Griffith

“Now take a look at the cemetery. It is quite difficult to do so because people who fail do not seem to write memoirs, and, if they did, those business publishers I know would not even consider giving them the courtesy of a returned phone call (as to returned e-mail, fuhgedit). Readers would not pay $26.95 for a story of failure, even if you convinced them that it had more useful tricks than a story of success.* The entire notion of biography is grounded in the arbitrary ascription of a causal relation between specified traits and subsequent events. Now consider the cemetery. The graveyard of failed persons will be full of people who shared the following traits: courage, risk taking, optimism, et cetera. Just like the population of millionaires. There may be some differences in skills, but what truly separates the two is for the most part a single factor: luck. Plain luck.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“Maybe there isn’t such a thing as fate. Maybe it’s just the opportunities we’re given, and what we do with them. I’m beginning to think that maybe great, epic romances don’t just happen. We have to make them ourselves.”
― Marissa Meyer, Cress

“Maybe great, epic romances don't just happen. We have to make them ourselves.”
― Marissa Meyer, Cress

“Had I told the sea
What I felt for you,
It would have left its shores,
Its shells,
Its fish,
And followed me.”
― Nizar Qabbani