"There's no way to know what makes one thing happen and not another. What leads to what. What destroys what. What causes what to flourish or die or take another course."

Fate, Uncertainty, Life, Change

37

Create Your Own Wallpaper

Standard

Customized

"There's no way to know what makes one thing happen and not another. What leads to what. What destroys what. What causes what to flourish or die or take another course."

Exlpore more Fate quotes

"An apple only falls far from its tree when carried away by divine winds."

Matshona Dhliwayo, Zimbabwean Philosopher

Fate, Apple, Tree, Divine

"When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers."

Mark Twain, American Author

Fate, Misfortune, Hardship, Failure

"Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her."

Kurt Vonnegut, American Author

Fate, Luck, Religion, Life, Innocence

"Fate is the malevolent little jester sitting up in the heavens and pondering over how ridiculous we humans are and he does his best to make fools out of all of us. And sooner or later he succeeds."

Lisa Kleypas, American Novelist

Fate, Irony, Humor, Life

"Jonah-John-if I had been a Sam, I would have been a Jonah still-not because I have been unlucky for others, but because somebody or something has compelled me to be certain places, at certain times, without fail. Conveyances and motives, both conventional and bizarre, have been provided. And, according to plan, at each appointed second, at each appointed place this Jonah was there."

Kurt Vonnegut, American Author

Fate, Destiny, Life, Uncertainty

"When I read the ghastly lines of tragedy darkly penned into my life, I turn and notice that the pen in my hand is wet."

Craig D. Lounsbrough, American Author

Fate, Truth, Life, Regret, Power

"And who would dare write their own death into the script so that the rest of the characters in the tale might live? God of course."

Craig D. Lounsbrough, American Author

Fate, Truth, Wisdom, Power

"Come in, Bean." Come in Julian Delphiki, longed-for child of good and loving parents. Come in, kidnapped child, hostage of fate. Come and talk to the Fates, who are playing such clever little games with your life."

Orson Scott Card, American Writer

Fate, Childhood, Destiny, Hope

"We all have such fateful objects -- it may be a recurrent landscape in one case, a number in another -- carefully chosen by the gods to attract events of specific significance for us: here shall John always stumble; there shall Jane's heart always break."

Vladimir Nabokov, American Novelist

Fate, Significance, Events, Destiny

"A winner smiles and a looser cries. The God looks at them and says,'Sorry, guys!"

Santosh Kalwar, Nepalese Poet

Fate, Humor, God, Life

Explore more quotes by Cheryl Strayed

"I think it's neat you do what you want. Not enough chicks do that, if you ask me - just tell society and their expectations to go fuck themselves. If more women did that, we'd be better off."

Growth

"It was really over, I thought. There was no way to go back, to make it stay. There was never that."

Loss

"I had problems a therapist couldn't solve, grief that no man in a room could ameliorate."

Therapy

"I cried and I cried and I cried. I wasn't crying because I was happy. I wasn't crying because I was sad. I wasn't crying because of my mother or my father or Paul. I was crying because I was full...I didn't feel like a big fate idiot anymore. And I didn't feel like a hard-ass motherfucking Amazonian queen. I felt fierce and humble and gathered up inside, like I was safe in this world too."

Release

"Trusting yourself means living out what you already know to be true."

Aging

"As close as we'd been when we were together, we were closer in our unraveling, telling each other everything at last, words that seemed to us might never have been spoken between two human beings before, so deep we went, saying everything that was beautiful and ugly and true."

Affection

"Saying it's hard is ultimately a justification to do whatever seems like the easiest thing to do - have the affair, stay at that horrible job, end a friendship over a slight, keep loving someone who treats you terribly."

Identity

"I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me. Insisting on this story was a form of mind control, but for the most part, it worked. Every time I heard a sound of unknown origin or felt something horrible cohering in my imagination, I pushed it away. I simply did not let myself become afraid. Fear begets fear. Power begets Power. I willed myself to beget power. And it wasn't long before I actually wasn't afraid."

Fear

"Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me. Insisting on this story was a form of mind control, but for the most part, it worked."

Fear

"But thinking about it didn't do a thing. Thinking about it was a long dive into a bucket of shit that didn't have a bottom."

Frustration