Unable To Decide Quotes & Sayings

It was as if we were at the heart of a maze. We were overwhelmed by the enormity of the tasks ahead. Mary had given us a bottle of milk and a spoonful of loose tea, and so, unable to decide what to do, we did what all Irish men and women do: we had tea. Suddenly the sun appeared and not for the first or last time we felt it uplifting us and changing everything. It seemed like a holiday. — Niall Williams

It is the opinion of most thoughtful students of life that happiness in this world depends chiefly on the ability to take things as they come. An instance of one who may be said to have perfected this attitude is to be found in the writings of a certain eminent Arabian author who tells of a traveller who, sinking to sleep one afternoon upon a patch of turf containing an acorn, discovered when he woke that the warmth of his body had caused the acorn to germinate and that he was now some sixty feet above the ground in the upper branches of a massive oak. Unable to descend, he faced the situation equably. 'I cannot,' he observed, 'adapt circumstances to my will: therefore I shall adapt my will to circumstances. I decide to remain here.' Which he did. — P.G. Wodehouse

What a sweet and succulent morsel: so soft, so salty, so deliciously delectable, it makes me want to wiggle with delight. You should cook for me more often, Roran Stronghammer. Only next time, I think you should prepare several deer at once. Otherwise, I won't get a proper meal.' Roran hesitated, as if unable to decide whether her request was serious and, if so, how he could politely extricate himself froim such an unlooked -for and rather onerous obligation. — Christopher Paolini

Madonna is a creation, so perhaps we should give her and the factory that created her a little credit, but I think that she should quietly disappear now. Poor Madge seems unable to decide whether she wants to look like Marilyn Monroe or Marlene Dietrich. — Barry Humphries

I have encountered a few 'creationists' and because they were usually nice, intelligent people, I have been unable to decide whether they were really mad or only pretending to be mad. If I was a religious person, I would consider creationism nothing less than blasphemy. Do its adherents imagine that God is a cosmic hoaxer who has created the whole vast fossil record for the sole purpose of misleading humankind ? — Arthur C. Clarke

By this time he had discovered that his neighbour was not very conversible; But whether her silence proceeded from pride, discretion, timidity, or idiotism, he was still unable to decide. — Matthew Gregory Lewis

I've always felt a little lost in life, like I never received complete instructions on who I'm supposed to be. Everyone else around me seemed to know exactly who they were. Their lives would fly right by me; their GPS's locked on to destinations while I just sat idling in the street. In high school I never did any extracurricular activities because I couldn't figure out if I was a sports person or a music person. And it was no different in college. I wandered through four different majors, unable to decide who I wanted to be. I just felt like a blank slate.

And if I was a blank slate, Micah York was The Starry Night - authentic, beautiful, perfect. He was my exact antithesis which is what attracted me to him in the first place. He was born knowing exactly who he was and what he was about. His confidence and certainty in himself was an all but tangible element of him. — C.K. Walker

And yet. When I read the Dawn on line and then looked around me to the pristine surroundings of campus life, I knew that every other city in the world only showed me its surface, but when I looked at Karachi I saw the blood running through and out of its veins; I knew that I understood the unspoken as much as the articulated among its inhabitants; I knew that there were so many reasons to fail to love it, to cease to love it, to be unable to love it, that it made love a fierce and unfathomable thing; I knew I couldn't think of Karachi and find any easy answers, and I didn't know how to decide if that was reason to go back or reason to stay away. — Kamila Shamsie

Stories people told themselves were biased by the availability of the material used to construct them...what people remember about the past, [Kahneman and Tversky] suggested, is likely to warp their judgement of the future. "We often decide that an outcome is extremely unlikely or impossible, because we are unable to imagine any chain of events that could cause it to occur. The defect, often, is in our imagination. — Michael Lewis

The snow was dancing like cotton wool in the light of the street lamps. Aimlessly, unable to decide whether it wanted to fall up or down, just letting itself be driven by the hellish, ice-cold wind that was sweeping in from the great darkness covering the Oslo fjord. Together they swirled, wind and snow, round and round in the darkness between the warehouses on the quayside that were all shut up for the night. Until the wind got fed up and dumped it's dance partner beside the wall. And there the dry, windswept snow was settling around the shoes of the man I had just shot I the chest and the neck. — Jo Nesbo

If this is the degree of inflation planned for in advance, the real outcome is indeed likely to be such that most of those who will retire at the end of the century will be dependent on the charity of the younger generation. And ultimately not morals but the fact that the young supply the police and the army will decide the issue: concentration camps for the aged unable to maintain themselves are likely to be the fate of an old generation whose income is entirely dependent on coercing the young. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

People are so immersed in a deep sleep, so unconscious of their actions, that they can't realize that they decide to call me and send me messages when I'm busy an unable to answer. Furthermore, it's in these and only these moments, that I receive dozens of messages in the exact same day, reason why I don't answer any of them. In their egotistical mind, I'm selfish and ignoring them. They can't see that they're the egotistical and selfish ones. — Robin Sacredfire

choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. Constantin's — Sylvia Plath

The trail of life may be narrow and bumpy, could be crammed with deadly insects and venomous thorns, but it is built with ample number of doors everywhere for sure. Yet, access to most of them remains imperceptible till the one which remained open to us gets shut. But then, we would again be left stranded, bemused, staring at many new doors - this time, unable to decide which one to choose! And usually, we even refuse to knock any. — Hari Parameshwar

It's an unfortunate word, 'depression', because the illness has nothing to do with feeling sad, sadness is on the human palette. Depression is a whole other beast. It's when your old personality has left town and been replaced by a block of cement with black tar oozing through your veins and mind. This is when you can't decide whether to get a manicure or jump off a cliff. It's all the same. When I was institutionalised I sat on a chair unable to move for three months, frozen in fear. To take a shower was inconceivable. What made it tolerable was while I was inside, I found my tribe - my people. They understood and unlike those who don't suffer, never get bored of you asking if it will ever go away? They can talk medication all hours, day and night; heaven to my ears. — Ruby Wax

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn't decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside. — Rumi

It swept him forward, and though the crowd grew denser with every step - his advance was checked several yards short of the stage by a wall of spike-studded leather jackets - he was now closer than he had ever been to live music, save for at his bar mitzvah. The sheer monophonic power of this sound blew away any impression those tuxed fucks had left. It was an avalanche, hurtling downhill, snapping trees and houses like tinkertoys, taking up every sound in its path and obliterating it in a white roar. As Charlie felt himself being taken up into it, totally, unable to decide whether it was good or bad - unable, even, to care. — Garth Risk Hallberg

The dog would run a few steps toward the house, circle once or twice as though unable to decide what to do next, then run back into the wood, turn, and run again toward the house, all the while whining with agitation, tail low and wavering.
"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ," I said. "Bloody Timmy's in the well! — Diana Gabaldon

Then in my mind's eye I see the bronze statue of the college Founder, the cold Father symbol, his hands outstretched in the breathtaking gesture of lifting a veil that flutters in hard, metallic folds above the face of a kneeling slave; and I am standing puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered more firmly in place; whether I am witnessing a revelation or a more efficient blinding. — Ralph Ellison

But, being unable to decide yes, she decided no. — Gregory Maguire