The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

We fear that this moment will end, that we won’t get what we need, that we will lose what we love, or that we will not be safe. Often, our biggest fear is the knowledge that one day our bodies will cease functioning. So even when we are surrounded by all the conditions for happiness, our joy is not complete.

What is imponderable in the world is greater than what we can handle.

Indecision may or may not be my problem.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

U2’s best work has always been when we didn’t know what we’re doing.

Everything can change at any moment, suddenly and forever.

It may happen sometimes that a long debate becomes the cause of a longer friendship. Commonly, those who dispute with one another at last agree.

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.

Religion is not going to come up with any new arguments.

Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow – that’s vulnerability.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

Facts are stubborn things.

If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.

A hustler has to deal with danger and risk. It’s part of the game. You cannot control it all, nor would you want to. Chaos, unknown factors are not something to be anxious about.

The truth is you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed.

My comedy is different every time I do it. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

Success isn’t supposed to happen, no matter how hard you work. There’s no guarantee you’re going to succeed. There’s nothing set in stone.

Not only do I not know what’s going on, I wouldn’t know what to do about it if I did.

I will carry on writing, to be sure. But I don’t know if I would want to publish again after Harry Potter.

The woman that deliberates is lost.

Our lifelong certainties about the world can be demolished in a single second.

‚In Utero‘ was the first time I’d made an album that reached into the dark side. I remember the conflict and the uncertainty. I remember all those things when I hear ‚Pennyroyal Tea.‘

What’s coming will come and we’ll just have to meet it when it does.

There are many things that I don’t understand.

Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

The most distressing thing that can happen to a prophet is to be proved wrong. The next most distressing thing is to be proved right.

If we have an atom that is in an excited state and so is going to emit a photon, we cannot say when it will emit the photon. It has a certain amplitude to emit the photon at any time, and we can predict only a probability for emission; we cannot predict the future exactly.

If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away.

The uncertainty of parenting can bring up feelings in us that range from frustration to terror.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

It’s hard to speculate what tomorrow may bring.

It’s so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right.

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?

Younger people have greatest fears. Why is that? Because they don’t know the plot. They don’t know their own individual plot… they don’t know what’s going to happen to them.

I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.

Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

I set up situations that involve abandoning control and finding out what happens.

I don’t know what ‚normal‘ means, anyway.

Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

We do not know what is really good or bad fortune.

Most of the time I spend when I get up in the morning is trying to figure out what is going to happen.

To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.

Life is anything but predictable.

I’m a spokesman for myself. It just so happens that there’s a bunch of people that are concerned with what I have to say. I find that frightening at times because I’m just as confused as most people. I don’t have the answers for anything.

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

It has not yet become obvious to me that there’s no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there’s no real problem, but I’m not sure there’s no real problem.

In such a porcelain life, one likes to be sure that all is well lest one stumble upon one’s hopes in a pile of broken crockery.

I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch.

I don’t think you ever really know what all you’re doing, so you have to act on faith.

What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?