LORELAI (on learning that Rory overheard her secret): Well, the best laid plans.
A paraphrase from Robert Burns’ Scottish poem, To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest With the Plough, November, 1785. The original lines are The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/Gang aft agley, commonly translated into English as The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
The idiom means that the most carefully detailed plan can go wrong when put into practice.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 
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