Wendy Wasserstein Quotes

I have never believed that things happen by themselves.

The will is never free - it is always attached to an object, a purpose. It is simply the engine in the car - it can't steer.

Does our hand show in this?

I always have a reason for why I do something.

I guess in the end, it doesn’t matter what we wanted. What matters is what we chose to do with the things we had.

If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined; it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined.

Everything is exactly as it is for a reason. The crumb on your table is no mystical reminder of this morning's cookie, it is there because you have chosen not to remove it. No exceptions.

If people deny free will, then when ordering at a restaurant they should say, "Just bring me whatever the laws of nature have determined that I will get."

I would like to think there is a reason and a choice behind everything.

When you know your intention, you are in a position to choose the consequences that you will create for yourself. When you choose an intention that creates consequences for which you are willing to be responsible, that is a responsible choice.

I never do anything by chance.

Events are not a matter of chance.

It's essential to distinguish between events that are really beyond your control and events you caused yourself.

Your one certainty in life, your power as a human being, is that you have a choice in every situation about what you do next and about how you take what has happened to you.

Whatever can be done in this world will be done. The only question is whether it will be done by you or to you.

Free will is to mind, what chance is to matter

I used to very politely say that if there is free will then it's in all sorts of boring places, like whether you're going to pick up this or that fork as you begin your meal. There really is none: It's all biology.

I let one thing result from another. Of course, all of it could have been just loosely connected coincidences. And whether that's true or not, I know the intention was there. Becasue when I want something to happen-or not happen- I begin to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.

Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.

Each of our acts makes a statement as to our purpose.

Choice is destiny's soul mate.

But thought is one thing, the deed is another, and the image of the deed still another: the wheel of causality does not roll between them.

In fact, now I come to think of it, do we decide questions, at all? We decide answers, no doubt: but surely the questions decide us? It is the dog, you know, that wags the tail--not the tail that wags the dog.

Each decision we make, each action we take, is born out of an intention.

We are not forced into unpleasant activities. We either allow them to come about or we encourage them to come about.