We are talking about obsessions which determine the gestures and perceptions of artists throughout a life's work, even when their conscious attention is elsewhere. A kind of bias of the imagination. The way a life's work slips towards a theme which is home for that artist. John Berger "Infancy," from Keeping A Rendezvous

"Things worthwhile generally just don't happen. Luck is a fact, but it should not be a factor. Good luck is what is leftover after intelligence and efforts have combined at their best. Negligence or indifference or inattention are usually reviewed from an unlucky seat. The law of cause and effect and causality both work the same with inexorable exactitudes. Luck is the residue of design." - Branch Rickey, quoted from "Little Blue Book"