“A negative answer may sometimes annoy, but an ambiguous reaction with “yes and no” (or even “nyes”) may be much more irritating.”

“Cells are required to stick precisely to the point. Any ambiguity, any tendency to wander from the matter at hand, will introduce grave hazards for the cells, and even more for the host in which they live. Minor inaccuracies may cause reactions in which neighboring cells are recognized as foreign, and done in. There is a theory that the process of aging may be due to the cumulative effect of imprecision, a gradual degrading of information. It is not a system that allows for deviating.”

“God always answers prayers. Sometimes it's "yes." Sometimes the answer is "no." Sometimes it's "you gotta be kidding.”

“Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.”

“Even the youngest of us may be wrong sometimes.”

“The critic must be reconciled to his necessary, ambiguous role, and however much he may caper, joke, and posture for us in his writings, we are unlikely to forget that he is a man who may, at any moment, tread heavily upon our dreams — unworthy dreams, foolish dreams, stupid dreams, sometimes — but still dreams.”

“The acceptance of ambiguity implies more than the commonplace understanding that some good things and some bad things happen to us. It means that we know that good and evil are inextricably intermixed in human affairs; that they contain, and sometimes embrace, their opposites; that success may involve failure of a different kind, and failure may be a kind of triumph.”

“This is not a reaction against a negative world. It's a response to a negative world.”

“Ambiguity lurks in generality and may thus become an instrument of severity.”

“At every moment, we always have a choice, even if it feels as if we don't. Sometimes that choice may simply be to think a more positive thought.”