Richard A. Clarke Quotes

Terrible things happen all of the time, and they can happen in a second. The best thing is to be prepared to react. If you try to control every little thing, you're going to end up miserable - and you're going to fail.

Do the math. Expect catastrophes. Whatever happens, stay the course.

However deep you dig a well it affords no refuge in the time of flood.

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

I believe, however, that impending events will call us and we must respond but where, with whom, and how?

One cannot plan for the unexpected.

I always feel the danger because you might always be subject to an unexpected or emergency event.

I have had sufficient experience of the freaks of fortune; and as I have never trusted greatly to prosperity, I shall suffer less inconvenience from adversity.

Don’t ignore planning for unlikely events. Over long periods of time the highly improbable gets more probable to occur at least once.

Zombies to me don't represent anything in particular. They are a global disaster that people don't know how to deal with.

I never want to get caught with not expecting something.

If you take control over those things you can, you are better able to negotiate the unexpected.

Life is full of surprises, and you need to be ready for everything.

Tomorrow always arrives. It is always different. And even the mightiest company is in trouble if it has not worked on the future. Being surprised by what happens is a risk that even the largest and richest company cannot afford, and even the smallest business need not run.

Expect the unexpected, my mother once said. Because the unexpected most certainly will be expecting you.

People don't expect to die tomorrow, but they do take out insurance, don't they?

I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different—unimagined, unprepared for, unknown.

The calamity that comes is never the one we had prepared ourselves for.

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

the worst happens when you least expect it

I mistrust total competence. I've always felt life is a series of small disasters we try to get through.

Because' I repeated, as a breeze blew over us, "sometimes things just happen. That aren't expected. Or on the list." "Such as?" he asked "I don't know," I said, frustrated. "That's the point. It would be out of the blue, taking us by surprise. Something we might not be prepared for." "But we will be prepared," he said, confused. "We'll have the list.

When the ground starts moving, all bets are off.

The next microsecond, as the water erupted around me, I realized too late that I should've brought the entire Twenty-first Nome to help me.

The wise man guards against the future as if it were the present.