'... sometimes when the high and mighty make big plans they don't always think about the fine detail...' (TOT)
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'You know, in many ways I don't think this adventure has been properly organised.' (AM)
… she was so organized that she had too much organization for one person and it overflowed in every direction. (JB)
'If you take enough precautions, you never need to take precautions.' (RS)
You try to make plans for people, and people make other plans. (ISWM)
'Well, for the proper working of the world, said Lady Margolotta, 'it is essential that ring binders are important to at least one person.' (UA)
Ponder was a clear logical thinker who, in times of mental confusion, fell back on reason and honesty, which, when dealing with an angry Archchancellor, were to use the proper academic term, unhelpful. And he neglected to think strategically, always a mistake when talking to fellow academics, and as a result made the mistake of employing, as at this point, common sense. (UA)
The Office of Master of The Traditions had fallen inevitably on Ponder Stibbons, who tended to get all the jobs that required someone who thought that things should happen on time and that numbers should add up. (UA)
But …if you put aside for the moment the certainty that something would definitely go horribly wrong, it looked foolproof. The trouble was that wizards were such ingenious fools. (IT)
The sudden appearance of a naked woman always caused a rethink of anyone’s immediate plans. (J)
He knew what he had to do. It was, of course, an impossible task. But he was used to them. Dragging a rat all the way from the wood to the hole had been an impossible task. But it wasn’t impossible to drag it a little way, so you did that, and then you had a rest, and then you dragged it a little way again…The way to deal with an impossible task was to chop it down into a number of merely very difficult tasks and break each one of them into a group of horribly hard tasks, and each one of them into tricky jobs, and each one of them. (Truck)
'It’s just like I always tell my daughter,’ said the man. ‘Stories are just stories. Life is complicated enough as it is. We have to plan for the real world. There’s no room for the fantastic.’
‘Exactly,’ said the rat. And the man and the rat talked, as the long light faded into the evening. (AM) It's funny how the people have always respected the kind of commander who comes up with strategies like "I want fifty thousand of you chappies to rush at the enemy," whereas the more thoughtful commanders who say things like "Why don’t we build a damn great wooden horse and then nip in at the back gate while they’re all round the thing waiting for us to come out" are considered only one step above common oiks and not the kind of person you’d lend money to. (E)
Plan A hadn't worked. Plan B had failed. Everything depended on Plan C, and there was one drawback to this: he had
only ever planned as far as B. (GO) 'How did you work that out?' said Grimma.
‘The Thing told me,’ said Masklin. ‘It’s something called critical path analysis. It means there’s always something you should have done first. For example, if you want to build a house you need to know how to make bricks, and before you can make bricks you need to know what kind of clay to use. And so on.’ ‘What's clay?’ ‘Don’t know.’ ‘What’re bricks?’ ‘Not sure.’ ‘Well, what’s a house?’ she demanded. ‘Haven’t quite worked it out,’ said Masklin. ‘But anyway, it's all very important.’ (Truck) 'Whut’s the plan, Rob?’ said one of them.
‘OK, lads, this is what we’ll do. As soon as we see somethin’, we’ll attack it. Right?’ This caused a cheer. ‘Ach, ‘tis a good plan,’ said Daft Wullie. (WFM) ‘This is not the right time. You are ill-prepared.’
Masklin clenched his fists. ‘I’ll never be well-prepared! I was born in a hole, Thing! A muddy hole in the ground! How can I ever be well-prepared for anything? That’s what being alive is, Thing! It’s being badly prepared for everything! Because you only get one chance, Thing! You only get one chance and then you die and they don’t let you go round again after you’ve got the hang of it!' (Dig) 'A good plan isn’t one where someone wins, it’s where nobody thinks they’ve lost.' (AM)
After all, you couldn’t plan for every eventuality, because that would involve knowing what was going to happen, and if
you knew what was going to happen, you could probably see to it that it didn’t, or at least happened to someone else. So the Patrician never planned. Plans often got in the way. (J) '... the only thing the good people are good at is overthrowing the bad people. And you’re good at that, I’ll grant
you. But the trouble is that it’s the only thing you’re good at. One day it’s the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it’s everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was over-thrown no-one’s been taking out the trash. Because the bad people know how to plan. It’s part of the specification, you might say. Every evil tyrant has a plan to rule the world.' (GG) 'And ye know how tae fight?’
‘I’ve read the Manual of Swordsmanship all the way through!’ After a few seconds the voice from the high shadows said: ‘Ah, I think I’ve put my finger on a wee flaw in this plan …' (W) |
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The world has lost Sir Terry, and it's so much the poorer for that. Vale Sir Terry. Categories
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