Quotes About Uncertainty

He hesitated till the last moment, but finally dropped them in the box, saying, "I shall win!"--the cry of a gambler, the cry of the great general, the compulsive cry that has ruined more men than it has ever saved.

Yes, I can understand that a man might go to gambling table - when he sees that all that lies between himself and death is his last crown

You have wavered uncertainly between two systems, between drawing and coloring, between the painstaking phlegm, the stiff precision, of the old German masters, and the dazzling ardor, the happy fertility, of the Italian painters.

People who love don't doubt in anything, or doubt in everything.

Aaron was uncomfortable and a little afraid. This, he thought, is how God might pray to his God.

Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind and someone who knew a few things about hubris and humility, once said, "Life does not have an obligation to give you what you expect.

on who the friend turns out to be and…well, the whole thing drives me to total distraction and anxiety.

None of us ever know all the possible courses our lives could have, and maybe should have taken.

So now I just assume that it won't work, and that if it does work, I'll lose it anyway. This is meant to protect me, although it doesn't, because somehow the hope sneakily finds its way in. I'm never aware of the hope until it's gone, whooshed away like a rug pulled from under my feet, each time I hear another "I'm sorry.

Parents do tend to judge each other. I don't know why. Maybe because none of us really know what we're doing? And I guess that can sometimes lead to conflict.

Miss Barnes clearly didn't know what in the world to do. She was twenty-four years old, for heaven's sake.

Samantha: Parents do tend to judge each other. I don't know why. Maybe because none of us really know what we're doing? And I guess that can sometimes lead to conflict. Just not normally on this sort of scale.

My point is that things become weird and pointless if you examine them for too long.

None of us ever know all the possible courses our lives could have and maybe should have taken. It's probably just as well. Some secrets are meant to stay secret forever.

things become weird and pointless if you examine them for too long.

even when the spotting finally stopped, I didn't believe I was having a baby. Even when every ultrasound was normal. Even when I could feel the baby kicking and rolling, even when I was going to prenatal classes, choosing a crib, washing the baby clothes, and even when they were telling me, Okay, you can push now, I still didn't believe I was having a baby. Not an actual baby. Until she cried. And I thought, That sounds like a real newborn baby. And

I never believed it. That day in the Port-a-loo, while the world's largest lemon meringue pie baked, I was convinced I was having my last miscarriage. But then the bleeding stopped. It was just "spotting," as the medical world cheerily calls it. A spot of rain. A spot of bother. But even when the spotting finally stopped, I didn't believe I was having a baby.

now I just assume that it won't work, and that if it does work, I'll lose it anyway. This is meant to protect me, although it doesn't, because somehow the hope sneakily finds its way in. I'm never aware of the hope until it's gone, whooshed away like a rug pulled from under my feet, each time I hear another "I'm sorry.

Perry was away often. He sometimes felt like an aberration in her life. A visitor. Her real life took place when he wasn't there. What happened never mattered all that much because he was always about to leave, the next day or the next week.

Maybe, thought Alice fearfully, the other Alice who has been living my life for the last ten years isn't very nice.

Real people don't have the answers. They make mistakes. They say things with great authority and they're wrong.

There would be no point asking Sarah because she was incapable of making a decision. If Cecilia asked her if she wanted tea or coffee, she would sit for a full minute, her forehead furrowed as she agonized over the pros and cons of each beverage, before finally saying, "Coffee! No, wait, tea!" A decision like this one would give her a seizure.

She'd been so cozy in the cocoon of their relationship. She assumed she got to stay there forever.

It was the not knowing. The not fucking knowing.