Penelope Lively Quotes

A consistent soul believes in destiny, a capricious one in chance.

Random chance plays a huge part in everybody's life.

He [the historian] should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen.

Chance is a name for our ignorance.

Luck is going to play a huge part in your life.

We are continually shaped by the forces of coincidence.

I'm a great believer in fate. I think things happen in spite of, and despite, yourself.

My life is a series of things that just happen.

Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity.

I say the one thing about luck is you can't really count on it.

We make choices but are constantly foiled by happenstance.

It is such a complex matter we live within, it is impossible to track logic and decision making really, so therefore each choice can actually only be seen as coincidence.

There's a lot of things in life that we don't know why they're coming exactly at this moment.

I respond very easily to outside events. One's life is a matter of chance. Nothing that you've arranged for yourself works out.

A man may plan as much as he wants to, but nothing of consequence is likely to come of it until the magician circumstance steps in and takes the matter off his hands.

We don't always choose moments. You know, sometimes they choose us.

I think things just happen to people. That's healthier, I feel, than believing there's some grand scheme where your story is already inscribed in the Book of Life. Books get rewritten.

I was not sure I wanted to issue orders to life; I rather liked the Greek notion of allowing Chance to take a formative hand in my affairs.

Is there a design in the events of our lives? Or do things just happen, much like a junk yard falling down a staircase? If it's the latter, how do you deal with it?

My life is so random. Certain things I can't even explain. There's a thing about being lucky and... I feel like certain things are just, like, in your cards. I'm just walking the path that's already set.

Luck has a lot to do with how your life develops.

The world is so unpredictable. Things happen suddenly, unexpectedly. We want to feel we are in control of our own existence. In some ways we are, in some ways we're not. We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence.

There is no such thing as chance; and what seem to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.

My life is a big accident, so where I end up, I think it's all accidents.

So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.