William Boyd Quotes

We don't have an explanation for everything that happens. We don't control almost anything. And if we are not open to that mystery, life becomes so small.

It is unwise to wish everything explained.

I don't feel it incumbent on me to make sense of everything.

Give your approval to all you cannot understand.

For only when I err do I get away from what I know and what I understand. If "truth" were what I can understand, it would end up being but a small truth, my-sized. Truth must reside precisely in what I shall never understand.

It takes extraordinary wisdom and self-control to accept that many things have a logic we do not understand that is smarter than our own.

but perhaps we should love what we cannot understand

There are lots of things we never understand, no matter how many years we put on, no matter how much experience we accumulate.

The first thing I didn't understand was my life. It's a mystery. And today I don't understand economy or politics. I don't know why politics or economy are destroying the world, but I will understand after understanding.

My life has been a quest for knowledge and understanding, and I am nowhere near having achieved that. And it doesn't bother me in the least. I will die without having come up with the answers to many things in life.

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.

We like to think we can solve everything, but we can't always.

Everything is a mystery, ourselves, and all things both simple and humble.

I may not understand, but I am willing to admire.

The fact that you are willing to say, 'I do not understand, and it is fine,' is the greatest understanding you could exhibit.

Suffer fools gladly; they may be right.

One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.

I accept that there may be things far grander and more incomprehensible than we can possibly imagine.

I'll never know everything. My life would be a lot worse if there was nothing I knew the answers about - and if there was nothing I didn't know the answers about.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

You've got to understand and accept that nothing in the world is perfect. The sooner you understand that, the better it will be.

Whoever believes he knows why everything is as it is has hold of nothing.

Life's a lottery, and man should make up his mind to the blanks.