Quotes About Ambivalence

I explained myself like this: I did not feel adamant about saying no, but I also didn't feel adamant about saying yes, so until I felt strongly one way or another, I'd stick with no.

I don't do anything with my life except romanticize and decay with indecision. —  Allen Ginsberg, The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice: First Journals and Poems: 1937-1952 . (Da Capo Press; 1st Da Capo Press Ed edition November 1, 2006)

Whitney sipped, still not looking up from her phone. "Mmm, perfect," she said. Whitney loved being cared for, and she did look after me as well. If sometimes it felt as if she treated me like staff, I could live with that. Wasn't I using her, too, in my own way? Would I still love her if she were poor, or less influential, less glamorous? I liked to think I would, but I couldn't know for sure.

HAG, n. An elderly lady whom you do not happen to like; sometimes called, also, a hen, or cat.

IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.

He was less and less sure with every day that being a better man was worth all the effort.

Someone who'd starved in the camps, who'd lied her way into the hearts and beds of good people, who'd tricked and tortured to betray a cause she halfway believed in for the sake of one she didn't at all, might've felt a little bitter at seeing all this money wasted.

Contemplating suicide-- or a graduate degree

I hate to see you leave but I kind of hate it when you're here, too.

Niemand weiß eine Medaille am Rand anzufassen

All is like, all unlike; all is useful and harmful, eloquent and dumb, reasonable and unreasonable. And what people profess about individual matters is often contradictory.

Thoughts jostled for space in my crowded brain as I struggled to give them some order which might serve to motivate my listless life

Our waking life's desire to shape the world to our convenience invites all manner of paradox and difficulty.

Sometimes I feel like I am on top of the world. Other times it feels like the world is on top of me.

Being ambivalent doesn't mean that you're a relevatist, that anything goes; it just means that you show the complexity of life. Life is always complex.

Throughout my life, I have grappled with my own identity, who I am. As a young child, I often felt ambivalent about myself; in fact, confused.

So much of life is paradox. So much of life is neither one thing nor the other... it's both things at the same time.

Sometimes it's better to stop trying to make sense of things. Life isn't clear cut, there are always gray areas.

Mr. Kipling stands for everything in this cankered world which I would wish were otherwise.

I awake each morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savour the world. This makes it hard to plan my day.

Three flowers for you. You should have three." He looks pitiful. He looks powerful. I love him, but I am not sure I like him. I take his hand and lead him inside.

I do want people to feel sorry for me. I do. And then I don't. I do. And then I don't.

She felt awkward around popular people, and couldn't figure out whether she was good-looking or freakishly ugly, because she often felt both within the space of an hour.

He is right. I do want people to feel sorry for me. I do. And then I don't. I do. And then I don't.