It's hard to believe in coincidence, but it's even harder to believe in anything else.

Chance. Stupid, dumb, blind chance. Just a part of the strange mechanism of the world, with its fits and coughs and starts and random collisions.

Unlikely truths are useful and life is full of them, far more than the very worst of novels, no novel would ever dare give houseroom to the infinite number of chances and coincidences that can occur in a single lifetime, let alone all those that have already occurred and continue to occur. It's quite shameful the way reality imposes no limits on itself.

[So far, the relief effort could be described as] somewhat organized chaos, ... Nobody wrote a book about how to do this, and I guess we are going to write it right now.

I think there's a bit of belief there now. We've given ourselves a real chance.

In the space between chaos and shape there was another chance.