B. J. Novak Quotes

Curiosity is the essence of human existence. 'Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?'... I don't know. I don't have any answers to those questions. I don't know what's over there around the corner. But I want to find out.

Mystery is more important than knowledge.

The mysterious is always attractive. People will always follow a vail.

It's good to have mysteries. It reminds us that there's more to the world than just making do and having a bit of fun.

I think it's better that life is kind of like a mystery, I think that's what drives us.

If there wasn't mystery, people wouldn't have anything to ponder. If you already knew everything, you wouldn't have anything to think about and life would just be really boring.

I think I write about things that are mysterious to me.

One mysterious person looking at another mysterious person equals what? Another mystery.

It is unwise to wish everything explained.

That's always been my interest - things of the unknown.

You know, we have little bits of understanding, glimpses, a little bit of light here and there, but there's a tremendous amount of darkness, which is a challenge. I think life would be pretty boring if we understood everything. It's better if we don't understand anything and know that we don't, that's the important part.

More and more I’ve become convinced that the great treasure to possess is the unknown.

I don't know the meaning of life. I don't know why we are here. I think life is full of anxieties and fears and tears. It has a lot of grief in it, and it can be very grim. And I do not want to be the one who tries to tell somebody else what life is all about. To me it's a complete mystery.

I think that cynicism is the enemy. Cynicism thinks it knows how things work. "Oh yeah, you know how that works." I think uncertainty is the thing you have to keep embracing. You have to keep saying, I actually don't know, and going out is going to tell me something every time.

She waited for the train to pass. Then she said, "I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.

Those people have seen 'something'. What it is I do not know and I can not care to know.

I guess in my own life, privacy, anonymity, and the mystery of being lost are important. I also feel that people are mysterious and complex no matter what they do, and no matter how hard they try to reveal their own mystery.

The more the years go by, the less I know. But if you give explanations and understand everything, then nothing can happen. What helps me go forward is that I stay receptive, I feel that anything can happen.

Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.

The job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.

The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.

The veil is slowly rising, but as regards innumerable questions we must be content to remain in ignorance.

The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.

The advance of scientific knowledge does not seem to make either our universe or our inner life in it any less mysterious.

It's an important moment as a reader, I think, when you can forget the question of whether you need to know what happened. Some people really want hard explanations. I'm the other way. I like mysteries. I don't want to frustrate people. I don't want people to feel like they got no answers, but I want to approach the mystery and sit with it.