Quotes About Uncertainty

The universe, they say, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty, and bloody-mindedness.

You can't second-guess ineffability, I always say.

You can't say 'if this didn't happen then that would have happened' because you don't know everything that might have happened. You might think something'd be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can't say 'If only I'd…' because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you'll never know. You've gone past. So there's no use thinking about it.

But you ain't part of it, are you? said Granny conversationally. You try, but you always find yourself watchin' yourself watchin' people, eh? Never quite believin' anything? Thinkin' the wrong thoughts?

Religion is not an exact science. Sometimes, of course, neither is science.

Not all questions are answered, commander, but fortunately some answers are questioned.

I mean, it's a good job we've got a last desperate million-to-one chance to rely on, or we'd really be in trouble!

The calendar of the Theocracy of Muntab counts down, not up. No-one knows why, but it might not be a good idea to hang around and find out.

Oh, there's plenty of reasons. I just don't know which one.

That's what being alive is, Thing! It's being badly prepared for everything! Because you only get one chance, Thing!

inn-sewer-ants-polly-sea.

That just goes to show that you never know, although what it is we never know I suspect we'll never know.

But at least the way was clear now. When you step off a cliff, your life takes a very definite direction.

Things Just Happen, What The Hell

I certainly don't sit down and plan a book out before I write it. There's a phrase I use called The Valley Full of Clouds. Writing a novel is as if you are going off on a journey across a valley. The valley is full of mist, but you can see the top of a tree here and the top of another tree over there. And with any luck you can see the other side of the valley. But you cannot see down into the mist. Nevertheless, you head for the first tree.

Greebo had spent an irritating two minutes in that box. Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or it may be dead. You never know until you look. In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.

Humans are always slightly lost. It's a basic characteristic.

Your power is only rumour and lies, she thought. You bore your way into people when they are uncertain and weak and worried and frightened, and they think their enemy is other people when their enemy is, and always will be, you – the master of lies. Outside, you are fearsome; inside, you are nothing but weakness.

Old terror crouched in the shadows. It was one of the most ancient terrors, the one that meant that no sooner had mankind learned to walk on two legs than it dropped to its knees. It was the terror of impermanence, the knowledge that all this would pass away, that a beautiful voice or a wonderful figure was something whose arrival you couldn't control and whose departure you couldn't delay.

Uncertainty is always uncertain, but the difficulty with people who rely on systems is that they begin to believe that nearly everything is in some way a system and therefore, sooner or later, they become bureaucrats.

Destiny was funny stuff, he knew. You couldn't trust it. Often you couldn't even see it. Just when you knew you had it cornered, it turned out to be something else—coincidence, maybe, or providence. You barred the door against it, and it was standing behind you. Then just when you thought you had it nailed down it walked away with the hammer.

Right,' he said uncertainty. His mind was grinding through the problem. She was a witch. Just lately there'd been a lot of gossip about witches being bad for your health. He'd been told not to let witches pass, but no one had said anything about apple sellers. Apple sellers were not a problem. It was witches that were the problem. She'd said she was an apple seller and he wasn't about to doubt a witch's word.

she was definitely feeling several twinkles short of a glitter...

There should be a word for the microscopic spark of hope that you dare not entertain in case the mere act of acknowledging it will cause it to vanish, like trying to look at a photon. You can only sidle up to it, lookong past it, walking past it, waiting for it to get big enough to face the world