David Milch Quotes

Port investments entail a lot of money, and having a partner who can share the risk makes a lot of sense. Often, it makes sense to have a local partner.

The trade of insurance gives great security to the fortunes of private people, and by dividing among a great many that loss which would ruin an individual, makes it fall light and easy upon the whole society.

There are only two kinds of plans. Plans that might work and plans that won't work... you have to take a plan that might work and make it work.

You say this victory is dangerous. I say that today no one can yet tell if it's dangerous, that today I don't see the risks you mention. If, however, those risks should become reality...I'll act in accordance with the new reality.

An interesting attribute of public banks is that they don't only de-risk the downside, but also get a share of the upside.

Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

The leader of a company needs to have a decision tree in his head - if this happens, we go this way, but if it winds up like that, then we go this other way.

To truly prepare for the unexpected, you've got to position yourself to keep a couple of options open so when the door of opportunity opens, you're close enough to squeeze through.

Plan B. You've always got to have a Plan B.

There's nothing wrong with a plan, but remember Von Moltke's famous dictum that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. The danger is a plan that seduces us into thinking failure is impossible and adaptation is unnecessary - a kind of ‘Titanic' plan, unsinkable (until it hits the iceberg).

Imagine if your business burned down and you had to walk across the street and start again, what would you do differently?

The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved.

Risk is a function of how poorly a strategy will perform if the 'wrong' scenario occurs.

One never knows what life may have in store for us, and it's always good to know where the emergency exit is.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

I'm in the business where I can't ever say there's no risk associated with someone.

Always prepare secondary ways of dealing with problems.

Fail to plan, plan to fail.

They head the list of bad to bet on: But I insist they're worse to get on

It can't hurt to have a backup.

That is, many times we're not risking our own money, we're risking somebody else's money, or maybe that someone is going to back stop or downside, but we still get the upside.

The real question is how do you survive at the same time you pose those risks? Because you need to survive. And it seems to me that you survive in community or in solidarity, with others who are taking the risk with you.

Redundancy is ambiguous because it seems like a waste if nothing unusual happens. Except that something unusual happens-usually .

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.

Things that don't have a big impact seem to be crucial. Always when you go out to make a movie you have questions, "What if this doesn't work? What if that doesn't work?" you want to cover yourself, you want to bring back enough [footage] so you can do something.