Stephan Pastis Quotes

To get syndicated as a comic strip artist is as likely as winning the lottery.

I despise the Lottery. There's less chance of you becoming a millionaire than there is of getting hit on the head by a passing asteroid.

I'll be honest with you: not a chance in this world. But you know, stranger things have happened.

I knew the statistics of playing pro football were 1% of 1%, so I just never planned on it.

The probability of success is difficult to estimate; but if we never search the chance of success is zero.

If you do it right 51 percent of the time you will end up a hero.

The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

All models have faults - that doesn't mean you can't use them as tools for making decisions.

We must become more comfortable with probability and uncertainty.

The odds against there being a bomb on a plane are a million to one, and against two bombs a million times a million to one. Next time you fly, cut the odds and take a bomb.

You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 1012 to 1.

You are twice as likely to be struck by lightning as you around to be affected by a terrorist event in the United States.

My chances of being PM are about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars, or my being reincarnated as an olive.

I figure lots of predictions is best. People will forget the ones I get wrong and marvel over the rest.

There is a lot of luck in football. Following England is like following Wycombe Wanders or Leyton Orient. You hope for the best and hope you are lucky.

I think all of us certainly believed the statistics which said that probably 88% chance of mission success and maybe 96% chance of survival. And we were willing to take those odds.

Fame and fortune are as hard to find as a lightning strike.

Very low probability events occur very rarely, but sometimes they do happen.

Don’t ignore planning for unlikely events. Over long periods of time the highly improbable gets more probable to occur at least once.

I'm always trying to calculate the mathematical probability of certain outcomes.

An old friend of mine, an economist by trade, once explained to me that the statistical definition of 'dilemma' is 49.9% in favor and 50.1% against. If the gap is greater, there is no dilemma, because the answer is clear.

When it comes to assessing the chances of some complicated combination of events, gut feelings are pretty much useless.

In those long-yardage situations, the percentages are low.

I've said many times that I'm not one of those people who check statistics, follows history, and says, 'If I do this, what will happen.'

The bad player is the one who tries to calculate and play with the odds, as if his game, his life, were one of a large number of games. To do so is at best to succumb to another necessity, the necessity of large numbers. The good player does not fool himself, and accepts that there is exactly one chance, which produces by chance the necessity and even the purpose that he experiences.