Time & Perspective Quote by Michael Korda

“Luck” is the polite word we use when we want to praise outcomes without committing to a theory of merit. Korda strips that politeness away. By redefining luck as “taking advantage” at “the right moment,” he makes it less a mystical force than a behavioral skill: pattern recognition plus nerve plus timing. The line is quietly unsentimental. It doesn’t deny randomness; it demotes it. Chance still shows up, but it’s treated like weather - unpredictable, yes, yet not an excuse for going out unprepared.

The subtext is a rebuke aimed at two audiences at once. To the chronically unlucky, it says: stop narrating your life as a conspiracy of bad breaks; opportunities rarely announce themselves with trumpets. To the effortlessly “blessed,” it implies: your winning streak probably has scaffolding - habits, research, readiness, social fluency - that you’re calling fate because it sounds nicer at dinner.

Korda’s context matters: as a novelist and longtime publishing-world insider, he’s seen how careers are made in rooms where timing is everything and talent is necessary but insufficient. The prepared writer has a manuscript when the editor suddenly wants that kind of book; the prepared executive has the pitch when budgets loosen; the prepared artist has a body of work when attention briefly swivels their way. “Always prepared” reads like a moral stance, but it’s also practical advice: build the conditions under which luck can be recognized and seized, because the moment won’t wait for you to get ready.