Bryce Courtenay Quotes

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

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think.

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

Don't be surprised at Fortune's turns and twists: That wheel has spun a thousand yarns before.

You never know what can happen in football and in life.

These things do not happen by chance. There is much less luck in public affairs than some suppose.

To talk of luck and chance only shows how little we really know of the laws which govern cause and effect.

If you’re in your life, chance. Viewed from the outside, like a book you’re reading, it’s fate all the way.

It's kind of funny...the moments on which life hinges. I think growing up you always imagine your life - your success - depends on your family and how much money they have, where you go to college, what sort of job you can pin down, starting salary...But it doesn't, you know. You wouldn't believe this, but life hinges on a couple of seconds you never see coming. And what you decide in those few seconds determines everything from then on... And you have no idea what you'll do until you're there.

Everything's serendipitous and there's no way of knowing who's going to get sick or who's going to get hit by a bus or who's going to fall in love and who's going to get pregnant. All the things that happen, it's up for grabs so it's kind of an exercise in surrender in a way.

I think that's as far as you have to think, everything happens as a coincidence. It either happens or it doesn't. It's hard to map out a strategic plan by saying, 'If I do that, that's going to get me to the next level.' I think that's the wrong way to go into movies as an actor. It doesn't happen for me that way.

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.

You never know why something works or doesn't.

I have been trying to point out that in our lives chance may have an astonishing influence and, if I may offer advice to the young laboratory worker, it would be this - never to neglect an extraordinary appearance or happening.

I feel like my life has been very serendipitous and really kind of humorous. Everything that's happened to me has been like an, 'Omigod, are you kidding me?'

Coincidence is logical.

My life has been a whole series of accidents, some of them happy, some not.

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

The only time I've tried to make plans, the cosmic sledgehammer has intervened and something else has happened. You just have to wait and see what comes your way, so that's what I do.

Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys.

History is totally unpredictable.

I can see ... only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen.

One event makes another: what we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens; and time can only prove which is most for our advantage

No man can tell what the future may bring forth

Most of the things that have happened in my life have been pretty arbitrary. I walk into a room, and someone hits me with a two-by-four, and that changes my life. I'm not sure what I've learned from anything.