Quincy Jones Quotes

It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.

The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken.

A lot of luck, and being prepared when the opportunity came. There are talented individuals out there who didn't get the break that I got. Or when the break came, they weren't ready for it.

I feel like whatever you've done in your career, good or bad, it's nothing but preparation for the big events to come.

If you attempt certain things at the right time, they are easy to accomplish - in fact, they almost get done by themselves. If you undertake them before the time is right, not only will they fail, but they will often become impossible to accomplish even when the time would have been right.

If I had gotten the parts in 'Scream' or 'I Know What You Did Last Summer,' I would not have been very good in them, and I would've squandered whatever success I had gotten because I wasn't ready for that sort of thing. So I feel grateful for all of the years that I have behind me trying to get traction and a career.

I've been just unsuccessful enough not to have been given a big opportunity too soon.

Good luck is when opportunity meets preparation, while bad luck is when lack of preparation meets reality.

I think, in football, everything goes fast, and as fast as you can go up, you can go down. So basically, every day you work to be ready.

Most people have a kind of survivor bias about luck. When something wonderful happens - when preparation meets opportunity, with excellent results - we think: 'How lucky!' But we don't usually acknowledge all the times when things just... fizzle out. All the times when preparation comes to nothing.

I think this idea of a big break is a lie.

The worst thing that can happen to a man is to succeed before he is ready.

There’s nothing in the world worse than having an opportunity that you’re not prepared for. Good luck usually follows the collision of opportunity and preparation - it’s a result of that collision. You’ve got to be prepared. So, make your mistakes now and make them quickly. If you’ve made the mistakes, you know what to expect the next time. That’s how you become valuable.

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

Don't complain about not getting a chance and then be unprepared when you finally do.

You see people who get so many big opportunities, and they take them, and they're not ready.

Luck is where opportunity meets preparation.

Luck affects everything; let your hook always be cast.

The right thing at the wrong time will lead to failure.

Pride went before, ambition follows him.

If one asks for success and prepares for failure, one will get the situation one has prepared for.

Every victory contains the germ of future defeat.

Only someone who is well prepared has the opportunity to improvise.

I believe that the definition of luck is when preparation meets with opportunity.

‎"There’s no such thing as mistakes – only a lack of foresight.