Neil Young Quotes

Nowhere are our calculations more frequently upset than in war.

Nothing ever goes as planned in China.

There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.

There is always something to upset the most careful of human calculations.

Everybody has a good idea, but nothing goes as planned.

Bad things can happen even to the best players.

When things start running a bit too well on the tracks, I tend to derail them if I can.

Great power is setting a goal, working hard for it, and achieving it in exactly the way you expected with no consequences and no remainders after the long division is done. But does that happen to anyone? The unexpected always hitches a ride along with everything you planned.

From triumph to downfall is but a step. I have seen a trifle decide the most important issues in the gravest affairs.

I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those wreckers of all but the best laid plans.

I used to write things out beforehand. But sometimes it backfires.

Every time I make a plan, God laughs at me.

History is full of times when the inevitable front-runner is inevitable right up until he or she is no longer inevitable.

Life's full of tricky snakes and ladders.

It's fun when you're confusing people.

There's always the risk that there are unknown unknowns.

I've always liked the effect of having somebody in there who hadn't the faintest idea what was going on.

Things we do not expect, happen more frequently than we wish.

The world does not have tidy endings. The world does not have neat connections. It is not filled with epiphanies that work perfectly at the moment that you need them.

This may sound trite, but bad things happen to good people, and when you're facing terrorism, natural disaster, you can have every wonderful plan in place, but I am a realist.

He who lives by the crystal ball will eat shattered glass.

It's something you hope doesn't happen. When you sign on to do a job, you hope you'll be able to get it done. But that's not always in your control.

It is an endless procession of surprises. The expected rarely occurs and never in the expected manner.

But I'm the sort of person who, if certain structures topple, it could all go horribly wrong.

The best laid plans o’ mice an’ men Gang aft a-gley