Penn Jillette Quotes

Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities.

So even the most unlikely events have to take place somewhere.

In my experience, there's no such thing as luck.

It is no great wonder if in long process of time, while fortune takes her course hither and thither, numerous coincidences should spontaneously occur. If the number and variety of subjects to be wrought upon be infinite, it is all the more easy for fortune, with such an abundance of material, to effect this similarity of results.

But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us.

Used to think that luck wuz luck and nuthin' else but luck-- It made no diff'rence how or when or where or why it struck; But sev'ral years ago I changt my mind, an' now proclaim That luck's a kind uv science--same as any other game.

When a coincidence seems amazing, that's because the human mind isn’t wired to naturally comprehend probability & statistics.

So it's probably eighty percent luck and twenty percent skill.

Everybody has to be a little lucky, I think.

Chance determines our lives in important ways.

It's luck that one thing works out and one doesn't, it's sort of happenstance.

Much of what we do in life has a huge component of luck.

Look, sometimes, no matter how hard you try, sometimes you need a bit of luck.

The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, But Here or There as strikes the Player goes.

Don't minimize the importance of luck in determining life's course.

I don't believe in providence and fate, as a technologist I am used to reckoning with the formulae of probability.

Statisticians tell us that people underestimate the sheer number of coincidences that are bound to happen in a world governed by chance.

The worst possible turn can not be programmed. It is caused by coincidence.

Sometimes in this game it's as good to be lucky as it is to be good.

I am a great believer in luck.

You do need to get lucky, no matter how talented you are.

So much in politics is luck and timing.

Life is a school of probability

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

Sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you're unlucky. It all weighs out at the end. That is my experience at least.