“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.”
Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan
Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 11 “We Hate Malachi Constant Because...” (p. 253)
Source: 1980s, Cool Memories (1987, trans. 1990), Chapter 4
“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.”
Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan
Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 11 “We Hate Malachi Constant Because...” (p. 253)
“My life seemed to be a series of events and accidents. Yet when I look back I see a pattern.”
Benoît Mandelbrot (1924–2010) Polish-born, French and American mathematician
New Scientist interview (2004)
Isaac Asimov book Second Foundation
Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Second Foundation (1953), Chapter 16 "Beginning of War"
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist
"No One Left To Lie To" (1991).
1990s, For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports (1993)
Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher
"Recollection", Collected Works, vol. 1 (1972), as translated by David Paul
Variant translations:
A poem is never finished; it's always an accident that puts a stop to it — i.e. gives it to the public.
As attributed in Susan Ratcliffe, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (2011), p. 385.
A poem is never finished; it is only abandoned.
Widely quoted, this is a paraphrase of Valéry by W. H. Auden in 1965. See W. H. Auden: Collected Poems (2007), ed. Edward Mendelson, "Author's Forewords", p. xxx.
An artist never finishes a work, he merely abandons it.
A paraphrase by Aaron Copland in the essay "Creativity in America," published in Copland on Music (1944), p. 53
In the eyes of those lovers of perfection, a work is never finished — a word that for them has no sense — but abandoned; and this abandonment, whether to the flames or to the public (and which is the result of weariness or an obligation to deliver) is a kind of an accident to them, like the breaking off of a reflection, which fatigue, irritation, or something similar has made worthless.
“The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
Henriette Avram (1919–2006) American computer programmer and system analyst. She developed the MARC formatting used in libraries
Source: They Won! And did it ALA’s Way, 1997, p.75-76
A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist
Source: The Ideology of Fascism: The Rationale of Totalitarianism, (1969), p. 326
Neil Strauss book The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships
The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships (2015)
Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician
The Reason and the objective of Education Reform