Quotes About Ambiguity

A definition is death. A definition is the answer to which you must look up the question in the back of your book.

When he said to give him the sword, I don't think he meant for you to stick it in his guts.

That's it," he told Shepsie Tirschwell, "I can't live any longer not knowing what will happen tomorrow

Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that—well, lucky you.

It's never been easy to say what you really are, Mickey." "Oh, failure will do." "But at what?" "Failure at failing, for one.

In view of the mess we have made of crystal-clear commands--the unity of the church, love as a mark of Christians, racial and economic justice, the importance of personal purity, the dangers of wealth--I tremble to think what we would do if some of the ambiguous doctrines were less ambiguous.

Twelfth night, of all the nights of the year, is one where shapes shift and identities flicker.

No matter how flat you make a pancake, it's still got two sides.

Enough , you hens! Niobe exploded. It's tentative! Lachesis snorted As tentative as a pregnancy,girl!

What do you mean, he?

EUTHYPHRO: The truth is, Socrates, that I'm at a loss as to how to say what I want to say; somehow or other whatever we put forward has a habit of moving around and refusing to stay wherever we try to make it stand.

My grandmother told me you shouldn't try to define evil, that the minute you think you've got it all pinned down, a kind of evil you never even thought of will sneak up behind you and jump inside your head. I don't think anyone knows what evil is. I don't think anyone has the right to say.

I do not know what I will think tomorrow and later; today I feel no distinct emotion.

Those who saw the famous film The Bridge on the River Kwai will remember the absurd zeal with which the English officer, prisoner of the Japanese, strives to build an audacious wooden bridge for them and is shocked when he realizes that the English sappers have mined it. So you see, love for a job well done is a deeply ambiguous virtue.

It seemed poison had been poured into wonder's own decanter.

shane: so is world war fifteen over out there? claire:i think so

Let's say that it belong to me as much as it belongs to anyone alive today. If I am, strictly speaking, living. The old word was undead, you know, but aren't all living things undead. I dislike imprecision.

I'm not prepared to say I love her. But I am willing to admit to myself that it's more than curiosity, more than liking, more than the kind of one-night-stand lust that you get over in the morning. There are moments when it feels like I've always known her. And then, like tonight, there are moments when I feel like I don't know her at all. Like she's a mystery I'll never solve, wrapped in barbed wire and thorns and roses.

We're better off. But I don't know if the world's better off. I don't know if the two are the same thing.

I turned to find Priya, this girl from my school, somewhere between a friend and acquaintance—a frequaintance, as it were.

The world was too full of wastrels and waifs, sycophants and spies—all of whom put words to the wrong use, who made everything that was said or written suspect.

I volunteer to be the comfort of the in-between.

You're a student?" John flushed as though the question were both compliment and accusation. "I was. Or am." He shook his head. "That is, I will be again, if I'm to have my say in the matter.

The willingness to consider possibility requires a tolerance of uncertainty.