William Gibson Quotes

Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away.

The world is unpredictable.

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.

Life is full of change and uncertainty. We know this. We experience it on a daily basis.

It's really impossible to project ahead even six months in this business.

Instability is never a good idea.

Nothing is guaranteed.

Chaos is the undercurrent of everything that happens in life.

I don't look further than next year because in our world, anything can happen.

We're dealing with the chaos of life, and we're rubbing it down. The deeper you rub, the more patterns you can see until you realize that it's really an organized chaos. There isn't really ever any chance to understand it all, but we're here to keep rubbing.

It's just a crazy damned life, that's all.

In terms of the game theory, we might say the universe is so constituted as to maximize play. The best games are not those in which all goes smoothly and steadily toward a certain conclusion, but those in which the outcome is always in doubt. Similarly, the geometry of life is designed to keep us at the point of maximum tension between certainty and uncertainty, order and chaos. Every important call is a close one. We survive and evolve by the skin of our teeth. We really wouldn't want it any other way.

No matter what I do, no matter how predictable I try to make my life, it will not be any more predictable than the rest of the world. Which is chaotic.

The only thing we know about the future is that it will be faster changing and more unpredictable than the present.

At the edge of chaos, unexpected outcomes occur. The risk to survival is severe.

If you're invested in security and certainty, you are on the wrong planet.

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

You can be on top of everything, and the next minute, you're going to be on the bottom.

I always tell people that my life is in pencil; I have to keep an eraser in my hand because I could always get a call that could change everything.

I think the story of 'Alice in Wonderland' in a way is a reminder that life is frightening, it can shift on you at any moment.

The truth is that entrepreneurship is more like a roller coaster ride than a cruise.

Trying to make order out of my life was like trying to pick up a jellyfish.

There is nothing so subject to the inconstancy of fortune as war.

Life is nutty; anything can happen.

The Middle East is a very difficult stage to play upon. Without doubt, it is a good drama. And on occasion, there are situations so unimaginable, if not ludicrous, as to make them almost comic. But the cast is constantly changing, the audience is often disengaged, and it seems at times that no one is actually running the show.