Jane Hirshfield Quotes

There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.

There are no explanations, there are no answers.

It is unwise to wish everything explained.

Being at a loss to resolve these questions, I am resolved to leave them without any resolution.

I know there is much mystery, much question to what happened, and I must also say, many lies.

The idea that certain things in life - and in the universe - don't yield up their secrets is something that requires a slightly more mature reader to accept.

Adult life is dealing with an enormous amount of questions that don't have answers. So I let the mystery settle into my music. I don't deny anything, I don't advocate anything, I just live with it.

Writing reminds you of how much there is in your life that stands outside your explanations. In that way, it's almost a journey into faith and doubt at once.

Give me a mystery - just a plain and simple one - a mystery which is diffidence and silence, a slim little bare-foot mystery: give me a mystery - just one!

Nobody knows anything.

Where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.

This life journey has led me to love mystery and not feel the need to change it or make it un-mysterious. This has put me at odds with many other believers I know who seem to need explanations for everything.

There aren't always answers for the questions you're looking for, so I have to make peace with that sometimes.

One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.

How can you say you want to be somewhere when you're not really sure if they want you there because they're not even talking to you?

There's no use in asking what if. No one could ever give you the answers. I try, I really do, but it's hard for me to accept this way of thinking. I'm always wondering about the what-ifs, about the road not taken.

Some prayers are followed by silence because they are wrong, others because they are bigger than we can understand.

So, friends, every day do something that won't compute...Give your approval to all you cannot understand...Ask the questions that have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years...Laugh. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts....Practice resurrection.

I do not understand; I pause; I examine.

I am not resigned: I am not sure life is long enough to learn that lesson.

There’s no such thing as trust unless you have unanswered questions in your life. If you know everything, theres nothing to trust God for.

We'd failed, maybe, but some mysteries aren't meant to be solved.

I wasn’t having second thoughts, but I was having thoughts.