“By the laws of statistics we could probably approximate just how unlikely it is that it would happen. But people forget—especially those who ought to know better, such as yourself—that while the laws of statistics tell you how unlikely a particular coincidence is, they state just as firmly that coincidences do happen.”
Source: The Door Into Summer (1957), Chapter 8
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Robert A. Heinlein 557
American science fiction author 1907–1988Related quotes

Quoted in http://books.google.com/books?id=ck6bXqt5shkC&q="I+could+prove+God+statistically"&pg=PA298#v=onepage Readers Digest (October 1943)

“PHYSICAL LAWS REST ON ATOMIC STATISTICS AND ARE THEREFORE ONLY APPROXIMATE”
What Is Life? (1944)
Context: What we call thought (1) is itself an orderly thing, and (2) can only be applied to material, i. e. to perceptions or experiences, which have a certain degree of orderliness. This has two consequences. First, a physical organization, to be in close correspondence with thought (as my brain is with my thought) must be a very well-ordered organization, and that means that the events that happen within it must obey strict physical laws, at least to a very high degree of accuracy. Secondly, the physical impressions made upon that physically well-organized system by other bodies from outside, obviously correspond to the perception and experience of the corresponding thought, forming its material, as I have called it. Therefore, the physical interactions between our system and others must, as a rule, themselves possess a certain degree of physical orderliness, that is to say, they too must obey strict physical laws to a certain degree of accuracy.
PHYSICAL LAWS REST ON ATOMIC STATISTICS AND ARE THEREFORE ONLY APPROXIMATE

Source: Time Tunnel (1964), Chapter 2 (p. 21).
From Best of the Web Today for October 1, 2010 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703859204575525930539967268.html

Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 17, “Dead Voices” (p. 171)