Quotes About Uncertainty

They cut the umbilical cord, give you a slap on the ass, and presto! you're out in the world, adrift, a ship without a rudder.

What I really hoped for, no doubt, was to come upon one of those lives which begin nowhere, which lead us through marshes and salt flats, trickling away, seemingly without plan, purpose or goal, and suddenly emerge, gushing like geysers, and never cease gushing, even in death.

I believe everything you tell me, but I know that it will all turn out differently.

To taste it once is to taste it forever --- life or death. Whichever way the coin flips is right, so long as you hold no stakes.

Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing for the known way is an impasse.

Does he have a budget, a quota, or a deadline? You don't know. Has he had a great month, or did his boss warn him to sell a refrigerator today "or else"? You don't know.

although the future is not predictable in any detail, it is manageable as an aggregate phenomenon.

He wondered if he might be in love, but realized it was far more likely he was dying.

Is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks.

I wonder, Flask, whether the world is anchored anywhere; if she is, she swings with an uncommon long cable, though.

I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing..

Strangest problems of life seem clearing; but clouds sweep between--Is my journey's end coming?

So far gone am I in the dark side of earth, that its other side, the theoretic bright one, seems but uncertain twilight to me.

All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.

Economics has never been a science - and it is even less now than a few years ago.

It's my memory, and what happened between that moment 10 or 15 years ago and now, there's a lot of gray area.

The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books - mine included - because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn't happened.

I had thought up the title, 'The Good Luck of Right Now,' several years ago. I had no idea what it meant or what the book would be about but I thought, 'Someday I'm going to write a book with that title.'

I had been feeling a little rum. I didn't think it was anything serious because years ago I felt a lump and it was benign. I assumed this would be too. It kind of takes the wind out of your sails, and I don't know what the future holds, if anything.

Is there some risk every day we walk out our front door? Every time we get in our car? Yeah. Are we materially less safe now than we were 10 years ago? Whatever delta there is, it's very small.

After 9/11 and the impending actors' strike of a few years ago, roles dried up for everyone.

You then get into a period a few years ago, where a lot of external factors that we didn't have anything to do with did hit, and some of them at the same time... devaluations, weak economies, you name it, in various parts of the world.

Somebody talked me into writing an autobiography about six or seven years ago. And I said I'd try. We talked into a tape recorder, and after a couple of months, I said, To hell with it. I was so depressed. It was like saying, 'This is the end.' I was more interested in what the hell was coming the next day or the next week.

Actually, to be honest, this is a useful time to not be knowing what I'll be doing in 2013 or 2014, because really, for the last however many years, I've known what I've been doing for years and years ahead. You get into a cycle of non-reflection, and that gets a bit scary.