“Remember that failure is an event, not a person.”

"Afro Images: Politics, Fashion, and Nostalgia" Critical Inquiry. Vol. 21, No. 1 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 37-39, 41-43 and 45.

See You at the Top (2000)
Variant: Failure is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night.

TV Interview for ITN (5 April 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104913 regarding the Falkland Islands
First term as Prime Minister
Context: I am not talking about failure, I am talking about my supreme confidence in the British fleet... superlative ships, excellent equipment, the most highly trained professional group of men, the most honourable and brave members of Her Majesty's Service. Failure? Do you remember what Queen Victoria once said? “Failure—the possibilities do not exist”. That is the way we must look at it, with all our professionalism, all our flair and every single bit of native cunning, every single bit of professionalism and all our equipment and we must go out calmly, quietly, to succeed.

"The Laffer Curve", Knotted Doughnuts and other Mathematical Entertainments (1986)
Context: Ideologues of all persuasions think they know how the economy will respond to the Administration's strange mixture of Lafferism and monetarism. Indeed, their self-confidence is so vast, and their ability to rationalize so crafty, that one cannot imagine a scenario for the next few years, that they would regard as falsifying their dogma. The failure of any prediction can always be blamed on quirky political decisions or unforeseen historical events.

“Time Fighter” (p. 67); originally published in Fantastic Universe, March 1957
Short Fiction, A Pail of Air (1964)

Source: I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains