“There are things in this universe that we cannot control, and then there are the things we can…. Let fate, coincidence, and accident conspire; human beings must act on reason.”
Source: Snow Falling on Cedars
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David Guterson 9
Novelist, short story writer, poet, journalist, and essayist 1956Related quotes


Address at the Convocation of the University of Manitoba, October 28, 1952
Speaking Of Canada - (1959)

"My Six Conversions, § II : When the World Turned Back" in The Wells and the Shallows (1935)
Context: The Church never said that wrongs could not or should not be righted; or that commonwealths could not or should not be made happier; or that it was not worth while to help them in secular and material things; or that it is not a good thing if manners become milder, or comforts more common, or cruelties more rare. But she did say that we must not count on the certainty even of comforts becoming more common or cruelties more rare; as if this were an inevitable social trend towards a sinless humanity; instead of being as it was a mood of man, and perhaps a better mood, possibly to be followed by a worse one. We must not hate humanity, or despise humanity, or refuse to help humanity; but we must not trust humanity; in the sense of trusting a trend in human nature which cannot turn back to bad things.

“We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.”
Source: The Giver

“No, we have not destroyed it. Let it sit. We cannot change its fate.”
1960s