Navigating Uncertainty Quotes

Leadership is about coping with change

When tempest tossed, embrace chaos.

How can I go forward when I don't know which way I'm facing?

Chance works for us when we are good captains.

People kind of stumble their way through life a lot of times.

Man no longer lives in the beginning--he has lost the beginning. Now he finds he is in the middle, knowing neither the end nor the beginning, and yet knowing that he is in the middle, coming from the beginning and going towards the end. He sees that his life is determined by these two facets, of which he knows only that he does not know them

The dark night of the soul is when you have lost the flavor of life but have not yet gained the fullness of divinity. So it is that we must weather that dark time, the period of transformation when what is familiar has been taken away and the new richness is not yet ours.

The beginning and the end are never really the journey of discovery for me. It is the middle that remains a puzzle until well into the writing. That's how life is most of the time, isn't it? You know where you are and where you hope to wind up. It's the getting there that's challenging.

Leaders have to figure it out when there is no road map.

Adulthood feels like walking around in the desert with a bag over your head, being bumped into by people who rob you as they bore you.

You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.

Leaving high school. It's sad and you're going to miss all your friends. You're going to miss your life and you've been doing that for the past four years, and it's comfortable. But now, there's something possibly bigger on the horizon, just new and fresh and exciting. I think we all kind of felt like that.

What advice I would give to anybody about anything. Life is a slow-motion avalanche, and none of us are steering." (When asked in an interview about what question he's tired of being asked.)

I think finding the way in life is the hardest part. At every stage of life, every trial, every success, you know, you're going into some kind of fog. There isn't a plan that suddenly reveals itself, and you go, "Ta-da! Now I understand."

No wind blows in favor of a ship without direction.

Wrong turns are as important as right turns. More important, sometimes.

A life of writing books is a trying adventure in which you cannot find out where you are unless you lose your way.

If I was ever to have a child, this is what I'd tell it: 'Child,' I'd say, 'don't never mess with time. Keep now now and then then. And if you ever get lost in thick smoke, child, set still till it clears. Set still till you can see where you are and where you been and where you're going, child.

Knowing how to deal with change effectively is a primary requirement for living successfully in perhaps the most exciting time in all of human history

I see a lot of possibilities in the age of my characters - between 18 and 21. You have a window of opportunity when you leave your childhood behind and have this chance to become what you always wanted to be. For me, that was a time when I could have gone many different ways. I was in flux and deciding what kind of person I would become. There's something interesting about the vision of what that will be and the reality of making that happen, and how you really are what you are. Unless you're "in character," it's impossible to get around that.

I've been no stranger to change.

Even when change is elective, it will disorient you. You may go through anxiety. You will miss aspects of your former life. It doesn't matter. The trick is to know in advance of making any big change that you're going to be thrown off your feet by it. So you prepare for this inevitable disorientation and steady yourself to get through it. Then you take the challenge, make the change, and achieve your dream.

Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.

The thrill of not knowing what's going to happen, trained me to be prepared for anything.