, they do the opposite. They try to garner support based on a numbers case that lacks urgency and emotional impetus. Or they try to put forth the most exemplary case of their operational excellence to garner support. Although these alternatives may work, neither leads to tipping superiors' cognitive hurdle as fast and stunningly as showing the worst. When — W.Chan Kim

If the javelin had hit me 10cm to the left, it would have punctured my lung, 20cm higher the throat, which would have been the worst-case scenario. Just 1cm higher and it would have hit bone, muscle and tendon and that would have been the end of my sporting career. — Roman Sebrle

The taste for worst-case scenarios reflects the need to master fear of what is felt to be uncontrollable. It also expresses an imaginative complicity with disaster. — Susan Sontag

Don't let them get to you. They have no idea what it's like to be you. They have no idea the things you went through. The things you've seen. They can pretend they know. They can dream up the worst-case scenario, but chances are, it doesn't even come close. You are stronger than they are. — Jennifer Rush

Some of the worst abuses of government force in recent years were precipitated by technical and victimless gun-law violations. For example, the BATF claimed that the Branch Davidians possessed machine guns without paying the required federal tax and filling in the proper registration forms. So a tax case worth less than $10,000 led to a 76-man helicopter, machine gun, and grenade assault on a home in which 2/3 of the occupants were women and children. — Dave Kopel

RELAX IN MY PRESENCE, KNOWING THAT nothing can separate you from My Love. The worst-case scenario in your life - that I might stop loving you - is not even in the realm of possibility. So rejoice that you don't have to perform well enough to earn My Love, or to keep it. This Love is pure gift, flowing out of My own perfect righteousness. It secures your connection to Me - your Savior - for all eternity. — Sarah Young

KFC is not black owned, but it sure knows to market heavily to African Americans - obviously hoping we won-t care about what they do the underdog, or in this case, the underchicken - So, if KFC wants to take our money and use it to pay for sloppy practices that hurt animals?I say we send them a message that this is not going to happen. I-m calling on people to boycott KFC until they adopt animal welfare systems recommended by PETA and until they stop the worst abuses of the birds they raise for their restaurants. — Bill Vaughan

I realize that after decades of positive thinking the notion of realism, of things as they are, may seem a little quaint ... When the stakes are high enough and the risks obvious, we still turn to people who can be counted on to understand those risks and prepare for worst-case scenarios. A chief of state does not want to hear a general in the field say that he 'hopes' to win tomorrow's battle or that he's 'visualizing victory' ... — Barbara Ehrenreich

I know it's crazy, but I actually prefer to prepare for disaster and worst-case scenarios, rather than panic once they do occur. — Glenn Beck

So let's raise the tone of the debate. Too often at the moment we look like schoolchildren squabbling over a toy - our most precious toy, the Earth. And the danger is that as we pull in opposite directions in our global tug of war, the Earth will end up broken - or at least unable to sustain human life. That is the worst case scenario - or maybe, from the Earth's point of view, the best. — Roz Savage

Money is in politics, it's been there. I was in politics for 10 years, I had some of the worst ads run against me ever. I had some of the most money spent by a guy in my state running against me. That's not the issue. The issue is getting out and making the case for what we're going to do to create jobs and to make the economic situation for individual families better. — Harold Ford Jr.

I thought you loved me. Taking it back so soon? Or is this it then? Have you built up enough of a case to walk away yet? Because I haven't said three fucking words to you that you've taken the meaning out of?
That broke me, because I'd let him see who I was, and all he saw was the worst of me. And even more painful, he seemed ready and willing to let me walk away. — R.K. Lilley

That's lucky?" Tom repeated bitterly. "Lucky now means 'worst case scenario ever,' then. That's great. Good to know."

"Sir," Blackburn corrected.

"You outrank me. You shouldn't call me 'sir.'"

"Raines, you'll address me as 'sir' or I will stick you back down in that cell next to the census device until 'sir' is the only word you remember."

Tom bristled. He'd never hated someone so much. "Sir, yes, sir. I'll use 'sir,' sir. Is that all, sir?"

"Oh, I'd say that's all. Get into the simulation with the others." Blackburn jabbed at his forearm keyboard. "It irritates me just looking at you."

Back at you, Tom thought. — S.J. Kincaid

Emma laughed darkly. "It's a completely mad idea, I know. But my brain is a hope-making engine."
"I'm so glad," I said. "Mine is a worst-case-scenario generator."
"We need each other, then."
"Yes. But we already knew that, I think. — Ransom Riggs

Thus, I always began by assuming the worst; my appeal was dismissed. That meant, of course, I was to die. Sooner than others, obviously. 'But,' I reminded myself, 'it's common knowledge that life isn't worth living, anyhow.' And, on a wide view, I could see that it makes little difference whether one dies at the age of thirty or threescore and ten
since, in either case, other men will continue living, the world will go on as before. Also, whether I died now or forty years hence, this business of dying had to be got through, inevitably. — Albert Camus

Holman's world is a worst case scenario but it's healthy to examine extreme possibilities. If the technology that is used for genetic enrichment in Genus had been distributed equitably, across society, it could have been nirvana, a great world where people don't fear the diseases that we die from. The problems that arrive are more to do with resource hording than technology itself. — Jonathan Trigell

But though Usury is in itself immoral, and justly condemned by every ethical code, its chief and worst defect in the particular case we are now examining, the growth of Capitalism and its increasing proletariat, is the centralization of irresponsible control over the lives of men: the putting power over the proletariat into the hands of a few who can direct the loans of currency and credit without which that proletariat could not be fed and clothed and maintained in work. — Hilaire Belloc

Sometimes it helps to live through it," I told her. "Find a time when nobody will bother you, and imagine it. Imagine the worst-case scenario in as much detail as you can manage. Let yourself live through it; feel the fear, feel the pain. It's a terrible thing to put yourself through, but once it's done, the anxiety goes away. It never disappears completely, but it leaves you alone enough so you can function. — Ilona Andrews

Individuals should think about the worst-case scenarios and plan for them. The world will be crazier than you think it will be. Put money away, and then you can live with much more freedom. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Reassurance can actually exacerbate anxiety: when you reassure your friend that the worst-case scenario he fears probably won't occur, you inadvertently reinforce his belief that it would be catastrophic if it did. You are tightening the coil of his anxiety, not loosening it. All to often, the Stoics point out, things will not turn out for the best. — Oliver Burkeman

It was suicide, wasn't it?" "In an involuntary sort of way," said Vorob'yev. "These Cetagandan political suicides can get awfully messy, when the principal won't cooperate." "Thirty-two stab wounds in the back, worst case of suicide they ever saw?" murmured Ivan, clearly fascinated by the gossip. "Exactly, my lord. — Lois McMaster Bujold