Terence Tao Quotes

All great work is preparing yourself for the accident to happen.

Projects you think are no-brainers stall, and other things see the light of day. You never count anything out.

If you don't have a plan, you can end up doing some interesting things.

I spent 26 years in the business without ever knowing what I was doing a month from now.

Innovation is serendipity, so you don't know what people will make.

We have the script, we have the actors, and we're trying to figure out what this is, and you don't know what it is. You have to be open to what it's going to become rather than have this thing that you're trying to get to, which is boring.

I always leave room for serendipity and chance.

I never know what's going to happen or what opportunities are going to be given to me. I've found with the opportunities that I've been given have made it possible for me to explore different characters and exciting stories.

I'm not a career filmmaker. I just like to do things that I still kind of believe in and because of that you just never know what's going to happen next. It doesn't matter if it's been a good year or a bad year: next year, there's no telling what it will be like.

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.

It is not enough to be in the right place at the right time. You should also have an open mind at the right time.

So much of making movies is about discovery on the day, what you're figuring out. If you know everything going in, then it's not worth doing - it's already done.

There really isn't a formula for success.

An actor can never plan. You never know what can work in your favour or not and then maybe the whole dynamics can change.

You can't plan your life. It doesn't work.

Chance is the only source of true novelty.

It's like that old expression: "Men plan and god laughs." You sort of see that in the television world, where you have an idea where things are heading and you have a plan and sort of start off in that general direction, but you wind up taking all these side paths and whatnot - if you're lucky.

I've worked with collage a lot. And there's this chance thing that happens - you don't always control things. Why did you find this today and not this? But you've got this thing, and you make it work. It's the way life is, I suppose. Whatever happens, you deal with it.

Our studies will be forever, in a very great degree, under the direction of chance; like travelers, we must take what we can get, and when we can get it - whether it is or is not administered to us in the most commodious manner, in the most proper place, or at the exact minute when we would wish to have it.

Chance is the nature of our universe. [...] madness represents a chaotic reservoir of surprises. Some surprises can be valuable.

The biggest threat to a better life is the desire to keep the future under control - to make the world predictable by reining in creativity and enterprise. Progress as a neat blueprint, with no deviations and no surprise, may work in children's cartoons or utopian novels. But it's just a fantasy.

I've never been a planner. I didn't know I was going to run for the State House. I didn't know I was going to run for governor. I don't know what's next, and I love not thinking about it because the doors open at a certain time.

I'm not a creature of habit. I like to find things from unexpected sources.

In my work, I have never had any use for anything that I have known in advance.

I have never chosen my next job. I focus on what's in front of me, and serendipity steps in.