Lawrence Block Quotes

Do you think I know what I'm doing? That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself? As much as a pen knows what it's writing, or the ball can guess where it's going next.

I truly don't have any formula for the choices I make.

I am incredibly bad at predicting the future; I am only smart enough to observe the present and listen to my intuition about tendencies.

Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.

I trust people to be human. Sometimes you do things that make amazing amounts of sense; sometimes you do things that don't make any sense whatsoever.

To try to fix the future is a manifest absurdity.

I'm not a ball in a pinball machine. I know what I want.

That’s the lesson of politics. Go with your gut. You don’t know what is going to happen.

Many events in our lives are the result of things beyond our control. While it is comforting to think, 'I'm in charge,' in truth, most changes effected by individuals are very limited in scope.

Foreseeing the future is always difficult.

We have a choice every day to do whatever we do, and that choice is quite scary because it could absolutely change everything about our lives. It's important to keep reminding myself that I have a choice.

We are a psychic process which we do not control, or only partly direct. Consequently, we cannot have any final judgment about ourselves or our lives.

We often do not know ourselves the grounds On which we act, though plain to others.

Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we ever do it?

You can't wait for people to tell you; you have to know yourself.

I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question.

I knew what I did and I knew how I did it, but I didn't know why.

Men plan. Fate Laughs. Guis Alera, First Lord

We may listen to our inner self-and still not know which ocean we hear roaring.

I'm a strange person. Sometimes I hardly know what I'm going to do or say next. Sometimes I seem a stranger to myself. Sometimes what I do surprises me and I can't understand why I do it.

I think it is very useful to know ourselves, but when we start naming and labeling, that is dangerous, that gets problematic. It negates that things are always changing. Besides, it's hard to pin a label onto something that's always moving.

The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make.

Life is more a matter of choosing than knowing. He could never know the eventual destination of his path, but he could always choose in which direction to take each step.

Man is a wonder to himself; he can neither govern nor know himself.

The future is like smoke from a burning forest, waiting for the wind of specific events and personal courage to blow the sparks and embers of reality this way or that.