Quotes & Sayings About Tentative

They did not talk about the larger present, so circumscribed, so uncontrollable. Their little present was two bodies and a bed, and that was the entirety of time and place: them, there, in their little room, awkward, laughing, happy, warm, tentative, surrendering, overwhelmed, alarmed, astounded, shivering, subsiding, asleep, awake, getting the hang of it, learning, loving, redeemed. Happy. — Louisa Young

Right now people seem to be very tentative about the positive benefits of capitalism. — Jeb Bush

It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition. — Bertrand Russell

I made a tentative conclusion. It seemed from all of this that uppermost among human joys is the negative one of restoration: not going to the stars, but learning that one may stay where one is. — Peter De Vries

Maddox had been kissed there before. Polite little explorations, tentative tongue flicks, quick forays before the main event. But Ben made a meal out of his ass - a seven-course banquet of sensation and tongue fucking. Like literally, fucking, tongue delving deep. That was new, deliciously so. "God. — Annabeth Albert

The rules or 'laws' of poetry are only tentative devices, an approximate scheme. There is no Sinaitic recipe for poetry, for the individual poem is the norm. — Louis MacNeice

She was perhaps too young to realize that what she assumed was her love for [him] was actually a tentative, timorous, acceptance of herself. — Arundhati Roy

A whisper of fabric as Derek dressed. Then a hand on my waist, a light touch, tentative. I turned and Derek was right there, his face above mine, hands sliding around me as I titled my face up
"What the - ?"
We both jumped - again. Tori stood there, staring at us, Simon behind her, grabbing her arm.
"I told you not to - " Simon began.
"Yeah, but you didn't say why. I sure didn't expect ... " She shook her head. "Am I the last one to know everything around here?"
Liz raced in. "What's going on?"
"Derek's ready," I said. "We need to move." — Kelley Armstrong

Better to be tentative than to be recklessly sure- to be an apprentice at sixty, than to present oneself as a doctor at ten. — Michel De Montaigne

From inside the tavern came the sounds of a fiddle being tuned, various plucks and tentative bowings, then a slow and groping attempt at Aura Lee, interrupted every few notes by unplanned squeaks and howls. Nevertheless the beautiful and familiar tune was impervious to poor performance, and Inman thought how painfully young it sounded, as if the pattern of its notes allowed no room to imagine a future clouded and tangled and diminished. — Charles Frazier

At This Moment Of Time

Some who are uncertain compel me. They fear
The Ace of Spades. They fear
Loves offered suddenly, turning from the mantelpiece,
Sweet with decision. And they distrust
The fireworks by the lakeside, first the spuft,
Then the colored lights, rising.
Tentative, hesitant, doubtful, they consume
Greedily Caesar at the prow returning,
Locked in the stone of his act and office.
While the brass band brightly bursts over the water
They stand in the crowd lining the shore
Aware of the water beneath Him. They know it. Their eyes
Are haunted by water

Disturb me, compel me. It is not true
That "no man is happy," but that is not
The sense which guides you. If we are
Unfinished (we are, unless hope is a bad dream),
You are exact. You tug my sleeve
Before I speak, with a shadow's friendship,
And I remember that we who move
Are moved by clouds that darken midnight — Delmore Schwartz

It [moonlight] had a tentative grip on their shadows, as though the irregular shapes had been borrowed momentarily from the dark expanses left and right. — Scott Wyatt

The love of the painter standing alone and staring, staring at the great coloured surface he is making. Standing with him in the room the rearing canvas stares back with tentative shapes halted in their growth, moving in a new rhythm from floor to ceiling. The twisted tubes, the fresh paint squeezed and smeared across the dry upon his palette. The dust beneath the easel. The paint has edged along the brushes' handles. The white light in a northern sky is silent. The window gapes as he inhales his world. His world: a rented room, and turpentine. He moves towards his half-born. He is in love. — Mervyn Peake

Mal took a single tentative step toward me. Then he closed the space between us in two long strides. One hand slid around my waist, the other cupped my face. Gently, he titled my mouth up to his.
"Come back to me," he said softly. He drew me to him, but as his lips met mine, something flickered in the corner of my eye. — Leigh Bardugo

A half-hearted spirit has no power. Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Average people enter into their endeavors headlong and without care. — Epictetus

You never say what I wish you'd say, and you frequently say nothing at all when it's clear you should say something, so it's not entirely fantastical that you'd say a certain thing when you mean something else entirely." He opened his mouth, shut it, and considered the ground briefly before responding. "I remember studying Fleet Admiral Starcrest's Mathematical Probabilities Applied to Military Strategies as a young boy and finding that less confusing than what you just said." Now it was her turn for a stunned pause before answering. "Sicarius?" She laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. "Was that a joke?" "A statement of fact. — Lindsay Buroker

But her eyes would look cold, though her voice might be gentle, and her
hand when it fondled would be tentative, unwilling. The hand would be
making an effort to fondle, and Stephen would be conscious of that
effort. Then looking up at the calm, lovely face, Stephen would be filled
with a sudden contrition, with a sudden deep sense of her own
shortcomings; she would long to blurt all this out to her mother, yet
would stand there tongue-tied, saying nothing at all. — Radclyffe Hall

Throughout our lives friends enclose us like pairs of parentheses. They shift our boundaries; crater our terrain. They fume through the cracks of our tentative houses and parts of them always remain. Friendship asks the truth and wants the truth, hollows and fills, ages with us, and we through it. It cradles us like family. It is ecology and mystery and language - all three. Our grown-up friendships - especially the really meaningful ones- model for our children what we want them to have throughout their lives. — Beth Kephart

The process of tracing regularity in any complicated, and at first sight confused, set of appearances, is necessarily tentative; we begin by making any supposition, even a false one, to see what consequences will follow from it ; and by observing how these differ from the real phenomena, we learn what corrections to make in our assumption. — John Stuart Mill

It is clear that the building of models is not a purely mechanical process but requires skill of a high order - not merely mathematical skill but a sensitivity to the relative importance of different factors and a critical, almost an artistic, faculty in the selection of behaviour equations which are reasonable, tentative hypotheses in explaining the behaviour of actual economies. — Kenneth E. Boulding

It's open!" Zane called, expecting Sidewinder and an amused FBI agent or three.
But it was just Kelly, and he had a hand slapped over his eyes. He took a tentative step into the cabin, then tossed a handful of medical supplies on the bed and retreated without ever saying a word. Ty and Zane stared at the supplies as the door shut. They included a flexible wrap, some popsicle sticks, one length of metal that could be bent and molded, and a little tube of lubricant.
"Asshole!" Ty called after Kelly.
"You're welcome! — Abigail Roux

he asked, in a more tentative tone, "What's the — John Le Carre

There was something stunned in the faces of the children, blinking and tentative. The slow, dark, dull submarine of the lives in which they were the human cargo had abruptly surfaced. Their blood was filled with a kind of crippling nitrogen of wonder. — Michael Chabon

Every step, even a tentative one, counts. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

It seems to me that the evidence ... is opposed to the view that the spirals are individual galaxies comparable with our own. In fact, there appears as yet no reason for modifying the tentative hypothesis that the spirals are not composed of typical stars at all, but are truly nebulous objects. — Harlow Shapley

You're elegance in a misunderstood form. Crystal quartz in a world of platinum. Oh, my dizzy boy, there's a fire in you that I use to warm my hands on chilly mornings. — Taylor Rhodes

There's an art to life. Some people have talent for it. A boundless hope illuminates them. Where others are vague and tentative, they have only sharp, clear edges. Energy soars; lights burn brighter when they enter a room. — Kathleen Tessaro

We began our life together at a moment of natural self-pity and defeat that left an inimitable impression on both of us. The rejection chastened me and let me know my proper place in the grand scheme of things. It was the last time I would ever make a move that required boldness or a leap of the imagination. I became tentative, suspicious, and dull. I learned to hold my tongue and mark my trail behind me and to look to the future with a wary eye. Finally, I was robbed of a certain optimism, that reckless acceptance of the world and all it could hand my way that had been my strength and deliverance. — Pat Conroy

Being in the mood to write, like being in the mood to make love, is a luxury that isn't necessary in a long-term relationship. Just as the first caress can lead to a change of heart, the first sentence, however tentative and awkward, can lead to a desire to go just a little further. — Julia Cameron

Philosophy arises from an unusually obstinate attempt to arrive at real knowledge. What passes for knowledge in ordinary life suffers from three defects: it is cocksure, vague and self-contradictory. The first step towards philosophy consists in becoming aware of these defects, not in order to rest content with a lazy scepticism, but in order to substitute an amended kind of knowledge which shall be tentative, precise and self-consistent. — Bertrand Russell

Neal huffed. Frustrated. I hate that you thought I wouldn't call
I hate that everything is so tentative between us right now. When did everything get so tentative? — Rainbow Rowell

In the concrete jungle it's sink or swim: you can't be timid or tentative; you have to forge through, make your mark, enter the fray. — Belinda Jones

How do we know, then, when a code's been cracked?when we are right?when do we know if we have even received a message? Why, naturally, when, upon one set of substitutions, sense emerges like the outline under a rubbing; when a single tentative construal leads to several; when all the sullen letters of the code cry TEAM! after YEA! has been, by several hands, uncovered. — William H Gass

Now a life like that, he figured, could make one tentative and fearful perhaps. Or it could make you remarkably strong, and what people called philosophical---and fiercely independent. Maybe it could make you careless of your own life, indifferent to danger, and determined to live exactly as you pleased. — Anne Rice

There's a time when it all comes together - what you long for and what you fear - and as tentative as you may feel, you're driven to continue. At that point, the need to forge ahead is the only option, and your direction is defined despite yourself. — Lorii Myers

All scholarship, like all science, is an ongoing, open-ended discussion in which all conclusions are tentative forever, the principal value and charm of the game being the discovery of the totally unexpected. — Hugh Nibley

When he first put his arms around me, it was tentative, like maybe he expected
I'd pull away. When I
didn't, he moved in closer, his hands smoothing over my shoulders, and in my
mind I saw myself
retreating a million times when people tried to do this same thing: my sister or
my mother, pulling back
and into myself, tucking everything out of sight, where only I knew where to
find it. This time, though, I
gave in. I let Wes pull me against him, pressing my head against his chest,
where I could feel his heart
beating, steady and true. — Sarah Dessen

I cared nothing; my point of view in that instance, as in all others like it, was, that if the paper chose to send an outsider and an ignoramus to criticise works of art - especially the works of a new and tentative and experimental school - then, on the head of the paper let the just doom fall. — Arthur Machen

Whenever I allow anything but tenderness and compassion to dictate my response to life
be it self-righteous anger, moralizing, defensiveness, the pressing need to change others ... I am alienated from my true self. My identity as Abba's child [a child of God] becomes ambiguous, tentative and confused — Brennan Manning

A fundie claimed "God invented science". All of science is tentative and approximate, also sometimes mistaken. Is that the best God can do? — Graham Kendall

Louisa Carrington, come here." Her head came up at the imperious note in his voice. "Allow me to rephrase that: Dearest Wife, would you let me hold you?" He held out his arms, willing her to accept his embrace. Her first steps were tentative, but he held her gaze and waited until she was bundled against his chest. "I want to shout at you, Joseph. I am very like my father in this." "Go ahead and shout. I think better when I'm holding you. Perhaps you think better when you shout." She — Grace Burrowes

RUSTY watched the dawn blossom into light. At first everything was dark, then gradually objects began to take shape - the desk and chair, the walls of the room - and the darkness lifted like the raising of a veil, and over the tree-tops the sky was streaked with crimson. It was like this for some time, while everything became clearer and more distinguishable; and then, when nature was ready, the sun reached up over the trees and hills, and sent one tentative beam of warm light through the window. Along the wall crept the sun, across to the bed, and up the boy's bare legs, until it was caressing his entire body and whispering to him to get up, get up, it is time to get up ... — Ruskin Bond

The position I now favor is that economics is a pre-science, rather like astronomy before Copernicus, Brahe and Galileo. I still hold out hope of better behavior in the future, but given the travesties of logic and anti-empiricism that have been committed in its name, it would be an insult to the other sciences to give economics even a tentative membership of that field.1 — Steve Keen

How scientists go about their job: and it's a process, it's a question of asking questions, respecting observation, respecting experiment, having tentative explanations and then testing them ... There is a problem sometimes with how we teach science at schools. Because we sometimes teach it as if it has been chiseled in stone. — Paul Nurse

I remember to this day how easily I could grasp what he called his tentative ideas when he talked about the architectural style of the capitalist era, a subject which he said had fascinated him since his own student days, speaking in particular of the compulsive sense of order and the tendency towards monumentalism evident in law courts and penal institutions, railway stations and stock exchanges, opera houses and lunatic asylums, and the dwelling built to rectangular grid patterns for the labor force. — W.G. Sebald

As surely as spring followed winter, new life followed death, fighting for its place on the earth. Let man do his worst, yet still the tentative shoots of faith and hope sprouted the ruins of shattered lives and broken dreams. Resurrection was real, after all. — J.M. Hochstetler

My father was an aspiring country singer and songwriter. He just didn't get that off that ground. I was afraid, very tentative to do anything with music for years. I didn't tell him I was playing in bands when I was away from home, because it had been such an unpleasant experience and a letdown for him. — Ronnie Dunn

In the end, writing is not a full step toward self-healing, just a tiny, very tentative move in that direction. — Haruki Murakami

I can remember watching large, tentative, individual flakes of snow falling and blowing around aimlessly in the wind generated by the train through the window of the CTA commuter line from Lincoln Park back up to Libertyville, and thinking, 'This is my crude approximation of a human life. — David Foster Wallace

There was the goal of all those con men of library and classroom, who sold their revelations as reason, their "instincts" as science, their cravings as knowledge, the goal of all the savages of the non-objective, the non-absolute, the relative, the tentative, the probable - the savages who, seeing a farmer gather a harvest, can consider it only as a mystic phenomenon unbound by the law of causality and created by the farmers' omnipotent whim, who then proceed to seize the farmer, to chain him, to deprive him of tools, of seeds, of water, of soil, to push him out on a barren rock and to command: "Now grow a harvest and feed us! — Ayn Rand

From THE DEVIL YOU KNOW-
She wanted him too. He could see it in the rapid rise of her breasts. He could smell her budding arousal and would relish bringing her to full bloom. God, how he loved this dance! She had taken the first tentative steps, yet she still fought her desire, refused to give in to it, but he would lead her now. He was a master ... and a ruthless bastard. — Victoria Vane

For over two centuries (or so historians tell us), it was from the St. Petersburg salons that our country's culture advanced. From those great rooms overlooking the Fontanka Canal, new cuisines, fashions, and ideas all took their first tentative steps into Russian society. — Amor Towles

I had kissed my share of men, particularly during the war years, when flirtation and instant romance were the light-minded companions of death and uncertainty. Jamie, thought, was something different. His extreme gentleness was in no way tentative; rather it was a promise of power known and held in leash; a challenge and a provocation the more remarkable for its lack of demand. I am yours, it said. And if you will have me, then ... — Diana Gabaldon

They have left the first stage of romance - the rhapsody of us. Where everything is you-me or me-you or a giddily tentative we. Now him and her are asserting themselves, each given a private, pensive depth. Within the rhapsody of us, Elijah could think, I don't really know you, but I will. Now he is not so sure. — David Levithan

Truthfulness, honor, is not something which springs ablaze of itself; it has to be created between people. This is true in political situations. The quality and depth of the politics evolving from a group depends in large part on their understanding of honor. Much of what is narrowly termed "politics" seems to rest on a longing for certainty even at the cost of honesty, for an analysis which, once given, need not be re-examined ... It isn't that to have an honorable relationship with you, I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you. It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive to me. That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us. — Adrienne Rich

Kudra was amused by Alobar's tentative polka until her eyes fell upon the tumescent protrusion dancing with him. Disgusting she thought. An erection is just inappropriate. Then she realized with a shock that she was so wet that children could have sailed toy boats in her underpants. — Tom Robbins

Never answer a why question! You will suddenly discover that the discussion has changed to a critique and defense of your reasons, and your original statement has suddenly changed to a tentative proposition that you will be allowed to keep only if your reasons are good enough. ... The purpose of a why question is never to understand your reasoning, it is to elicit words that can be twisted. If you don't give them, there'll be nothing to twist. Remember, the answer to a why question is an explanation, and explaining always makes angry situations worse. — Albert J. Bernstein

Always keep in mind that an article of faith is not something that the faithful assume. Faith, for those who have it, is the most certain form of knowledge, not a tentative opinion. — Mortimer J. Adler

She clung to the ropes. "I should go back. This was a stupid idea."

"Wait until you see Savannah from up here." He clasped her other wrist, too. "Let go, Skye. I won't let you fall."

She looked up into his eyes. "Putting my life in your hands is more trust than I intended on a first date."

His lips twitched into a tentative smile. "Didn't know we were on a date. — Lisa Kessler

Kiwi thought back to his first weeks, when insults had been impossible for him. One time he'd called Deemer a troglodyte but his delivery had been tentative and way, way too slow, as if the insult were a fork tenderly entering a steak. — Karen Russell

I had not expected the gentle, tentative surge of gratitude I began to feel...for St. Paul's School, the spring, and the early morning. I needed the morning light and the warbling birds. I needed to find a way to live in this place for a moment and get the good of it. I had tried to hold myself apart, and the aloneness proved more terrible than what I had tried to escape. — Lorene Cary

A biographer has to decide between slowing to a halt in a bog of conflicting possibilities or striding boldly across by a causeway of conjecture. I choose the second course and, without stepping aside to discuss all the alternatives, tell the story as I see it. Paul's next eighteen months unfolded somewhat as follows, though the tone of assurance in my narrative must not disguise that some of its conclusions are tentative and disputable. The — John Charles Pollock

She hugs me. It's tentative at first, a little scared, and yes, a little repulsed, but then she melts into it. She rests her head against my cold neck and embraces me. Unable to believer what's happening, I put my arm around her and just hold her.
I almost swear I can feel my heart thumping. But it must just be hers, pressed tightly against my chest. — Isaac Marion

Hunter turned and kissed Dillon deeply before he rinsed off. He had never wished for his sight before, but he would have given anything at that moment to be able to turn and witness the beauty of the man that had just made love to him. He'd literally felt the change in Dillon's grip as he made love.
The very first time they were together, Dillon's hold was uncertain, a tentative embrace that held no absolutes, no dreams, but just now it was different; it was a grip that sat right on the edge of possession, a possession Hunter would willingly give, if asked.
But would Dillon ask, and would he be able to accept? — Brandon Shire

The shrewd guess, the fertile hypothesis, the courageous leap to a tentative conclusion - these are the most valuable coins of the thinker at work. But in most schools guessing is heavily penalized and is associated somehow with laziness. — Jerome Bruner

Their kiss was gentle at first, and then she pressed him for more like she'd done before, but this time neither work nor pack members would intrude. His blood sizzled as he touched her lips with his tongue, but she hesitated to open up to him. He backed off just a little, unwilling to let it go. He felt the hesitation in her whole body - the desire there, but the concern too. Then, as if she was ready to throw caution to the wind, she parted her lips and touched her tongue to his. But there was nothing tentative about it. — Terry Spear

Social scientific research is and always will be tentative and imperfect. It does not claim to transform economics, sociology, and history into exact sciences. But by patiently searching for facts and patterns and calmly analyzing the economic, social, and political mechanisms that might explain them, it can inform democratic debate and focus attention on the right questions. It can help to redefine the terms of debate, unmask certain preconceived or fraudulent notions, and subject all positions to constant critical scrutiny. In my view, this is the role that intellectuals, including social scientists, should play, as citizens like any other but with the good fortune to have more time than others to devote themselves to study (and even to be paid for it - a signal privilege). — Thomas Piketty

Peter smiled as Concheetah sashayed across the ballroom floor
Concheetah sashayed towards him, wriggling her hips, full lips in a pout, followed obediently by the tentative, Tapping Ted dressed in tight shorts and singlet. Tapping? Tapping because he always wore conspicuous, tap-dancing shoes in the club.
Was Ted going to rip up the stage as a mincing Irish dancer or maybe perform a Gene Kelly routine or the Swan Lake ballet in taps? It was terrible to imagine. Peter bit his lip at that thought, hoping he wouldn't burst into howls of laughter.
He had noted after coming to several shows, that Ted usually stood at the side of the stage ready with a drink of champagne and an encouraging word and a dry towel to mop Her Highness's face. And he always cried during the
show's finale, Abba's Dancing Queen. Poor Tapping Ted. — T.W. Lawless

In every one of these cases, the police ignored the suspect's tentative and mealymouthed expressions of interest in a lawyer, persisted in their questioning, and successfully managed to get him to make some damaging statements (not necessarily a confession) that could be used to help convict him, and the courts concluded that such statements were admissible against the suspect because he had not made a clear and unequivocal request for a lawyer. — James Duane

Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast ... and one day you will build something that endures: something worthy of your potential. — Epictetus

The Warrior Princess Submissive herself may be uncertain of her own submissive nature, so it is entirely understandable that the Dominant seeking to woo her might be somewhat tentative, himself. If the Dominant has even the tiniest iota of doubt about his own dominance or his D/s relationship skills, he is doomed. He will be eaten alive, and not in a good way. — Michael Makai

The advice that I have valued in my own life has never turned on fixed maxims or canned metaphors. More crucially, lists of precepts don't work like targeted advice because lists contain inherently constraining messages. They seem to say that complex matters are knowable, that a given process leads to foreseeable results. It implies a thin and predictable world, whereas the sort of advice that has mattered to me bespeaks a quite tentative optimism, the optimism of the quest whose outcome is finally unknowable. — Peter D. Kramer

Running at night used to frighten me. Part of it was simply safety, the question of whether level ground would truly appear under each tentative footstep, and whether the temporary but complete blindness suffered while running toward headlights was, in fact, concealing death. — Don Kardong

Love Is a curious thing. Sometimes it barrels into you, leaves you breathless. Other times, it comes in- to your life, a tentative beam of morning sun sneaking through the blinds, and you think this light isn't possible. The shutters are drawn. Night should linger on. I don't feel like waking. Yet the room comes slowly lit. Sleep slithers away, and at last you can no longer deny the dawning. — Ellen Hopkins

He kissed her then. Not tentative. Not polite.
This was no first-kiss kiss. It was demanding. Dirty. And it went on and on. Deep, open-mouthed, head-twisting, tongue-fucking, rock'n'roll kissing. — Amy Andrews

Charles loved her voice. It was so soft and blurred, like pastels. It made his neck tingle just to listen to her. It gave him the same delicious feeling he had as he hovered on the brink of sleep and this feeling - until now - had been the single most pleasant feeling in his life. It was the voice that coloured everything he now thought about her. It was shy and tentative and musical. Sometimes he did not manage to hear the words she said, but he did not let on about his deafness. — Peter Carey

I think we came out the last couple of game and have been able to get it going. The first couple we were tentative a little bit, that energy, maybe excite. I saw in the last couple of games we've been able to channel that and use it in a positive way to go, be aggressive, physical and skate. When we're skating and physical we're at our best and put a lot of pressure on the other team that way. — Jarome Iginla

REFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired; Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive. — Ambrose Bierce

Enough , you hens!" Niobe exploded. "It's tentative!"
Lachesis snorted "As tentative as a pregnancy,girl! — Piers Anthony

I kind of don't believe in actors directing themselves. Obviously some people have done it well, but I don't see how I could. It's funny that you ask, because I've just been thinking that maybe I'd rather direct The Bell Jar than act in it. It's a huge leap to go from a short to a feature, so I'm tentative - I'm like, Well, that's just so triple-type-A personality of you. — Julia Stiles

But this first clumsy attempt showed her that the imagination itself was a source of secrets: once she had begun a story, no one could be told. Pretending in words was too tentative, too vulnerable, too embarrassing to let anyone know. Even writing out the she saids, the and thens, made her wince, and she felt foolish, appearing to know about the emotions of an imaginary being. Self-exposure was inevitable the moment she described a character's weakness; the reader was bound to speculate that she was describing herself. What other authority could she have? — Ian McEwan

Risk assessment is the new religion, the Big Babies'equivalent of the apotropaic ritual, the haruspices, the chicken entrails and the goat on the altar. Where our ancestors looked up at the stars, and spoke with the gods, and went off upon the great and dangerous adventures which would return them to their communities as adults, we, adorned not with swords and quivers but with all the tentative apparatus of our intelligence and our carefulness, look upwards and see, not gods, but improperly secured overhead lighting, untrimmed branches, loose cables, inadequately fastened false ceiling partitions; and we decide not, after all, to go. It is, after all, too dangerous. — Michael Bywater

Bloody North," said Shev as she picked her way towards it and had a tentative drag at the ropes. "Even their bridges are shit."
"Their men are good," said Javre, clattering out with no fear whatsoever. "Far from subtle, but enthusiastic."
"Great," said Shev as she edged after, exchanging a mutually suspicious glance with a crow perched atop one of the posts. "Men. The one thing that interests me not at all."
"You should try them."
"I did. Once. Bloody useless. Like trying to have a conversation with someone who doesn't even speak your language, let alone understand the topic."
"Some are certainly more horizontally fluent than others."
"No. Just no. The hairiness, and the lumpiness, and the great big fumbling fingers and ... balls. I mean, balls. What's that about? That is one singularly unattractive piece of anatomy. That is just ... that is bad design, is what that is. — Joe Abercrombie

Lion sounds that have not grown from the mouse may exude naked power ... but cannot convey any wisdom or understanding ... The initial steps on the path to courageous speech then are the first tentative steps into the parts of us that cannot speak. — David Whyte

A swamp is where Gators live. We feel comfortable there, but we hope our opponents feel tentative. A swamp is hot and sticky and can be dangerous. Only Gators get out alive. — Steve Spurrier

The door opened just a crack, and a silver of Nathan appeared. I gave him a tentative smile. He shut the door in my face. — Alicia Thompson

A good aim surveys the present state of experience of pupils, and forming a tentative plan of treatment, keeps the plan constantly in view and yet modifies it as conditions develop. The aim, in short, is experimental, and hence constantly growing as it is tested in action. — John Dewey

I don't think Im a very good actor. Everything is very tentative and at a certain point you click in and just feel the spirit move you. I can be possessed really well. — River Phoenix

An end to timidity - the replacement of the philologically tentative by the lexicographically decisive. - on the making of the Oxford English Dictionary — Simon Winchester

The precision of hisskill places his work beyond the tentative and the experimental stage. He is continually searching and exploring both himself and his surroundings. and in this exploration of the realm of places, people and things, contrasts and relationships, Callahan is no respecter of conventional technical formula or code. His delicate sense of pattern is an integral part of his photography and not a thing by itself. — Edward Steichen

That our knowledge only illuminates a small corner of the Universe, that it is incomplete, approximate, tentative and merely probable need not concert us. It is genuine nevertheless. Physical science stands as one of the great achievements of the human spirit. — Arthur David Ritchie

But sometimes, maybe most times, it isn't that clear. It is dark and you are near the edge of a cliff, but you're moving slowly, not sure which direction you're heading in. Your steps are tentative but they are still blind in the night. You don't realize how close you are to the edge, how the soft earth could give away, how you could just slip a bit and suddenly plunge into the dark. — Harlan Coben

Where do babies come from? Don't bother asking adults. They lie like pigs. However, diligent independent research and hours of playground consultation have yielded fruitful, if tentative, results. There are several theories. Near as we can figure out, it has something to do with acting ridiculous in the dark. We believe it is similar to dogs when they act peculiar and ride each other. This is called "making love". Careful study of popular song lyrics, advertising catch-lines, TV sitcoms, movies, and T-Shirt inscriptions offers us significant clues as to its nature. Apparently it makes grown-ups insipid and insane. Some graffiti was once observed that said "sex is good". All available evidence, however, points to the contrary. — Matt Groening

He took a step toward her. She turned around, a tentative smile on her face. His beautiful Rose. He sank to his knees and raised his hands over his face. Thank you, God. You're so good to me. — Melanie Dickerson

We think that boxes take everything that's bad and they lock all that nasty stuff out, when in reality they take everything that we are and they lock all of those great things in. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Atheism, I began to realize, rested on a less-than-satisfactory evidential basis. The arguments that had once seemed bold, decisive, and conclusive increasingly turned out to be circular, tentative, and uncertain. — Alister E. McGrath

We must encourage those who earn less than $200 per month and cannot afford to nurture and educate many children never to have more than two ... We will regret the time lost if we do not now take the first tentative steps towards correcting a trend which can leave our society with a large number of the physically, intellectually and culturally anaemic. — Lee Kuan Yew

He smoothed his fingers along her jawline and lifted her chin, kissing her gently, testing.
Lindsey went light-headed with the rush of sensation, the touch of his lips leaving her longing for more. Clutching his shirt in her fingers - napkin and all - she pulled him closer, melting into his kiss. Carden took it from tentative to tender, then parted her lips with the velvety sweep of his tongue. She matched his languid rhythm, hypnotized. He was all chocolate and caramel, creamy cool and sweet.
'Sinfully delicious'.
No doubt he was 31 flavors of trouble, but resisting him seemed impossible. — Tracy March

Things felt strange and tentative between us, in a way they never had. — Morgan Matson

In recent years, as personal memories have faded, another perspective is beginning to make a tentative appearance in China. This view acknowledges the colossal wrongs committed during the Cultural Revolution, but it begins to inquire whether perhaps Mao raised an important question, even if his answer to it proved disastrous. The problem Mao is said to have identified is the relationship of the modern state - especially the Communist state - to the people it governs. In largely agricultural - and even incipient industrial - societies, governance concerns issues within the capacity of the general public to understand. Of course, in aristocratic societies, the relevant public is limited. But whatever the formal legitimacy, some tacit consensus by those who are to carry out directives is needed - unless governance is to be entirely by imposition, which is usually unsustainable over a historic period. — Henry Kissinger