But What If Quotes

#1. Usually we think a person is obligated to do something that would benefit many people, but what if that "something" is committing murder? Which is more important, doing good - or not doing wrong?

William Irwin

#2. Want is quite a complicated word there, because there's volo, which means I want, but it's not usually used with people. Desidero? I feel the want of, I desire. Amabo? I will love. But what if I will never love? What if I will never desire? What if I will never want?
Numquam amabo?

Ali Smith

#3. But what if the promises means life and death? What about bliss? Saving your soul? If all that is at stake, then promises need to be broken.

Anne Eliot

#4. But what if pleasure and pain should be so closely connected that he who wants the greatest possible amount of the one must also have the greatest possible amount of the other, that he who wants to experience the "heavenly high jubilation," must also be ready to be "sorrowful unto death"?

Friedrich Nietzsche

#5. If opportunity knocks, let it in. But with the way things are nowadays-I'd rather meet opportunity somewhere that's more public. I could meet opportunity in a coffee shop, but what if it works there? Well, I could suggest my grandma's basement.
-James Lee Schmidt and Jarod Kintz

James Lee Schmidt

#6. But what if I take a chance and everything crumbles? What if I trust someone again and they steal something away from me. I don't really have that much left until I'm hollow.

Jessica Sorensen

#7. Oh shit, she'd done that wrong, hadn't she? She'd said that wrong, he didn't understand what she meant. She'd thought he would know, that he'd be able to read between the lines and understand, but what if he hadn't? SHould she say more? But how much more?

Stacia Kane

#8. We look on past ages with condescension, as a mere preparation for us ... but what if we are a mere after-glow of them?

J.G. Farrell

#9. If I am a fool then it is no misfortune, for then only one more fool will wander this Earth. Amongst the millions of mentally deranged it would barely be noticed. But what if I am not a fool, and that science itself has erred? Then the tragedy is incalculable!

Viktor Schauberger

#10. I know he was the life of your life. I get it, I really do. But what if I told you that you were mine?

J.A. DeRouen

#11. It was one thing to stay in one place If you were happy and fulfilled- that was simply living the good life. But what if you weren't fulfilled?

Syrie James

#12. I said to a guy, "Tell me, what is it about cocaine that makes it so wonderful," and he said, "Because it intensifies your personality." I said, "Yes, but what if you're an asshole?"

Bill Cosby

#13. You want revelations engraved in gold and angels trumpeting down from heaven? But what if this is it instead? Me, telling you I love you, right here in the snow

T. Fabris

#14. I haven't dared say it aloud, I didn't dare write it down before, but what if it was the monster?

Jack Croxall

#15. God made the world, My Lord, and looked at it, and saw that it was good. Yes. But what if the world had looked back at him, to see whether he was good or not?

Isak Dinesen

#16. Sloane: But what if it doesn't work out?
Emily: But what if it does?

Morgan Matson

#17. I don't believe in the white spectre-type of ghosts you get in stories, but what if ghosts are something else? Like memories somehow caught and trapped in time, released by being in certain places where things first happened.

Julia Green

#18. We all are bound to those around us by glue, and to our pasts, and sometimes we need to dissolve it... They say you need to pull all the pieces apart and stand back to see how they fit together. Deconstruction. But what if then they can't be put back together?

Amanda Green

#19. We act like God's only good when the outcome is good. We say, 'We've got a good God because I've got a good job.' But what if I don't have a good job? Does that mean God's not good anymore?

Max Lucado

#20. You're not supposed to talk ill of the dead, because how are they supposed to defend themselves? But what if they've done something so bad, so awful that you had to think ill of them? That you needed to.

Kara Terzis

#21. But what if there are no gods?

Plato

#22. I see who I am reflected in your eyes. I know what you think about me. But what if I told you, you were wrong?

Jenny B. Jones

#23. You say that someday your prince will come. More than anything, you want him to reply, "But what if your prince is right under your nose?" Instead he says, "Well, as long as he's mot one of those deposed princes ... "
You wish he weren't such a prince. You wish he were a frog.

David Levithan

#24. But what if you're wrong?
What if there's more?
What if there's hope you never dreamed of hoping for?
What if you jump?
And just close your eyes?
What if the arms that catch you, catch you by surprise?
What if He's more than enough?
What if it's love?

Nichole Nordeman

#25. But what if scrambling to pay the bills takes every minute of your day, every ounce of your creativity? What if you can't afford an au pair? What if you can't even afford an ordinary babysitter?

Claire Cook

#26. But what if you don't like Chico?" she asked him, her brow furrowed.
"Will you be there? Because if that's where you want to be, I'll find plenty to like.

Robyn Carr

#27. One is called a criminal for being different, and malicious for observing other people with too much clarity and penetration. But what if one began with oneself?

Andre Suares

#28. But what if things aren't what they seem? As you said, there is no truth in the Digital Sea." "Eventually we must cling to some reality," Mekena said. "Even if we are not sure it is the most real. One can wait for a whole lifetime for the reality we want and miss the one we have in our hands.

Thomas K. Carpenter

#29. The magnitude of an action may change not only the strength of its impact, but the direction. If you became a dentist, for example, you would certainly be an asset to our society. But what if everyone became a dentist? Who would bake the bread? Who would build the houses?

Marilyn Vos Savant

#30. But what if I did tell people exactly what was going on? What if I valued my own peace of mind more than what other people think of me? Would I end up jobless, friendless, and loveless? Would I vanish entirely?

Melissa Broder

#31. Sometimes people think, "You don't get to have it all, you don't get to be happy, life's a struggle," but what if it's not?

Lissie

#32. But what if someone from another faith won't recognize yours? Or wants you dead for it?
"That is not faith. That is hate." He sighed. "And if you ask me, God sits up there and cries when that happens.

Mitch Albom

#33. We must find you a new boyfriend, Wavey had kept telling her, but what if a girlfriend was what Fever needed? She felt as if she had opened the door to a room she had never noticed in a house where she'd lived all her life.

Philip Reeve

#34. don't bite the hand that feeds you, they said. but, what if they are chewing mine off?

Shareca Cole.

#35. I'm not saying you should marry wossisname. Just give yourself a chance with him."

"A chance to what?"

"Be with someone again."

"I w-w-want to," I whispered. "But what if it goes the same way? W-what if I'm unbeable with?

Alexis Hall

#36. Being crazy of someone might seem cheap, but what if your life is priceless without that person.

M.F. Moonzajer

#37. We've been told there's a certain way to live ... that this is living ... and we ... we never really questioned it. We just sort of went along. But what if it's not the best way? What if there's another way that's better? What if there's something more?!

Walter Wykes

#38. Life has but one true charm: the charm of the game. But what if we're indifferent to whether we win or lose?

Charles Baudelaire

#39. Who likes to encounter bad weather? But what if you could take advantage of adverse forces that you run into? What if you could turn adversity into opportunity or leverage it positively?

Karla Robertson

#40. As an observer, you can clearly see that Western countries are war-weary and don't want to be pulled into new conflicts. They always proclaim their will to fight for Israel in an emergency. That's good but what if that's not at all true when the time comes?

Ronald Lauder

#41. But what if all the tranquility, all the comfort, all the contentment were now to come to a horrifying end?

Franz Kafka

#42. A suspicion that lightness is not deeply serious (but instead whimsical) pervades aesthetic discourse. But what if lightness is a philosophical choice to temper reality with strangeness, to temper the intellect with emotion, and to temper emotion with humor.

Sarah Ruhl

#43. But what if we took it one step further and made an effort to actually transform our pain into something beautiful? What if we went full out and made an effort to transform other people's pain into something beautiful?

Danielle LaPorte

#44. Contact means the exchange of specific knowledge, ideas, or at least of findings, definite facts. But what if no exchange is possible? If an elephant is not a giant microbe, the ocean is not a giant brain.

James E. Lovelock

#45. [She] knows that it's fear that keeps her love in check. but what if falling in love i a sign not of weakness but of courage? what if it isnt falling or crashing but taking a leap?

Julianna Baggott

#46. They say you're meant to live everyday as if it were your last, which I've always thought was daft, since no one would ever pay the gas bill if that was the case, but what if it were your first?

Amy Jenkins

#47. And I told you, 'Honey, you'll know when its right because they'll be your best friend and you'll like kissing them.' And she said, 'But what if I have a girl best friend like Mommy?' And I said, 'Schyler, if you end up with a girl like your mommy then you'll be just as lucky as I am.

Avon Gale

#48. Ignorance is not bliss. That platitude is totally wrong. You will not be intellectually happier if you know fewer things. Learning should be a primary goal of living. But what if ignorance feels better - not psychologically, but physically? That would explain a lot of human incongruities.

Chuck Klosterman

#49. But, what if?
Hadn't we wondered as little girls if we were the only ones with the ability? Were we the only freaks? Were we the abnormal among the normal looking for the abnormal to become the normal?
I raced back to my room.

Michelle Flick

#50. But what if your fire is not burning well or, worse, has gone out? Without inner fire, you have no light, no heat, no desire ... there's only one way out - and that's through the dark woods. You must change your life.

Phil Cousineau

#51. But what if ... what if you sincerely believed something was true, but you were dead wrong? What if you were so stubbornly sure that you were right, that you wouldn't even consider the truth? Would the truth be silenced, or would it try to break through?

Stephenie Meyer

#52. But what if we fail' they ask, whispering the dreaded word across the Generation Gap to their parents. 'Don't' they whisper back. What they should say is 'Don't be afraid to fail. Failure isn't fatal

William Zinsser

#53. Do no harm. Be nice. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
But what if I don't want to catch the flies? What if I'd rather see them swatted?

Mindy McGinnis

#54. In society, we have these unspoken rules of conduct, these 'shoulds.' Even though we pride ourselves on being a democracy, there are all these ways we say you 'should' behave. But what if you're living your life by the 'shoulds' and you're not really living your life?

Chris Noth

#55. I glance at the book he's holding. It is American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. There is a deep, dark irony to this and I wonder if he realises it or not. I want to ask him why he's bought it but what if he's bought it as a text book?

Sarah Alderson

#56. Self-realization sounds good. But what if only an enraged dwarf emerges?

Mason Cooley

#57. You're making me get used to sleeping at night," she said. "Plus, I don't sleep in my clothing anymore." "If you did, it would make things a little awkward." "Yes," she said, "but what if we get attacked during the night? I'd have to fight them naked." "I wouldn't mind watching that." She

Brandon Sanderson

#58. But what if you needed to get what you want... just once?

Holly Bourne

#59. On a surface level, regionalism is gone, if we define regionalism as human culture. But, what if we define regionalism as something older than human culture?

Cynthia Daignault

#60. The biggest straitjacket is all the prejudices that we carry around, and all the fears. But what if we just surrender to the fear? There are things greater than fear. The great, wonderful quality of human beings is that we can overcome even absolute terror, and we do.

Isabel Allende

#61. It may be a brief interruption - just a few seconds - but what if someone sitting near you is trying to make a decent bootleg? Did you ever think of that? Now all those street-corner copies are permanently defiled by your so-called 'emergency.' Don't be so damn selfish.

Brad Pitt

#62. But what if time worked the other way around?
What if what his adolescent self had felt then was the ghost of his present one, sitting here on a sagging bench, beckoning him into his future?

Garth Risk Hallberg

#63. He could see what I hadn't until now. She was my weakness and he would exploit it by doing what I could not. He would have her. He would kill her.
But what if I could have her? What if I could make her mine?
Only mine.

Ashlan Thomas

#64. But what if the monsters come?"
"Fancy." Kit looked away from the drama to stare at her sister, surprised. "We are the monsters.

Dia Reeves

#65. But what if everyone in the world behaved like me and came here and shot Brisseau through the ear? What a mess! And of course we'd need valet parking.

Woody Allen

#66. Shirley: "Christopher, would you like to tell Olivia what "F.I.N.E" means?"
Christopher: "Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional"
...
Olivia: "But what if you really do feel fine?"
Shirley: "Christopher, care to answer that?"
Christopher: "Um, there's no such feeling as fine.

Amy Reed

#67. A new study shows that having a severe phobia can hasten aging. But what if my greatest fear IS aging?!?

Stephen Colbert

#68. It's not that I don't like cats. And really, I think I would enjoy having ... a cat. But what if I get a cat before I'm ready? What if I choose the wrong cat? Or what if I'm bad at it ... being a cat owner, I mean?

Cora Carmack

#69. Ha ha ha. But what if, right, when you come home, what if I ain't wearing nothing but Nutella?"
"Your double negatives make me want to kill you.

Richard Rider

#70. Ye venerate me; but what if your veneration should some day collapse? Take heed lest a statue crush you!

Friedrich Nietzsche

#71. You think that the mental anguish you are experiencing is a permanent condition, but for the vast majority of people it is only a temporary state. (But what if I'm special? What if I'm in the minority?)

Jenny Offill

#72. We've tried to keep her connected to her Chinese background and we've always felt really good about that, but what if, instead of building her Chinese identity, it's only served to make her feel separate from us and not 100 percent our daughter?

Lisa See

#73. Christine: There's something really romantic about that. Every woman wants a man who'll fall in love with her soul as well as her body. But what if you meet her, and you don't think she's attractive?
Lincoln: I don't think I care what she looks like.

Rainbow Rowell

#74. People in science fiction flicks always seemed to know useful things about the places time travel took them. But what if the time traveler had been only an average history student? What then?

Tad Williams

#75. Dreams didn't mean anything ? But ... what if dreams were all I had ?

S.C. Stephens

#76. You couldn't give up you for them. But what if you wanted them more than you wanted a singular powerful you?

Kristin Hannah

#77. But I want Kyle and I to work. We've always worked."
"But what if you work better with someone else?

Adriane Leigh

#78. Tomorrow will be better."
"But what if it's not?" I asked.
"Then you say it again tomorrow. Because it might be. You never know, right? At some point, tomorrow will be better.

Morgan Matson

#79. But ... what if I mistime it?"
Gilan smiled widely. "Well, in that case, I'll probably lop your head off your shoulders."
Horace and Gilan

John Flanagan

#80. But what if we find we don't suit?"
"Then ye'll do as the rest o' us and work at suiting.

Karen Hawkins

#81. Sometimes you have to stop trying to control everything and let life happen the way it's supposed to, Tess. Even if it's not exactly the way you wanted.
But what if it's not even a little like you wanted?
Then you deal with it and keep going.

Lord, Cynthia

#82. But what if, instead of spending all of our energy making plans for God, we spent that energy seeking God?

Mark Batterson

#83. People say a mother is only as happy as her least happy child. But what if the state of that child's happiness has become a mystery? What if that child is no longer a child but a young man who has removed himself to a great distance and encased himself in silence?

Jan Ellison

#84. He thought: Because when you tell a lie it must be to keep from saying a worse thing. Then lying is not a Sin and God will not punish you. (But what if God is one of them?)

Davis Grubb

#85. It is a risk to love.
What if it doesn't work out?
Ah, but what if it does.

Peter McWilliams

#86. You think you're so selfless, you think you're working to save everyone, but what if you're going about it all wrong? At least when I live as a boy, no one gets hurt. But you pretendin' to be a martyr? Pretending to be the Fury? That hurts everyone.

Susan Dennard

#87. People always tell me I'm going to regret not having kids. But what if I have one and then I regret having it? Has anyone thought of that option?

Karl Pilkington

#88. Why do the police need to know where I am? In the hands of a benevolent government, they could be looking after your interests, but what if the next government isn't so benevolent?

Val McDermid

#89. The power of the Web is obvious and undeniable. We diminish it at our peril. But what if the most potent social effect to spread outward from the Internet turns out to be disinhibition, the breaking down of personal restraints and the endless elevation of oneself? It may be already.

Daniel Henninger

#90. Your job is just one tiny part of your life. We talk so much about choosing jobs or selecting careers. But what if we chose a life instead?

Emily Ley

#91. You wanted to believe that getting older, growing up, would change everything, transform you into the amazing person you were meant to be. But what if it didn't? What if you had to stay you forever?

Jean Thompson

#92. But what if it's a trap?' she repeated.
Joe gave her a hard stare.'Of course it's a fucking trap,' he said.

Chris Ryan

#93. The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.

Ursula K. Le Guin

#94. You can't judge a book by its cover, though. People think I'm bad because I got tattoos or snort a little cocaine here and there. They think I'm a killer. But what if I wasn't a killer? Then what? Don't be tripping on me. I pay my damn taxes, OK? Chill.

Gunplay

#95. But what if Oscar - "
"Breathes fire and threatens to cook you over a grill?"
"I was thinking what if he gets mad, but I think your way works as well."
"Then you shall make for a tasty meal.

Erica Sehyun Song

#96. We all have dreams, those who decide whether theirs are real, or fiction.
But, what if fiction doesn't exist?

Then your dreams are real, and your possibilities are endless.

Amelia E. S.

#97. Yeah, but what if we got separated?
Why would we?
But just, what if?
We won't

Jennifer E. Smith

#98. Everyone keeps saying I'll pick it up. But what if I don't? I did algebra for three
years, and I never picked that up.

Sophie Kinsella

#99. But what if we are dealing with fools?

Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

#100. but what if science in this world has managed a way to actualize dreams? So if someone can dream something, they can manifest that into reality.

Johnny B. Truant