Quotes About Uncertainty

doubt lingers around anticipation like bees hover around flowers. [...] the best antidote for doubt is presence.

If we could feel the things we fear ahead of time, we would be traumatized. So instead we venture out thinking we know how things will feel, but knowing nothing of how things will really feel.

I don't know what I thought I'd find by breaking in here.

I think you're nice to me and that scares the fuck out of me. Because when a guy's a jerk or an asshole, it's easier because you know exactly where you stand. Since trust isn't an option, you don't have to get all freaked out about maybe having to trust him.

As much as you obsess about all the things that can go wrong, it is inevitably something you can't imagine that ends up going wrong. Which justifies worrying about everything just to make sure it's all covered.

she wants it to be over, but she's afraid of it being over, because then she'll have to figure out what comes next -A

I think you're nice to me and that scares the fuck out of me. Because when a guy's a jerk or an asshole, it's easier because you know where you stand.

Maybe tonight you're scared of falling, and maybe there's somebody here or somewhere else you're thinking about, worrying over, fretting over, trying to figure out if you want to fall, or how and when you're gonna land, and I gotta tell you friends that to stop thinking about the landing, because it's all about falling.

Our brains needed to be able to do more than simply create models of the world. The power of imagination took root in the brains of our ancestors because it helped them predict uncertain futures.

So they stood upon the shores of Faith and felt the old dogmas and certainties ebbing away rapidly under their feet and between their toes, sapping the foundations upon which they stood, a sensation both agreeably stilmulating and sightly unnerving

It's better not to know so much about what things mean or how they might be interpreted or you'll be too afraid to let things keep happening.

Y tú quién eres? –dijo él. –No me confundas –dije yo. Dice Tristram Shandy VII 33.

the anxiety of the unpredictable came only when you dealt with amateurs

Details can change or go missing entirely, particularly in moments of physical peril. A kind of amnesia goes hand in hand with sickness, and a good thing, too.

This was the consequence of seeing too much and understanding the horrible truth: No one is safe. The world is not manageable.

It was the look you get when facing a sudden and insurmountable danger: the errant truck, the shaky ladder, the crazy person who pins you to the linoleum and insists, with increasing urgency, that everything you know and love can be undone by a grape.

there are only two kinds of flights: ones in which you die and ones in which you do not.

Behind the naive vanities, the daydreams, they had very badly wanted to be writers. Had wanted it without knowing at all what it was they wanted, their fervor making up for their ignorance. His older self was cooler, more noncommittal, for he had learned that to publicize your goals means running the risk of falling short of them.

We're not pessimists, exactly, but in late middle age, when you envision your life ten years down the line, you're more likely to see a bedpan than a Tony Award.

No surprises, no practical jokes, nothing unexpected, but a parent can't control everything, and there's a world of backfiring cars and their human equivalents.

Perhaps I've grown less likable over the years, or maybe I've just forgotten how to meet people. The initial introduction — the shaking-hands part — I can still manage. It's the follow-up that throws me. Who calls whom, and how often? What if you decide after the second or third meeting that you don't really like this person? Up to what point are you allowed to back out? I used to know these things, but now they're a mystery.

Every time I see him could be the last, and the pressure I feel to make our conversation meaningful paralyzes me.

We're like a pair of bad trapeze artists, reaching for each other's hands and missing every time. Meanwhile the stage crew has gathered below us and begun to roll up the safety net.

I think we've both seen this coming for a long… time. The only question left is… what are we going to do about it? Oh, baby, let's run wild.