
“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
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
“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.
Letter to Eric Kennington (6 May 1935)