Quotes About Uncertainty

There is another kind of belief, a second force, insecure, untrusting, a faith that is spring-fed by the things we fear in the night.

Sometimes I think everything I've done since those years, everything around me in fact, I don't know if you feel this way but everything is vaguely—what—fictitious.

You're saying maybe you're taking something that has the side effect of impairing memory." "Either I'm taking something and I don't remember or I'm not taking something and I don't remember. My life is either/or. Either I chew regular gum or I chew sugarless gum. Either I chew gum or I smoke. Either I smoke or I gain weight. Either I gain weight or I run up the stadium steps.

At first they said skin irritation and sweaty palms. But now they say nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath." "This is human nausea we're talking about. Not rats." "Not rats," he said. I gave him the binoculars. "Well it won't come this way." "How do you know?" he said. "I just know. It's perfectly calm and still today. And when there's a wind at this time of year, it blows that way, not this way.

Steffie said, "Can you see the feathery plume from the attic window?" "It's not a plume." "But will we have to leave our homes?

But it will definitely come. Maybe now, maybe never.

Some people are scared by the sunsets, some determined to be elated, but most of us don't know how to feel, are ready to go either way.

This was the key it seemed to us. Everything was fine, would continue to be fine, would eventually get even better as long as the supermarket did not slip.

No one knows the day or the hour.

If you know you're worth nothing, only a gamble with death can gratify your vanity.

What people in an exodus fear most immediately is that those in positions of authority will long since have fled, leaving us

Is it raining," I said, "or isn't it?

All this I am projecting, of course. I'll never know for sure. We can't fully understand what plagues each other's hearts, much less our own at times. Ultimately even our best friends are unknowable to us.

Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it.

Perhaps you're not finished with your story, and who knows if you'll ever finish it or not. Honestly, it's not that important.

The meanings of today may not be the meanings of the future.

Let us consider, then, how the crisis of confidence in the professions has been interpreted by professionals who have given serious thought in their own fields to the adequacy of professional knowledge. On the whole, their assessment is that professional knowledge is mismatched to the changing character of the situations of practice—the complexity, uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and value conflicts which are increasingly perceived as central to the world of professional practice.

never figured out what sort of animal I was

And Harold came into Perpetua's apartment. He said, 'I just want to know one thing. Are you happy?' 'Sure,' Perpetua said. (Donald Barthelme, Perpetua)

I have to admit we are mired in the most exquisite mysterious muck. This muck heaves and palpitates. It is multi-directional and has a mayor.

It seemed to proclaim itself a mystery, but one there was no point in solving - an ongoing low-grade mystery.

I have to admit we are locked in the most exquisite mysterious muck. This muck heaves and palpitates. It is multi-directional and has a mayor.

The best way to live is by not knowing what will happen to you at the end of the day, when the sun goes down and the supper is to be cooked. -from The Educational Experience

without variability, we cannot innovate. Product development produces the recipes for products, not the products themselves. If a design does not change, there can be no value-added. But, when we change a design, we introduce uncertainty and variability in outcomes. We cannot eliminate all variability without eliminating all value-added.