Lawrence Ferlinghetti Quotes

Instability is never a good idea.

Life isn't nearly as stable as we want it to be.

There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.

The roof might fall in; anything could happen.

Our trust in the future has lost its innocence. We know now that anything can happen from one minute to the next. Politics, religion, economics, and the institutions of family and community all have become abruptly unsure.

There is no such thing as security. There never has been.

There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.

But I'm the sort of person who, if certain structures topple, it could all go horribly wrong.

Without continuity, men would become like flies in summer.

The world is a dynamic mess of jiggling things.

...our best built certainties are but sand-houses and subject to damage from any wind of doubt that blows.

I think there's a fear once things start to blow up - as the people say - that if you stop for a second, it will all go away.

My view is that we're entering into a situation of enormous instability, insecurity, fragility.

In this dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while a tiny wondrous thing spilled out at him constantly; he could count on nothing.

Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed--sometimes it covers you just fine, and other times it leaves you cold and shaking; and worst of all, you never know which of the two it's going to be.

I don't think I'm ever going to have the kind of life or schedule that I can really have a steady way of doing things.

You can't predict anything. How can you be certain about anything when everything is chaos and we're not in control?

Everything is contingent, and there is also chaos.

Fluidity and discontinuity are central to the reality in which we live.

Never think that lack of variability is stability. Don't confuse lack of volatility with stability, ever.

I am not the easiest guy to live with. It is probably the lack of stability in my life.

With such riches as I have in life, you're always nervous. Being Irish, you're waiting for something to knock it sideways.

I do have a sense of displacement as constant instability - the uninterrupted existence of everything that I love and care about is not guaranteed at all. I wait for catastrophes.

Clocks will go as they are set, but man, irregular man, is never constant, never certain.

The world is a very abnormal place.