Quotes About Uncertainty

When you've never gotten love from someone, you don't know what it might look like if it ever does appear. You look for it in everything: any bright light overhead could be a star.

He'd always had that fearless optimism that made cynics like me squirm. I wondered if it was enough for both of us. I would never know from here, though. And time was passing. Crucial minutes and seconds, each one capable of changing everything.

I took in a breath. What's the one thing you'd do, I asked. if you could do anything? Pass, he said. For a second I was sure I'd heard wrong. What? He cleared his throat. I said, I pass. Why? He turned his head and looked at me. Because. Because why? Because I just do.

No,' I said, shooting him a look. 'But you don't have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.' You don't have to assume the worst about everyone, either. THe world isn't always out to get you.' In your opinion,' I added. Look,' he said, 'the point is there's no way to be a hundred percent sure about anyone or anything. so you're left with a choice. Eitherhope for the best, or just expect the worst.' If you expect the worst you're never disappointed,' I pointed out. ~Ruby and Nate, pg 259

Sometimes things don't turn out the way you want them to, Haven. Sometimes the people you choose to believe are wrong.

But it was too early to know: there were always more pages to go, more words to be written, before the story was over.

But as long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.

I'd come here planning to leave as soon as I could. It was a pit stop, not a destination. I had my whole life mapped out. So what happened? I guess that map didn't turn out to be mine after all

There was nothing, nothing to depend on. And why was I surprised?

That was just it. You never knew what lay ahead; the future was one thing that could never be broken, because it had not yet had the chance to be anything. One minute you're walking through a dark woods, alone, and then the landscape shifts, and you see it. Something wondrous and unexpected, almost magical, that you never would have found had you not kept going. Like a new friend who feels like an old one, or a memory you'll never forget. Maybe even a carousel.

When you don't know where you're going, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to have more than you need.

For any of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred of years from now. You can never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count.

I would have loved to know how it felt, just once, to have something fall apart and see options instead of endings.

But God!Who could live like this , anyway, with the kind of guesswork that was enough to make a person crazy, just sailing along, taking bumps here and there, no course navigated whatsoever, with any big wave capable of just tipping and sinking you entirely. IT was madness, stipidity, and- (then I saw him)

Sometimes really, really bad things happen to people, and there is no explanation and no reason whatsoever.

It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities.

Now I felt like I was drifting, sucked down by an undertow, and too far out to swim back to the shore.

There were so many people, so much to navigate, and as the distance fluctuated between us his hand kept slipping, down my arm to my wrist. And maybe he was going to let go as people pressed in on all sides, but all I could think was how when nothing made sense and hadn't for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of. So as I felt his fingers loosening around my wrist, I just wrapped my own around them, right, and held on

The chances we take, knowing no better than to fall or to stand back and hold ourselves in... protecting our hearts with the tightest of grips.

Change is inevitable, though, he replied. As is disappointment. Best to get used to it now.

Again, it occurred to me how weird it was to be permanent in a place that to everyone else was only temporary. Like I could never be sure if they were the ones who weren't real, or if I was.

There is always the rest of the story, right? Even if you don't know right now what it is.

Okay, I said, what's your biggest fear? As always, he took a second to think about the answer. Clowns, he said. Clowns. Yup. I just looked at him. What? he said, glancing over at me. That is not a real answer, I told him. Says who? Says me. I meant a real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence. He thought for a second. Clowns.

Listen, the truth is, nothing is guaranteed. You know that more than anybody. So don't be afraid. Be alive.