
“I don't know what I feel or what I want to feel. I don't know what to think or what I am.”
Source: The Book of Disquiet
Boccioni's quote, from an undated letter to Gino Severini (probably July or August 1912, or November); as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008.
1912
“I don't know what I feel or what I want to feel. I don't know what to think or what I am.”
Source: The Book of Disquiet
“Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.”
In an interview in the New York Times (16 December 1957), cited in a footnote on page 32 of "Work, Society, and Culture" by Yves Reni Marie Simon, and also in a footnote (in German) on page 360 of "Vita activa oder Vom taetigen Leben" by Hannah Arend (1981)
Variants:
Basic research is when I'm doing what I don't know I'm doing.
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.
1912
Source: an 2nd undated letter to Gino Severini (probably July or August 1912, or November); as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008.
"Doing What I Know" (song)
Song lyrics
Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Doing What I Know" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlkC9AFrSNU (song on YouTube)
Interview on her role in the Broadway play "Two for the Seesaw". The New York Times (1958).
“What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don't know and I'm afraid.”
Source: The Journals of Sylvia Plath
I Seem to Be a Verb (1970)
1970s
“I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don't want.”