Uncertainty Quotes - Page 27

• I think uncertainty is good for things. Certainty breeds complacency and complacency means that you just sit somewhere in your nice little comfortable suburban house in Michigan, looking at CNN and saying, "Oh, those poor immigrant children that are all coming across the border. But we really can't have them here - that isn't what God wants. Let's send them all back to the drug cartels." There's a complacency to it.

  Stephen King

  Children, Nice, Mean

  Interview with Andy Greene, www.rollingstone.com. October 31, 2014.

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• When I make films, I'm very conscious about leaving space for an uncertainty, and for some unexpected things.

  Jørgen Leth

  Space, Leaving, Unexpected

  Source: www.indiewire.com

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• Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.

  Mark Twain

  Inspiration, Cocky, Ignorance

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist”, p.11, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• He was weary of the uncertainty of the vicious circle of that eternal war that always found him in the same place, but always older, wearier, even more in the position of not knowing why, or how, or even when.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  War, Circles, Knowing

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• Both the five-year-olds looked at me with bewilderment and a bit of fearful uncertainty. I had a sudden horrifying image of the woman I might become if I'm not careful: Crazy Aunt Liz. The divorcee in the muumuu with the dyed orange hair who doesn't eat dairy but smokes menthols, who's always just coming back from her astrology cruise or breaking up with her aroma-therapist boyfriend, who reads the Tarot cards of kindergarteners and says things like, "Bring Aunty Liz another wine cooler, baby, and I'll let you wear my mood ring.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Baby, Crazy, Wine

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• I think that all artists, regardless of degree of talent, are a painful, paradoxical combination of certainty and uncertainty, of arrogance and humility, constantly in need of reassurance, and yet with a stubborn streak of faith in their own validity no matter what.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Writing, Humility, Artist

  "A Circle of Quiet (Crosswicks Journals, Book 1)". Book by Madeleine L'Engle, 1971.

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• She has her own glamour, Willy lad. All poets do, all the bards and artists, all the musicians who truly take the music into their own hearts. They all straddle the border of Faerie, and they see into both worlds. Not dependably into either, perhaps, but that uncertainty keeps them honest and at a distance.

  Emma Bull

  Distance, Heart, Artist

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• We're not obsessed by anything, you see," insisted Ford. "..." "And that's the deciding factor. We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win." "I care about lots of things," said Slartibartfast, his voice trembling partly with annoyance, but partly also with uncertainty. "Such as?" "Well," said the old man, "life, the Universe. Everything, really. Fjords." "Would you die for them?" "Fjords?" blinked Slartibartfast in surprise. "No." "Well then." "Wouldn't see the point, to be honest.

  Douglas Adams

  Winning, Men, Fjords

  Douglas Adams (2017). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy in Four Parts”, p.357, Pan Macmillan

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• Its important to be comfortable with uncertainty.

  Xiaolu Guo

  Life, Important, Comfortable

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• To let God make us, instead of painfully trying to make ourselves; to follow the path that his love shows us, instead of through conceit or cowardice or mockery choosing another; to trust Him for our strength and fitness as the flowers do, simply giving ourselves back to Him in grateful service,—this is to keep the laws that give us the freedom of the city in which there is no longer any night of bewilderment or ignorance or uncertainty.

  Sarah Orne Jewett

  Flower, Grateful, Ignorance

  Sarah Orne Jewett (2008). “A Country Doctor”, p.238, Bantam Classics

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• So the Dark did a simple thing. They showed the maker of the sword his own uncertainty and fear. Fear of having done the wrong thing--fear that having done this one great thing, he would never again be able to accomplish anything of great worth--fear of age, of insufficiency, of unmet promise. All such great fears, that are the doom of people given the gift of making, and lie always somewhere in their minds.

  Susan Cooper

  Lying, Dark, Simple

  Susan Cooper (2010). “Silver on the Tree”, p.163, Simon and Schuster

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• A good piece of fiction, in my view, does not offer solutions. Good stories deal with our moral struggles, our uncertainties, our dreams, our blunders, our contradictions, our endless quest for understanding. Good stories do not resolve the mysteries of the human spirit but rather describe and expand up on those mysteries.

  Tim O'Brien

  Dream, Struggle, Views

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• In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Country, Air, Mind

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• Zizi was young and often confused about how to live his life, �and when he made a choice he clung to it with fierce resolve, �as if to beat his uncertainty into submission.

  Candace Bushnell

  Confused, Choices, Fierce

  Candace Bushnell (2003). “Trading Up: A Novel”, Hyperion

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• Wish you could turn off the questions, turn off the voices, turn off all sound. Yearn to close out the ugliness, close out the filthiness, close out all light. Long to cast away yesterday, cast away memory, cast away all jeapordy. Pray you could somehow stop uncertainty, somehow stop the loathing, somehow stop the pain. Act on your impulse, swallow the bottle, cut a little deeper, put the gun to your chest.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Pain, Memories, Cutting

  Ellen Hopkins (2008). “Impulse”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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• Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way

  Paul Theroux

  Creative, Cooking, Kitchen

  Paul Theroux (2014). “Sir Vidia's Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents”, p.180, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Worry is the secret weapon perpetrated upon us by the dark forces of the world that lurk in the shape of fear, uncertainty, confusion, and loss. We, on the other hand, have our own secret weapon against these incorporeal fiends. It is laughter.

  Vera Nazarian

  Laughter, Loss, Dark

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• 

  I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart, I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Inspirational, Loneliness, Heart

  Jorge Luis Borges (2011). “Poesía completa”, p.140, DEBOLS!LLO

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• Love is anticipation and memory, uncertainty and longing. It’s unreasonable, of course. Nothing begins with so much excitement and hope and pleasure as love, except maybe writing a story. And nothing fails as often, except writing stories. And like a story, love must be troubled to be interesting.

  John Dufresne

  Memories, Writing, Love Is

  John Dufresne (2008). “Love Warps the Mind a Little: A Novel”, p.140, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Myths, whether in written or visual form, serve a vital role of asking unanswerable questions and providing unquestionable answers. Most of us, most of the time, have a low tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty. We want to reduce the cognitive dissonance of not knowing by filling the gaps with answers. Traditionally, religious myths have served that role, but today — the age of science — science fiction is our mythology.

  Michael Shermer

  Religious, Knowing, Tolerance

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• People will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

  Tim Ferriss

  Inspirational, Life, People

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• Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy; because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite – it is a passionate exercise. You may come out of my play uncertain. You may want to be sure. Look down on that feeling. We’ve got to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty. There is no last word. That’s the silence under the chatter of our time.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Exercise, Play, Silence

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• I will be the answer, At the end of the line, I will be there for you, While you take the time, In the burning of uncertainty, I will be your solid ground, I will hold the balance, If you can't look down. If it takes my whole life, I won't break, I won't bend, It will all be worth it, Worth it in the end, Cause I can only tell you what I know, That I need you in my life, When the stars have all gone out, You'll still be burning so bright...

  Sarah McLachlan

  Stars, Balance, Answers

  "Song: Answer (Afterglow)". November 4, 2003.

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• To live is to have worries and uncertainties. Keep them inside, and they will destroy you for certain--leaving behind a person so callused that emotion can find no root in his heart.

  Brandon Sanderson

  Life, Heart, Roots

  Brandon Sanderson (2007). “Elantris: Tenth Anniversary Author's Definitive Edition”, p.293, Macmillan

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• it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

  John Keats

  Mean, Men, Doubt

  Letter to George and Thomas Keats, 21 Dec. 1817

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