L. Sprague de Camp Quotes

How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control. To calculate on the unforeseen is perhaps exactly the paradoxical operation that life most requires of us.

In the future, instead of striving to be right at a high cost, it will be more appropriate to be flexible and plural at a lower cost. If you cannot accurately predict the future then you must flexibly be prepared to deal with various possible futures.

Societies' abilities to cope with the unknown depend on the flexibility of their institutions and individuals, and on their capacity to experiment freely with alternative forms of adaptation to the risks which threaten them.

Anything can happen, so you have to control your attitude and stay strong.

I do believe it is important to be future-ready with a portfolio to be able to deal with however the market evolves. This is better than just forecasting accurately but in having the weapons ready to deal with the uncertainties.

We Don't always succeed in what we try, certainly not by the world's standards, but I think you'll find it's the willingness to keep trying that matters most.

It's bad policy to speculate on what you'll do if a plan fails when you're trying to make a plan work.

You need to have the ability to gracefully navigate the world.

If too many things have to happen in order to bring about the situation you want, then back out of it and try again later.

Do not try to produce an ideal child, it would find no fitness in this world.

In the space of two days I had evolved two plans, wholly distinct, both of which were equally feasible. The point I am trying to bring out is that one does not plan and then try to make circumstances fit those plans. One tries to make plans fit the circumstances.

I'm learning that when you get out into the world and you try things, it's amazing that you'll find how strong you are when you have to be.

Our military plans should be based on the assumption of unpredictability, rather than on carefully drawn, static models of the world.

Do not try to fix whatever comes in your life. Fix yourself in such a way that whatever comes, you will be fine.

One of the biggest roles of science fiction is to prepare people to accept the future without pain and to encourage a flexibility of the mind. Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.

It was not facing what life dealt that made you crazy, but rather trying to set life straight where it was unstraightenable.

How you handle life depends a lot on how you handle plan B, or if you have a plan B.

Most of the movies about the future show aliens descending from outer space determined to blow up the world, and somehow they always begin or end with Washington D.C.

Science fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is in fact going on, what people actually do and feel, how people relate to everything else in this vast sack, this belly of the universe, this womb of things to be and tomb of things that were, this unending story.

Things are going to go wrong. The great chefs are the ones that don't let it fluster them. They just move through it.

Never lose interest in life and the world. Never allow yourself to become annoyed.

A small town is automatically a world of pretense. Since everyone knows everyone else's business, it becomes the job of the populace to act as if they don't know what is going on instead of its being their job to try to find out.

Everybody has anger or regret in them one way or another. They all try different things to get it out. Some people go to psychiatrists. Some paint pictures. Some people talk it out.

I try to present something that is true so I don't further destroy the world with my contribution to it.

Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.