Holly Black Quotes

You want to keep the defense guessing.

You can make plans but if the opposition plays well, then all your plans become worthless.

The great problem now is that we don’t know what to do.

No one knows what Donald Trump is doing or planning.

Wait," said Butler. "Just wait, Holly. Artemis has a plan." He squinted through the green dome. "What is your plan, Artemis?" All Artemis could do was smile and shrug.

Schemes are like fruit, they require a certain ripening.

For if many ill-conceived plans have succeeded through the still greater lack of judgment of an opponent, many more, apparently well laid, have on the contrary ended in disgrace. The confidence with which we form our schemes is never completely justified in their execution; speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.

Im my profession you have to mystify the enemy.

There is something to this vision thing.

Perfect scheming demands omniscience.

If we have as a clear certainty with which to plan, total uncertainty, then that would be helpful.

In most covert operations … particularly those that have a large paramilitary component, the planning for later stages is very incomplete. The outcome of the first stages of the operation is usually so difficult to predict that it wouldn't have seemed sensible to have planned the later stages. One can plan the first phases, but not what happens next

Intelligence without counter-intelligence is useless.

You should always try to deceive your enemy.

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

Relying on luck … does not constitute a policy.

It’s [the CIA] an organization that thrives on deception. How do you manage an organization like that?

To Sun-tzu and the ancient Chinese, doing something extraordinary had little effect without a setup of something ordinary. You had to mix the two - to fix your opponent's expectations with some banal, ordinary maneuver, a comfortable pattern that they would then expect you to follow.

I'm a guy who's been around this sport on the outside looking in, seeing, watching, scheming, plotting and planning his next big move.

You never know what's really happening behind closed doors. Everything isn't always what it seems.

The truth of the matter is that chess is not the game of life because life does not ever happen the way you strategize and plan.

The more adaptability exists for a given kind of decision, the less risky it is to make plans for the future, and therefore the more likely it is that more people will make more plans in such areas.

Confuse the enemy. Keep him in the dark on your intentions. Sometimes what seems a victory isn't really a victory and sometimes a defeat isn't really a defeat. Whether in attacking, counterattacking, or defensive tactics, the idea of attacking should remain central, to always keep the initiative.

Then you realize that the preparation and the planning of this small army of people trying to head to the single aim of creating a work that's going to excite people is very risky. Of course, the odds are that it's not going to work out because there are too many possibilities of it going wrong.

Luck is not a business model.