You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Often attributed to NHL star Wayne Gretzky, this line circulates as a locker-room maxim about initiative and risk-taking. In print, however, the earliest well-attested appearance is in a 1983 newspaper profile of basketball coach and executive Ken Carter, where the wording is essentially the same. The saying later became widely linked to Gretzky—likely because it neatly fits hockey’s logic of shooting to score and Gretzky’s reputation for instinctive offensive play. By the 1990s and 2000s it was a staple of motivational posters and speeches, sometimes further popularized by its appearance in popular culture (e.g., as a quoted epigraph).

The aphorism frames inaction as a guaranteed failure: if you never attempt, you eliminate any possibility of success. By translating life choices into the concrete arithmetic of sport, it makes risk legible and emotionally manageable—missing is redefined as an acceptable cost of trying, while not trying is the only certain loss. The line’s force lies in its absolutism (“100%”), which turns hesitation into a measurable penalty. As advice, it encourages agency, experimentation, and tolerance for imperfect outcomes, while implicitly warning against overvaluing safety or fear of embarrassment.

1) “You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.”
2) “You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”
3) “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”