Jeanette Winterson Quotes

You are free to do what you want, but you are not free to want what you want.

A world grows up around me. Am I shaping it, or do its predetermined contours guide my hand?

My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.

Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.

We human beings do have some genuine freedom of choice and therefore some effective control over our own destinies. I am not a determinist. But I also believe that the decisive choice is seldom the latest choice in the series. More often than not, it will turn out to be some choice made relatively far back in the past.

The loss of free will I find unacceptable - what most of us refer to as rights.

I do not at all believe in human freedom in the philosophical sense... Schopenhauer’s saying, ‘A man can do what he wants, but not will what he wants,’ has been a very real inspiration to me since my youth; it has been a continual consolation in the face of life’s hardships, my own and others’, and an unfailing wellspring of tolerance. This realization mercifully mitigates the easily paralyzing sense of responsibility and prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it is conducive to a view of life which, in part, gives humour its due.

Even the absolute universality of the law of causality does not necessarily limit a person's freedom, because the law of causality not only enables him to explain the past and predict the future, but also encourages him to use his intelligence to create new causes and attain new results.

I believe very firmly in the principle of free agency - people making their own decisions and doing what they think is right.

It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.

One possible reason that I don't believe in fate is that I wasn't fated to.

We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.

Every high C accurately struck demolishes the theory that we are the irresponsible puppets of fate or chance.

There is always a choice." "You mean I could choose certain death?" "A choice nevertheless, or perhaps an alternative. You see I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.

In order not to annul our free will, I judge it true that Fortune may be mistress of one half our actions but then even she leaves the other half, or almost, under our control.

The past does not influence me; I influence it.

Your past is just a story. And once you realize this it has no power over you.

While we are each free to believe whatever we choose, we cannot do whatever we choose.

I'm not some sort of puppet. Like, there isn't a team of people telling me what to do.

I don't want anyone to tell me something.

I am inclined to believe that a man may be free to do anything he pleases if only he will accept responsibility for whatever he does.

I don't want people to be inspired or offended by what I do. If you determine your behavior by what [other people] want, you're screwed.

I believe we've been given free will, and we can take responsibility for our own lives and for creating our own environments - which I think at times can be a little much for people to deal with.

You have the illusion of free will, but, in fact, that illusion comes about because you don't know the future. Because you are a prisoner of the present, forever locked in transition, between the past and the future.