"We forget the little things, so it's no wonder some of us screw up the big things"
About this Quote
As a cable-news journalist, Cavuto speaks from a world built on “big things”: elections, markets, scandals, breaking news. The subtext is an argument about attention, not memory. In an ecosystem that rewards outrage and urgency, the “little things” - reading past the headline, checking sources, understanding incentives, noticing incremental policy changes - become optional. That’s how the big failures arrive: not as a single villainous act, but as the accumulation of ignored details.
The offhand “some of us screw up” is doing social work, too. Cavuto avoids sermonizing; he uses a shruggy, colloquial verb that sounds like kitchen-table truth, not ideology. It invites the listener to self-identify without feeling directly attacked. Yet “some of us” also hints at stratification: mistakes aren’t evenly distributed. People with power can forget “little things” and turn them into systemic “big things” for everyone else.
It’s a compact critique of modern competence: our largest collapses are often just neglected basics, scaled up.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning from Mistakes |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Cavuto, Neil. (2026, January 16). We forget the little things, so it's no wonder some of us screw up the big things. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-forget-the-little-things-so-its-no-wonder-some-128149/
Chicago Style
Cavuto, Neil. "We forget the little things, so it's no wonder some of us screw up the big things." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-forget-the-little-things-so-its-no-wonder-some-128149/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"We forget the little things, so it's no wonder some of us screw up the big things." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-forget-the-little-things-so-its-no-wonder-some-128149/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026.









