Quotes About Uncertainty

A distant, eerie howl had risen out of the floor, from far beneath. Silent, absolutely still, she waited, and at last it came again, indefinably closer, but muffled, as if layers of stone-rooms, dungeons, cellars-were between her and it. Not human. She crouched down with her ear to the stone slabs. Somewhere down there, unguessable levels below,something prowled.

The truth that our futures are so often determined not by some grand design or deliberate strategy but by an ordinary run-of-the-mill head cold.

I was in a forest with no path, but people wanted me to know the way.

The adventurous part of me was looking forward to getting out into the world, meeting new people, trying new things. But another part of me was thinking that it was just too soon. Why couldn't everything stay the same for a little while longer?

Look, it's one of the great mysteries of the world, I cannot answer that question. I think I'm vaguely blonde. To be perfectly frank, I don't know.

the sound of tramping feet beat out a requiem for the old world - but no one could be sure where it might lead

It is said that the future narrows once we cease to believe it is eternal...

One of the hardest things about parenting is that you just never know what the outcome will be. It's a total leap of faith. Even with decisions you feel fairly confident about (say, what to make for lunch), you just can't be sure of the consequences they'll have for this person you're raising. Will you like the adult this kid—your kid—becomes?

We were trying to understand, then, what her life was about to become. I think we're still trying to understand.

It's the anticipation I can't handle. Loss lurks around every corner, and how do we prepare?

But whatever this is—this window of clarity—it's ending already. Confusion is drawing its bleak curtains.

It's really hard to know what's a good idea when you're growing and these ideas don't hold still and neither do you.

Everybody goes around missing all the best stuff because they don't want anything bad to happen. But then when something bad wants to happen it just does. Anyway. No matter how careful you're being.

So many times in life we think we see what we want. That we know what we want. Looking back through the wrong end of that scope, I sometimes wonder why we still believe we know anything at all.

But sometimes things happen that shouldn't happen. And sometimes there's not a damn thing we can do to stop them. But it's not definite yet. We'll just have to wait and see.

Once you get that sense that there's no real security, that anything at all can happen to you, then every minute you're okay is a joy. Part of the joy is feeling like you can make your way in a world that isn't always easy.

I realized I'd been on pins and needles waiting to see how he'd react to being penned up again. I'll never understand that. How can I be on pins and needles and not even know it? It sounds like a thing that shouldn't exist in the world at all, but there it is. It's discouraging to be in the middle of a life that's impossible to explain.

Picture yourself looking back on the decision ten or twenty years down the road. Let's say you try it, and it doesn't work out. How much will you regret it? Now let's say you don't try it, so you never know. Then how much regret?

I'm just a human, among billions of other humans, and I'm alive, and it's really hard being alive, and I don't want to admit it, because nobody around me is admitting it, and most of the time I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm scared.

But you have a way of pushing decisions down the road. It's like you're waiting to be sure how it'll pan out before you decide. But that never works. We can't ever know that going in. I think you just need to choose a path and see where it takes you.

I just thought maybe if I knew more, I could worry less." "Oh, I doubt that," she said. Then, "I can't really tell you how it's going, because I don't really know. He's talking to me. Talking is better than not talking. But beyond that it's hard to say.

Petey boy?" "No, sir." "Guess." "Before just now I would've said zero.

I have no idea why time does what it does. Or why people do what we do. It's all a mystery to me.

Not as sure as you are. But it's okay. Either way it's okay. I like the world with all its faults. It was an honor to have a place in it. But going where Nan went is an appealing option, too. Whatever