Quotes About Uncertainty

Deciding whether or not to trust a person is like deciding whether or not to climb a tree, because you might get a wonderful view from the highest branch, or you might simply get covered in sap, and for this reason many people choose to spend their time alone and indoors, where it is harder to get a splinter.

Olaf smiled at them the way Uncle Monty's Mongolian Meansnake would smile when a white mouse was placed in its cage each day for dinner.

The first rule is about bewilderment," the author said.

because nobody can exactly agree what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear.

is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.

We're all afraid...We were afraid when we met Captain Sham in the grocery store. We were afraid when we thought that you had jumped out the window. We were afraid to give ourselves allergic reactions, and we were afraid to steal a sailboat and we were afraid to make our way across this lake in the middle of a hurricane. But that didn't stop us.

From time to time, the Baudelaire children looked at one another, but with their future such a mystery they could think of nothing to say.

Nobody knows anything at all. We have no idea what is happening. We are all bewildered.

It was like the growing distance I felt inside myself, between the person I wanted to be, the brave volunteer who would soon triumph against evil treachery, and the person I was, sitting in a room with damp socks and a bump on his head, turning a compass around and around in his hands. What are you doing here? I thought. What good are you? But I did not know if I was talking to the compass or the boy who was holding it.

You can't live far from the treachery of the world, because eventually the treachery will wash up on your shores.

I swung back and forth like a ship in a storm, with the clouds swirling over me like the sea. The sky was still there. No one had drained it away.

I'm distraught, and I'm pregnant.

Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.

Taking one's chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck.

Don't explain,' I said. 'Leave me something to be mystified about.

Or was the truth - like so many truths - not any one of the envisaged possibilities?

Yes,' I said. 'There are trustworthy people in this world, but you have to take such unacceptable risks to find out who they are.

Sometimes you're not even sure which of your stories were failures. There are things I've written that I thought were complete catastrophes when I finished with them that have gone on to generate some of my most positive feedback.

I have many times thought I did the wrong thing, but the reason was not to be a medical doctor - it was just to have the information. But then, maybe I was wrong, I don't know.

You're not caught in a dilemma?" he asked. I looked at my feet. I didn't know what a dilemma was, but it didn't look like I was caught in anything, so I shook my head no.

Julia." It is hard to tell. The blisters didn't help either. In fact, they made

Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

E crede che la vecchia Russia, la Russia che lei ama, potrà ritornare?». «Forse. Chi sa» disse il conte Gagarin, e la sua voce suonò a un tratto stanca e triste. «Tra fuoco e dolore va la Russia per la sua strada. Dove essa porti, non ci è dato sapere».

Vittorin è lì in piedi, vuol vederla un'altra volta. Aspetta. Quattro minuti. Sei minuti. Adesso deve andare. Molte coppie sono passate davanti alla porta al ritmo della danza, facce sconosciute hanno guardato indifferenti dalla sua parte, forse c'era anche il viso di Franzi, lui non lo sa.