“I am in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.”

Source: Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys

A Theory of Roughness (2004)
Context: There is a saying that every nice piece of work needs the right person in the right place at the right time. For much of my life, however, there was no place where the things I wanted to investigate were of interest to anyone. So I spent much of my life as an outsider, moving from field to field, and back again, according to circumstances. Now that I near 80, write my memoirs, and look back, I realize with wistful pleasure that on many occasions I was 10, 20, 40, even 50 years "ahead of my time.

From an article in The Guardian, may 2000.

Source: Reaper Man

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/milk-2008 of Milk (24 November 2008) <br class="br">Reviews, Four star reviews <br class="br">Context: Sean Penn never tries to show Harvey Milk as a hero, and never needs to. He shows him as an ordinary man, kind, funny, flawed, shrewd, idealistic, yearning for a better world. He shows what such an ordinary man can achieve. Milk was the right person in the right place at the right time, and he rose to the occasion. So was Rosa Parks. Sometimes, at a precise moment in history, all it takes is for one person to stand up. Or sit down.

First Report, p. 36
U.S. Navy at War, 1941-1945: Official Reports to the Secretary of the Navy (1946)

My Brain Is Open : The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos (1998) by Bruce Schechter, p. 99