Quotes About Uncertainty

It was all supposed to be reassuring-but it wasn't. Not really.

The argument has never been resolved and maybe it never will be.

When I think about John William now, I think about someone who followed through, and then I'm glad not to have followed through, to still be breathing, to still be here with people, to still be walking in the mountains, and to still be uncertain--even with all this cash on hand--in a way I seem to have no choice about. I'm a hypocrite, of course, and I live with that, but I live.

The minute you start thinking you know how things work, you're dead.

I have learned that we can live with a bad decision, but we are certain to be hurt by no decision.

The day of the absolute is over, and we're in for the strange gods once more

What is ahead of us? Like Pascal, we don't know. "Believers and non-believers stand in the same darkness. Neither sees God." Therefore like Pascal we should wager on life. We should bear ourselves in this world as though we have seen God, be kind to each other, love wisely, and give to our children what we would have wished for ourselves.

Life. I didn't see it coming. That is a theme of this book. In fact none of us sees it coming when we start on our journeys. That is one of the paradoxes of our existence. We are all so different and unique. And yet in several crucial ways we are the same. And this is one of them: None of us sees life coming. Or as the Christian testament puts it: We see now through a glass darkly, not face to face.

She might be all right, Freddy said. But she sure is dead.

Kids grow up hearing fairy tales, but the biggest fairy tale of all, I realized at the age of four, is that life is safe. Life isn't safe, I learned. It's crazy. Evil is real. One minute you could be riding your bike on the way to get candy, and the next, you're dead. Anything could happen anywhere at any time. So now what? How was I supposed to live without giving in to the fear?

The two were giddy at their prospects. They were so happy that at times they felt things were going almost too well, that something had to go wrong just to balance things out. But those feelings did not linger.

Don't be so sure that what you want is what you should have.

The mistake is thinking that there can be an antidote to the uncertainty.

There has to be a moment at the beginning where you wonder whether you're in love with the person or in love with the feeling of love itself. If the moment doesn't pass, that's it—you're done. And if the moment does pass, it never goes that far. It stands in the distance, ready for whenever you want it back. Sometimes it's even there when you thought you were searching for something else, like an escape route, or your lovers' face.

I love you-I do-but I am afraid of making that love too important. Because you're always going to leave me, A. We can't deny it. You're always going to leave.

There are many things that can keep you in a relationship, I say. Fear of being alone. Fear of disrupting the arrangement of your life. A decision to settle for something that's okay, because you don't know if you can get any better. Or maybe there's the irrational belief that it will get better, even if you know he won't change.

I had no idea what I wanted, only that I wanted something, which is the worst kind of wanting.

The word I think of is precarious. I am struck by how precarious it all is. How the things that hold us are only as strong as the faith we have in them.

To love--to fall--is not a question. To touch--to kiss--to speak--those are questions.

Little less than a promise, and a little more than a chance.

this might be the happy ending without the ending

I never know what you really want, if I can give it to you, or if I'm already too late.

Sometimes the space between knowing what to do and actually doing it is a very short walk. Other times it is an impossible expanse.

incessant , adj . The doubts. You had to save me from my constant doubts. That deep-seeded feeling that I wasn't good enough for anything I was a fake at my job I wasn't your equal my friends would forget me if I moved away for a month. It wasn't as easy as hearing voices nobody was telling me this. It was just something I knew. Everyone else was playing along but I was sure that one day they would all stop.