Quotes About Doubt

I am like a lifeguard with the terrible, secret knowledge that he does not himself know how to swim.

Caro told Una, Josie's belief in her innocence is her warrant for doing harm. Una said, Like America.

God! Whose hand was I holding?

Nothing irrevocable had yet been spoken, but there was only the barest margin of safety left them; each of them moving delicately along the outskirts of an open question, and, once spoken, such a question - as Do you love me? - could never be answered or forgotten.

I assume then, that you have no real faith in the fondness any of the rest of us may feel for you?' 'None,' said Mrs. Halloran.

I hated them anyway, and wondered why it had been worth while creating them in the first place.

Is everyone really crazy but me?

Don't be so afraid all the time, she said and reached out to touch Eleanor's cheek with one finger. We never know where our courage is coming from.

God God," Eleanor said, flinging herself out of bed and across the room to stand shuddering in a corner, "God God—whose hand was I holding?

You know," Theodora said slowly, "up until the last minute—when I got to the gates, I guess—I never really thought there would be a Hill House. You don't go around expecting things like this to happen." "But some of us go around hoping," Eleanor said.

Do you think that woman really means to make us a soufflé? Here is certainly a soufflé dish, and eggs and cheese—

Nothing irrevocable had yet been spoken, but there was only the barest margin of safety left them; each of them moving delicately along the outskirts of an open question, and, once spoken, such a question—as 'Do you love me?'—could never be answered or forgotten.

Perhaps—and this was her most persistent thought, the thought that stayed with her and came suddenly to trouble her at odd moments, and to comfort her—suppose, actually, she were not Natalie Waite, college girl, daughter to Arnold Waite, a creature of deep lovely destiny; suppose she were someone else?

The minute the light changes, she told herself firmly; there's no sense. The light changed before she was ready and in the minute before she collected herself traffic turning the corner overwhelmed her and she shrank back against the curb. She looked longingly at the cigar store on the opposite corner, with her apartment house beyond; she wondered, How do people ever manage to get there, and knew that by wondering, by admitting a doubt, she was lost.

It is only the failure of my plots I fear.

He believed nothing he was told and trusted no one.

If something seems to be too good to be true, Mary, it probably is.

But he said it couldn't have

Uncertainty is as good a way as any to kill a story.

Are you insane? You still not convinced that chances are better with me?

Our memory has no guarantees at all, and yet we bow more often than is objectively justified to the compulsion to believe what it says.

I no longer believe that William Shakespeare the actor from Stratford was the author of the works that have been ascribed to him.

It all sounds much crazier now than it did at the time, but even back then I wasn't sure how Ann could possibly believe all this - though I never doubted she was in earnest. She was never not in earnest. And there was no touch of the hypocrite about her.

Graffiti on Philosophy Hall: The examined life ain't worth it either.