Quotes About Uncertainty

This was not the old Chichikov. This was some wreckage of the old Chichikov. The inner state of his soul might be compared to a demolished building, which has been demolished so that from it a new one could be built; but the new one has not been started yet, because the infinitive plan has not yet come from the architect and the workers are left in perplexity.

But the future is unknown, and stands before a man like autumnal fogs rising from the swamps; birds fly foolishly up and down in it with flapping wings, never recognizing each other, the dove seeing not the vulture, nor the vulture the dove, and no one knowing how far he may be flying from destruction.

But yet with all this, although, of course, one may admit this, that and the other, may even... and after all, where aren't there incongruities?

I really don't know," the old lady brought out hesitatingly, "you see I've never sold the dead before.

On first speaking to the man, his ingratiating smile, his flaxen hair, and his blue eyes would lead one to say, "What a pleasant, good-tempered fellow he seems!" yet during the next moment or two one would feel inclined to say nothing at all, and, during the third moment, only to say, "The devil alone knows what he is!

However foolish be a madman's words, they may yet prove sufficient to sow doubt in the minds of saner individuals.

Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.

Labeled like parcels—Caroline Wendy Willow and Nicholas Peter Willow—only with no address to be sent to. None of them, not even the teachers, knew where they were going. "That's part of the adventure," Carrie's mother had said, and not just to cheer them up; it was her nature to look on the bright side. If she found herself in hell, Carrie thought now, she'd just say, "Well, at least we'll be warm .

Nothing in life unfolds the way you think it will, does it?

Perhaps I would not have rushed back to England if only I'd been told how Colleen died. But it was the kind of news, posing the kind of question, that prevented sitting still. The only thing I could bear was being on the move.

You might be looking for reasons but there are no reasons.

There used to be days that I thought I was okay, or at least that I was going to be. We'd be hanging out somewhere and everything would just fit right and I would think 'it will be okay if it can just be like this forever' but of course nothing can ever stay just how it is forever.

It's never enough," he repeated, "but it is so much more than we had before. Without the Millennium project there would be no drugs, there would be no surgical equipment, there would be no way to operate the generator—I would be redundant most of the time. They say funding will continue, but someday it will stop, and when the funding stops, most likely everything we have done will be put to waste. I do not see how we are going to continue after they have left.

Do not tempt fate by saying never. Never again this, never again that—for you can never be sure of never and that's the only thing you can be sure of.

The unexpected and unpredictable is real.

I've sometimes thought of marrying, and then I've thought again.

People get up in the morning and they think it's another day. They make plans. They move in a chosen direction. But it's not another day. It's the day their train derails or a tornado touches down or the ferry sinks.

Anyone who has ever stood at a great height and felt the impulse to jump recognizes the draw. And what is adolescence if not a great height from which we are all expected to jump?

As with everything else about God, where you come down on the issue revolves around faith.

He realized with a start that something was about to begin. It might be something dull and uninspiring, something he had experienced countless times before, something that wouldn't make a lick of difference when he died. But it was always good to have something about to begin.

Better the devil that you know than the one that you don't.

I am like a leaf on a river, riding along the top of the water, not quite floating, not quite drowning. So I can't stop, and I can't control the direction I am going. I can feel the water, but I never know which way I am heading. But I might feel lucky this day and avoid the sticks and branches scratching and pulling at me.

I am like a leaf on a river, riding along the top of the water, not quite floating, not quite drowning. So I can't stop, and I can't control the direction I am going. I can feel the water, but I never know which way I am heading.

Perhaps I am the only person who, asked whether she were a witch or not, could truthfully say, "I do not know. I do know some very strange things have happened to me, or through me." Lady Alice Rowhedge