“Yet its essence was the certitude that his life was not totally at the mercy of chance. Somehow, it was more important than that. This sense of power inside his head — which he could intensify by pulling a face and wrinkling up the muscles of his forehead — aroused a glow of optimism, an expectation of exciting events. He knew that for him, fate held something special in store.”

—  Colin Wilson

Source: Spider World: The Desert (1987), p. 26

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Yet its essence was the certitude that his life was not totally at the mercy of chance. Somehow, it was more important …" by Colin Wilson?
Colin Wilson photo
Colin Wilson192
author 1931–2013

Related quotes

Pierre Corneille photo

“The wrinkles on his forehead are the marks which his mighty deeds have engraved.”

Pierre Corneille book Le Cid

Ses rides, sur son front, ont grave ses exploits.
Don Diego, act I, scene i.
Le Cid (1636)

Sören Kierkegaard photo

“He was extremely important to his contemporaries, who wanted nothing more than to see in his the Expected One; they wanted almost to press it upon him and and to force him into the role - but that he then refuses to be that!”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, Two Ethical-Religious Minor Essays (1849), p. 60

Richard Baxter photo

“Special mercy arouses more gratitude than universal mercy.”

Richard Baxter (1615–1691) English Puritan church leader, poet, and hymn-writer

The Saints' Everlasting Rest (1650), "The Splendor of the Saints' Rest"

“He didnt know what was defeating him, but he sensed it was something he could not cope with, something that was far beyond his power to control or even at this point in time comprehend.”

Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream

Source: Requiem for a Dream

Edward St. Aubyn photo

“And then he looked down at his fallen opponent, sprawled heavily on the carpet, and somehow the sight of his old neck, no longer festooned with an expensive black silk tie, but wrinkled and sagging and open at the throat, as if waiting for the final dagger thrust, filled him with pity and renewed his respect for the conservative powers of an ego that would rather kill its owner than allow him to change.”

Edward St. Aubyn (1960) British writer

At Last, Chapter 13

George Steiner photo

“The absolute scholar is in fact a rather uncanny being. He is instinct with Nietzsche's finding that to be interested in something, to be totally interested in it, is a libidinal thrust more powerful than love or hatred, more tenacious than faith or friendship — not infrequently, indeed, more compelling than personal life itself. Archimedes does not flee from his killers, he does not even turn his head to acknowledge their rush into his garden when he is immersed in the algebra of conic sections.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

"The Cleric of Treason".
George Steiner: A Reader (1984)

Harlan Ellison photo

“Griffin stood silently, watching the waterfall, sensing more than he saw, understanding more than even his senses could tell him.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Delusion for a Dragon Slayer (1966)
Context: Griffin stood silently, watching the waterfall, sensing more than he saw, understanding more than even his senses could tell him. This was, indeed, the Heaven of his dreams, a place to spend the rest of forever, with the wind and the water and the world another place, another level of sensing, another bad dream conjured many long times before. This was reality, an only reality for a man whose existence had been not quite bad, merely insufficient, tenable but hardly enriching. For a man who had lived a life of not quite enough, this was all there ever could be of goodness and brilliance and light. Griffin moved toward the falls.
The darkness grew darker.

Rick Riordan photo

“She grabbed his face and pulled him into a kiss, which effectively shut him up.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Jonathan Stroud photo

“I had a chance at him now. Things were a bit more even. He knew my name, I knew his. He had six years' experience, I had five thousand and ten. That was the kind of odds that you could do something with.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Amulet of Samarkand

Source: The Amulet of Samarkand

“Death and the devil, what are these to him?
His being accuses him — and yet his face is firm
In resolution, in absolute persistence;
The folds of smiling do for steadiness;
The face is its own fate — a man does what he must —
And the body underneath it says: I am.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

"The Knight, Death and the Devil," lines 34-39
The Seven-League Crutches (1951)

Related topics