Unpredictable Quotes & Sayings

I now view life as a complex and unpredictable affair that cannot be mastered. It can be embraced. It can be negotiated more or less skillfully. But mastered? Not a chance. — Gary Hayden

Shit, I'd heard all the songs about love but never really got them before. Didn't understand that it can come out of nowhere, grab you in a chokehold, then bodyslam you into the road until you give in to it, accept it for what it is: an unpredictable, uncontrollable force of nature that tames you. You don't choose it, you can't rationalize it, and you sure as shit don't know when it's going to hit. — Nikki Pink

You deserve a man who makes you feel butterflies. Love isn't safe. Love is crazy and scary and unpredictable. You can't control it and you sure as hell can't fight it. It's one of life's greatest risks ... but it's also one of life's greatest gifts. — Karli Perrin

...the perfect enigmas, the ones that, at first glance, were inexplicable. I liked to see how - in a disorganized but predictable world - an organized but totally unpredictable way of reasoning emerged. — Pablo De Santis

Come, dry your eyes, for you are LIFE, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly.
Dry your eyes, and let's go home. — Alan Moore

Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures.
No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever be more powerful than a sentence. Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future, all the time digging and failing to rip their skeletons from our flesh. — Tahereh Mafi

You never know how long it will take. The route to success is unpredictable. So pack the essentials: parcels of love and peace, packets of patience and hope, and bundles of perseverance! — Manuela George-Izunwa

Bowlby uses the notion of faulty internal working models to describe different patterns of neurotic attachment. He sees the basic problem of 'anxious attachment" as that of maintaining attachment with a care-giver who is unpredictable or rejecting. Here the internal working model will be based not on accurate representation of the self and others, but on coping, in which the care-giver must be accommodated to. The two basic strategies here are those of avoidance or adherence, which lead to avoidant or ambivalent attachment. — Jeremy Holmes

In fiction: we find the predictable boring. In real life: we find the unpredictable terrifying. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

All the uncontrollable and unpredictable parts of my life - from the actual creation to my emotional responses to the finished book - I've succeeded in banishing to the office. And I think I'm happier for it. — Jim Crace

Human beings, in their natural state, are unpredictable, erratic, and unhappy. It is only once their animal instincts are controlled that they can be responsible, dependable, and content. — Lauren Oliver

We live today amid ritualized anithumanisms. Among those intelligent enough to feel despair, some seek salvation in the literary artist. Artists love flattery; and the scam doesn't work without mystifying the process.

The weather is unpredictable, but it is not mysterious.

Wall Street is unpredictable, but it is not mysterious.

Writing is unpredictable, (like street and sky, there are too many variables.) Its mystery vanishes, like a shadow, the moment the light aimed at your characters turns back upon yourself. — Doran Larson

I asked him for a cigarette and he obliged, lighting it for me without a word, without meeting my eye. The quiet ones do this. They exert control by giving nothing out, and it's this blankness that makes them unpredictable, as dangerous as the loud ones are obvious. — Vu Tran

I am an unpredictable journey. — Claire Forlani

Los Angeles survives on that which is unpredictable. The unexpected courses through its very veins. — Ellie Kemper

Only humans are unpredictable. — Lauren Oliver

Don't ever empty the bucket of mystery. Never let people define what you do. It's not about zigging when you should zag. It's not about doing something unprecedented and unpredictable. It's just about never being a word, or something that is not in the process of transformation. — Marilyn Manson

Roadblock #5: It's Unpredictable
By and large, human beings don't like surprises. I know that I don't. Okay, maybe I like that rare piece of unexpected good news or a letter from a friend or a thoughtful thank-you. But I'm willing to bet that people in funny hats jumping out of dark closets are responsible for more heart attacks than expressions of unbridled delight. When the doorbell rings late at night, I'm under no illusion that it's the Publisher's Clearing House Prize Patrol!
This, most likely, goes back to our caveman past when a big, exciting surprise was apt to be something like an 800-pound,snarling, saber-toothed tiger about to rip the head from our shoulders. Surprises were usually bad news. (Think about this the next time you're crouching in the dark in somebody's front hall closet with their raincoats and umbrellas.) — Paul Powers

Every specific human being, however, thinks, judges, imagines, wills and expresses himself or herself in a unique, dissimilar, and unrepeatable mode
a mode of unpredictable difference, or otherness, which objectively defies description or delimitation. — Christos Yannaras

We may never understand all of life, but trusting that each event is as it should be is helpful. And all you can do. Stay strong in your vision of what you want for yourself and live with intention and action to become that. Everything will unfold naturally and easily. Now is all you have. It's all anyone has. The next moment is unpredictable and never promised to us in these bodies. — Camille Lucy

Yet the paradox is that scientific methodology is the product of human hands and thus cannot reach some permanent truth. We build scientific theories to organize and manipulate the world, to reduce phenomena into manageable units. Science is based on reproducibility and manufactured objectivity. As strong as that makes its ability to generate claims about matter and energy, it also makes scientific knowledge inapplicable to the existential, visceral nature of human life, which is unique and subjective and unpredictable. Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue. Between — Paul Kalanithi

There have been many poets who have lived at the fifth center of creativity and never gone ahead - many painters, many dancers, many singers who created great art, but never moved to the third eye. And there have been mystics who have remained with the third eye, knowing their own inner beauty; it is so fulfilling that they thought they had arrived. Somebody is needed to tell you that there is still something more ahead; otherwise, in your ignorance, what you will do is almost unpredictable. — Rajneesh

Everybody has to be reminded that there's another way to be. Another more mysterious, unpredictable way to be that's not necessarily based upon contrivances. — Stanley Crouch

You know, tigers are very unpredictable. — Suraj Sharma

It's tempting to tether ourselves to the familiar comfort of the way things are, but fulfillment is often discovered in the unpredictable and unknown. We can serve ourselves and our universe, best, when we can take the journey that takes us from the limited desire of our ego, to the ever-expanding love and wisdom, of our divine nature. — Jaeda DeWalt

The only predictable thing about grief is that it's unpredictable. — Lynda Cheldelin Fell

In our struggle to understand the history of life, we must learn where to place the boundary between contingent and unpredictable events that occur but once and the more repeatable, lawlike phenomenon that may pervade life's history as generalities. — Stephen Jay Gould

Fame is weird and amorphous and unpredictable. — Tom Hiddleston

The so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at all but mere necromancy. People are unpredictable by nature, and although you can take a nation's pulse, you can't be sure that the nation hasn't just run up a flight of stairs, and although you can take a nation's blood pressure, you can't be sure that if you came back in twenty minutes you'd get the same reading. This is a damn fine thing. — E.B. White

As a way of life, a middle path is an ongoing task of responsiveness and risk, grounded on a groundless ground. Its twists and turns are as turbulent and unpredictable as life itself. — Stephen Batchelor

I hold the view that death is rather like changing one's clothes when they are torn and old. It is not an end in itself. Yet death is unpredictable-you do not know when and howT it will take place. — Dalai Lama

There was a pause. Then she smiled and the corners of her mouth drooped and an almost imperceptible sway brought her closer to him, looking up into his eyes. A lump rose in Dexter's throat, and he waited breathless for the experiment, facing the unpredictable compound that would form mysteriously from the elements of their lips. Then he saw
she communicated her excitement to him, lavishly, deeply, with kisses that were not a promise but a fulfillment. They aroused in him not hunger demanding renewal but surfeit that would demand more surfeit ... kisses that were like charity, creating want by holding back nothing at all. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Money was new and unpredictable and liked to go where it pleased. Some — Colson Whitehead

And tomorrow
who knows what happens? Do you get it? I don't know and no one knows
it's all unknown! You understand, that this is the end to the Known? This is the new, the improbable, the unpredictable. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The match has become quite unpredictable, but it still looks as though Arsenal will win the cup. — John Motson

The beauty of inspiration is its unpredictable timing. — T.F. Hodge

Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable. — George S. Patton

What is art? A violet. Is that all? An artistic style is a living entity, a continuous process of invention. It can never be imposed from without; born of the profoundest tendencies within a society, its direction is to a certain extent unpredictable, in much the same way as the eventual configuration of a tree's branches. — Octavio Paz

Learning to navigate the unpredictable terrain of life is an essential skill to develop. We can't live a happy life if we are unwilling to pave the path that will lead to our personal fulfillment and destiny. Learning to sit comfortably in the seat of uncertainty is challenging, but equally rewarding, because discovery is what waits just underneath the surface of that uncertainty and that gives us the chance to become fearless explorers, of our own lives. — Jaeda DeWalt

The weapon, our weapon, is the desire and tendency to answer a simple question: What can I do to make this work? In any situation, what can I do to get what I want? Some people, after college, will move back home and sit in their parents' basements, blaming the unpredictable economy and the truly bizarre job market. That's how they will make this world work for them. But not us. The ones who refuse to take no for an answer. We will make our way in spite of the fact that the America this generation has been given is not the America that this generation was told we would get. Is this the land of opportunity? No. Now we're dealing with the land of strategy. Obstacles? We must see none. Dilemmas? They must be all the more fun. We will succeed. We just have to find a way. — Paul Downs Colaizzo

The only thing more unpredictable than magic is language. — Sully Tarnish

At its best, life is completely unpredictable. — Christopher Walken

I just have tried to adapt to the constant changes that happen all the time in my schedule and try and find any sort of mini-predictability and balance within my very unpredictable life. — Mikaela Shiffrin

Life without God is extremely unstable and unpredictable. — Sunday Adelaja

Happiness came in moments of unpredictable loveliness. — Anthony Marra

The world in which we live has an increasing number of feedback loops, causing events to be the cause of more events (say, people buy a book because other people bought it), thus generating snowballs and arbitrary and unpredictable planet-wide winner-take-all effects. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Life is unpredictable.But do not allow the difficulties of day-to-day to deprive you of your confidence and hope. Never allow life's disappointments to get you down. Get up any time you fall. — Lailah Gifty Akita

After a couple of weeks in Polmont, I started to become more assertive and began arguing with older, bigger boys. I loved it. This is where my ugly side would make some scary and unpredictable appearances. Even to this day, I can go from a happy-go-lucky cunt to the devil on acid. — Stephen Richards

Real life isn't a series of interconnected events occurring one after another like beads strung on a necklace. Life is actually a series of encounters in which one event may change those that follow in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way. — Michael Crichton

Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is stable, firm, absolute - and knowable? Or are you in an incomprehensible chaos, a realm of inexplicable miracles, an unpredictable, unknowable flux, which your mind is impotent to grasp? The nature of your actions - and of your ambition - will be different, according to which set of answers you come to accept. — Ayn Rand

They were usually christened with feminine names, perhaps in recognition of the fact that their personalities were sometimes slightly unpredictable. — Anonymous

My hair is a wild, untamable beast! I like letting it grow; my bangs grow whatever way they want and I kind of follow their rule. So side bangs, poof bangs - it's kind of unpredictable. — Victoria Legrand

The desert is an unpredictable place. One day you're sweating, the next you're freezing. One moment the air is damp and cloudy like when the tide is coming in, the next the entire world is orange and dusty. The desert must be a woman. — Dianna Skowera

And as it grew up and began to enjoy itself
What would we do with an unpredictable,
Powerful, bounding fox?
That long-mouthed, flashing temperament?
That necessary nightly twenty miles
And that vast hunger for everything beyond us?
How would we cope with its cosmic derangements
Whenever we moved?
... If I had grasped that whatever comes with a fox
Is what tests a marriage and proves it a marriage
I would not have failed the test. — Ted Hughes

My letters seeking a job, though truthful, diminished the full truth. Face would blanch if the facts had been complete: "Dear Sir," I thought. "Do you have a position for a journeyman burglar, con man, forger and car thief; also with experience as armed robber, pimp, card cheat and several other things. I smoked marijuana at twelve (in the 40's) and shot heroin at sixteen. I have no experience with LSD and methedrine. They came to popularity since my imprisonment. I've buggered pretty young boys and feminine homosexuals (but only when locked up away from women). In the idiom of jails, prisons and gutters (some plush gutters) I'm a motherfucker! Not literally, for I don't remember my mother. In my world the term, used as I used it, is a boast of being hell on wheels, outrageously unpredictable, a virtuoso of crime. Of course by being a motherfucker in that world I'm a piece of garbage in yours. Do you have a job? — Edward Bunker

While fund performance is unpredictable, the impact of fees is not, .. A 1- percent annual fee will reduce an ending account balance by 17 percent after 20 years. — Arthur Levitt Jr

What a dazzlingly generous, gloriously unpredictable book! Maggie Nelson shows us what it means to be real, offering a way of thinking that is as challenging as it is liberating. She invites us to 'pay homage to the transitive' and enjoy 'a becoming in which one never becomes.' Reading The Argonauts made me happier and freer. — Eula Biss

Like life, basketball is messy and unpredictable. It has its way with you, no matter how hard you try to control it. The trick is to experience each moment with a clear mind and open heart. When you do that, the game - and life - will take care of itself. — Phil Jackson

Suddenly everything finally made sense because, paradoxically, I finally accepted that it never would make sense. That's life. It's not all wrapped up with a tidy bow - it's crazy and disorganized and unpredictable, and so are the people who live it. — Diane Schwemm

There are all kinds of things that can scare you every day. What if someone you know gets cancer? What if something happens to you sister or your friends or your parents? And what if you get hit by a car crossing the street or the kids at school find out what an unnatural freak you are and what if you go too far out in the lake and the water is over your head and what if there's a fire or a war?
And you can lie awake at night and worry about these things because it's scary and unpredictable, but it's REAL. It's possible.
-Mackie Doyle, The Replacement — Brenna Yovanoff

I realized that loving people, depending on them, NEEDING them, is just too dangerous. Love is just a way to set you up for a bad fall. It's the rug they pull out from under you at the very moment you decide that everything's going to be fine. We're all so ephemeral. So fragile. And life's so unpredictable. — Dean Koontz

I'm good at being vague and unpredictable. It's sort of a hard habit to break. — Elle Lothlorien

N. Martinez: Wildfires. That' why it smells so smoky. We had a dry winter, so the brush is like kindling
Eve: Are they different from regular fires?
N. Martinez: They're more unpredictable. They leap from one object to another, so it's hard to guess at their path or limit their destruction. Outside the city, they can roll over the landscape like a wave and hit you before you know it.
Eve: How do you stop them?
N. Martinez: You can't. Once they start, they choose their own path. All you can do is try to contain them until they burn themselves out. They're beautiful to watch, but they can be dangerous. — Michele Jaffe

God's word is unpredictable in its power ... The Church has to accept this unruly freedom of the word, which accomplishes what it wills in ways that surpass our calculations and ways of thinking. — Pope Francis

Well, I quite like animals, but theyre unpredictable. I mean, look at old whats-his-name in Vegas. Tiger dragged him off the stage, you know? The guy brought up tigers. Theyre quite unpredictable. — Robbie Coltraine

Performers are never more unpredictable than when they're full of adrenaline and failure. — Gwenda Bond

Working with kids can be tricky because they can be pretty unpredictable. — Laetitia Casta

Life's uncontrollable, unpredictable, and a hell of a mess. Without fear, loss, and the wrong choice we made, we wouldn't be who we were. And while some of our decisions had broken us, the pain glued us together. Without the passion, we wouldn't have surrendered and conquered what we never thought could be ours. — J.C. Reed

Earth: the things that are solid, absorbed and still.
Water: the things that are fluid, changing and unpredictable.
Wind: the things that shift, evolve and challenge.
Fire: the things that damage, devastate and distroy.
The void: the things that are present through their absence — Elif Shafak

Phones and soundtracks and Muzak and fountains replace genuine and unpredictable human contact with a seamless soundtrack from a bad movie and a cliche that makes us believe we must all be happy. — Margaret Heffernan

The future is unpredictable my man. — Lailah Gifty Akita

To worry is to acknowledge that the world is unpredictable, and there is power in understanding one's own powerlessness at times. But too often worry takes on life of its own. Men are quite prone to this. They'll plague themselves with so many 'what if's and 'if only's that they soon forget to ponder the true possibilities before them. Which inevitably lead to poor decisions. Whatever happens will happen. Sometimes we have say over the future. Sometimes we don't. Either way, worrying alone never accomplishes anything. — A. Lee Martinez

Innovation is a bottoms-up, decentralized, and unpredictable thing, but that doesn't mean it cannot be managed. — Eric Ries

Openness to God demands our growing acceptance that we cannot create blueprints for our own lives. Though God's character is unchanging, the ways of God are unpredictable, and there is a difference between arbitrariness and unpredictability. — Enuma Okoro

Of all the weapons in the Federal Reserve arsenal, words were the the most unpredictable in their consequences. — John Kenneth Galbraith

The future will be less predictable, forecast rises will shrink, company lifetimes will shrink, new entrants will proliferate and it's going to just get more unpredictable. — Steve Jurvetson

I love scientists, they are unpredictable close reasoners. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

What is surprising is not the magnitude of our forecast errors, but our absence of awareness of it. This is all the more worrisome when we engage in deadly conflicts: wars are fundamentally unpredictable (and we do not know it). Owing to this misunderstanding of the causal chains between policy and actions, we can easily trigger Black Swans thanks to aggressive ignorance-like a child playing with a chemistry kit. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

...human behavior is fragile and unpredictable and often at the mercy of the situation. Every individual still, of course, has a choice as to how to behave, it's just that for many people the situation is the key determinate in that choice. — Laurence Rees

Victor wrapped his fingers over my hand, pressing his face against my palm. "You're the bravest girl I've ever met. I'm so incredibly proud of you."
"Who knew that one day the word someone would use to describe me is brave. Life is very unpredictable." I chuckled.
"There are many other words I could think of to describe you but I'm not really good at flattery. — A.B. Whelan

Love is so unpredictable. Sometimes you'll know a man for years and then one day, boom! Suddenly you see him in a different way. And other times, it's that first date, that first moment. That's what makes it so great. — Sarah Dessen

Hope works like that. It hinds and blends in, only to pop out when you least expect it. It's always a surprise, something you step on, trip over, or stumble on by accident. It hides in the divots of our lives. in the loneliest valleys. It's like a child, always playing hide and seek to keep our lives unpredictable. Just when we're about to give up, hope turns on, like light, to guide out way. — Katie Kacvinsky

You know those FBI shows on TV? Where they do the profiling?"
"Yeah."
"Cops hate that stuff. While it's all well and good to sit behind a desk and have assigned characteristics and fancy medical names for criminals," Jerry said in a prissy voice, "at the end of the day, you just don't know what anybody's gonna do. You gotta prepare for everything. Human beings are unpredictable. After three decades with PD, I still get surprised. — Jennifer Hillier

It is unpredictable for you to know which of the strangers you are about to meet that becomes your friend. Be polite to every stranger! — Israelmore Ayivor

Human destiny is bound to remain a gamble, because at some unpredictable time and in some unforeseeable manner nature will strike back. — Rene Dubos

Skating everywhere is unpredictable, no amount of money or facilities is going to create a skating star. You have to have a skater who is dedicated, passionate, and willing to learn. — Robin Cousins

St. Leonard's Police Station DS Siobhan Clarke (pronounced "Shiv-awn") DI Derek Linford no friend to Rebus, disliked by Siobhan DCS Gill Templer officer in charge of St. Leonard's DC David Hynds a new recruit DS George "Hi-Ho" Silvers officer with both eyes on approaching pension DC Grant Hood young and unpredictable officer with a crush on Siobhan DC Phyllida Hawes tough female officer, usually based at Gayfield Square DCI Bill Pryde second in command to DCS Gill Templer The Edward Marber Murder Case Edward Marber murdered Edinburgh art dealer Cynthia Bessant friend of the — Ian Rankin

You can either take action, or you can hang back and hope for a miracle. Miracles are great, but they are so unpredictable. — Peter Drucker

Reality is always richer, more unpredictable than our deductions — Leonardo Sciascia

By autistic standards, the "normal" brain is easily distractible, is obsessively social, and suffers from a deficit of attention to detail and routine. Thus people on the spectrum experience the neurotypical world as relentlessly unpredictable and chaotic, perpetually turned up too loud, and full of people who have little respect for personal space. — Steve Silberman

Villains fear me because I am unpredictable and broccoli. See what I mean? — Demetri Martin

I like to be unhinged; I like to be unpredictable. I like to make people worry that worse things can happen whenever I go out to a restaurant or act in a movie. — Marilyn Manson

His words coursed through him like jolts of electricity, some striking on target precisely because they were so unpredictable, causing him to shudder, and concede, and agree that literature was more than just jotting down stories, it was physical energy. — Victor Martinovich

The future is unpredictable by man. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I am not delicate.
I am skinny dipping at 2am;
I am dancing naked under the full moon and playing in the mud.
I am the reverberating echoes of a curse word ricocheting off the steeply sloping mountain you thought I couldn't climb;
I am bare skin in the deepest depths of winter; I am the song of courage, and the melody of freedom you long to sing.
I am a fearless mother.
I am a passionate lover; a devoted friend.
I am the healer, the witch, the nurturing of your wounds.
I am the heat of a wildfire, the rage of a storm.
I am strong.
Delicate things are pretty-cute, even.
But I am not delicate.
I am wild, fierce and unpredictable.
I am breathtaking.
I am beautiful.
I am sacred. — Brooke Hampton

When the years have all passed, there will gape the uncomfortable and unpredictable dark void of death, and into this I shall at last fall headlong, down and down and down, and the prospect of that fall, that uprooting, that rending apart of body and spirit, that taking off into so blank an unknown, drowns me in mortal fear and mortal grief. After all, life, for all its agonies of despair and loss and guilt, is exciting and beautiful, amusing and artful and endearing, full of liking and of love, at times a poem and a high adventure, at times noble and at times very gay; and whatever (if anything) is to come after it, we shall not have this life again. — Rose Macaulay

The small talk that sprang readily to their lips came to hers only with a tremendous effort. After an opportunity had come and gone, she often scolded herself for not saying this or doing that, for laughing too loud or smiling too little. Whenever she tried to re-create the moment of contact, she was easily rebuffed by the slightest gesture, withdrawing all too quickly if she thought she was in the way. The old stone-and-brick schoolhouse, with its four gabled roofs and round little windows, was the only thing that seemed steadfast to her, while the beings that populated its rooms and thundered down its corridors were unreal and unpredictable. It gripped her like a monstrous truth that she was condemned to lead life without belonging or feeling close to anyone. — Erick Setiawan

This is largely the methodology I've used throughout my career - that is, starting with a question as to what might be the properties of a set of compounds that could be invented which were unusual and unpredictable. Many times I've felt a bit like Columbus setting sail. — Donald Cram

For the longest time I have had so much belief and confidence in myself, which as an actor you need, because the entertainment industry is incredible competitive, brutal, and unpredictable just when you start to think you know what's going on. — Benjamin Stone

There are no limits to what I would do to make my classes exciting, interesting, unpredictable. — Philip Zimbardo