What If Quotes

“I think I like wildflowers best," I explain. "They just grow wherever they want. No one has to plant them. And then their seeds blow in the wind and they find a new place to grow." (Richelle)”
― Rebecca Donovan, What If

“That was the missed moment. I should have put out a hand and taken her arm and said, "Here I am. Ask me. Now. The real question! Tell me. While I'm here. Ask me before it's too late.”
― J.L. Carr, A Month in the Country

“Don't think about what you could have done, concentrate on what you plan to do; it is more useful.”
― Brian Jacques, Martin the Warrior

“Worrying is using your imagination to create something you don't want.”
― Abraham Hicks

“Don't spend your life wondering "what if" and worrying over something you have no control. What's done is done. Looking backwards will cause you to miss out on new blessings ahead. Move on.”
― Germany Kent

“This is our life; there's no use in asking what if. No one could ever give you the answers.”
― Jenny Han, To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“If. If. If this all happened! I, F, - he had to hang on to those two little letters, just one tiny two letter word. If. So much hope and dread hung in the balance on those two little blips in the alphabet! A chasm in fact!”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Vocation of a Gadfly

“I am becoming better at releasing the “what-ifs” that clog my closets.”
― Lisa J. Shultz, Lighter Living: Declutter. Organize. Simplify.

“What if stars were the glimmering tears of a giant, welling in his cheeks, waiting to fall at the first tender stroke of emotion? What if the moon were a wide-open eye gazing down on our tiny, little world and its tiny, little inhabitants as they rush to and fro in pursuit of tiny, little dreams? What if the sun were the glowing heart of a great beast, pumping hot blood to keep him alive while providing warmth for our pitiful world? Ahhh, imagination; it is a wondrous thing!”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a Few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year

“What if . . . What if I am stupid? Like people say?”
― Svetlana Chmakova, Brave

“Behind each door of what-if lies an unanswerable question that unhinges an infinite Rube Goldberg machine of probabilities. The life we have is the only one we will ever know, and even that with tenuous certainty.”
― Maria Popova, Figuring

“For years I played the what-if game. Maybe you're acquainted with this pastime. The rules are simple:

Rule #1: You're only allowed to think of worst-case scenarios.

Rule #2: You're never allowed to win this game. You can only lose.

Rule #3: The more you play, the greater your losses.”
― Craig Groeschel, Dare to Drop the Pose: Ten Things Christians Think but Are Afraid to Say

“My favorite words in the world are these:
“what” and “if” in conjunction.
They question curiosities
in simple form and function.
“What” is a query of broadest scope.
“If" is wonder that fuels all hope.
Together they lasso the mind like rope, and spur the wildest deductions!”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a Few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year

“An inexhaustible imagination is the fountain of youth.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a Few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year

“So there's this theory about the multiverse," Hunter starts in sad reverence. His voice was of a morbidly curious scientist. "that says that we're just one copy of ourselves. What if we're just figments of a dying universe? All of this could have already happened. We could have crashed and burned ten times over. But what if there was a multiverse that had a copy of you, that met a copy of me, and they didn't quite have this much...affliction. What if there was another Alex, who didn't have torment thundering down her eyes every time I looked at her. What if we already lived our *'and we lived'*?" he stops to look at me. *Really* look at me, and I could have been seeing the whole universe in his eyes.
"What if it was as simple as *'hey'*?”
― Reem Aquil, This Infinite Moment

“What If

What if the dragon left the mountain
and flew away to find the sea
What if my worries left my mind
and I were free to just be me
whoever that strange self might be
Would a dragon run across the sands
would a dragon dance along the sea
What if we could just dance forever
accompanied by a salt breeze
What if the dragon left the mountain
​and ran away to find the sea

T.S.Gray”
― T.S. Gray

“If Tony hadn't been fearful, hadn't counted on the approval of others for his own self-approval . . . and so on, through a succession of hypotheticals leading to the final one: so, for instance, if Tony hadn't been Tony.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“What if the endings are just a fresh start? Maybe it just depends on the way you look at it.”
― Ivy Oakes, What if Stars Don't Die

“She hadn't gone back in time. The idea was silly.

Or had she? Had she knocked on the door of her home to see a younger version of herself answer; had there been a mutual shock of recognition (as the younger Rebecca realized that, yes, her husband's work was due to be a success, that he was not wasting his time chasing rainbows and tilting at windmills); had she slipped her arm into that of her past self (feeling a slight electric tingle as skin touched skin and a taste in her mouth as if she'd touched a nine-volt battery to her tongue) and said, We need to to talk? Had she sat in a coffee shop, conversing with a woman who everyone assumed was related to her in some way—Oh my god you two are so cute, you're mother and daughter but you look like sisters? Had she made some kind of idle remark overheard by a man on his way to spend two weeks' vacation in North Dakota; had that comment convinced that man to settle there permanently instead, and to contact those who had political sympathies similar to his own? Had that unknown man begun the slow process of taking over the state by placing his allies in the local governments if he could? Had that strategy failed, leaving brute force as a regrettable last resort?”
― Dexter Palmer, Version Control

“What if dragons breathed bubbles
and purred when they cuddled
and giggled at chivalrous knights for their troubles?

What if dragons felt soft,
having scales made of cloth,
and they moved rather slow like a brown-throated sloth?

What if dragons were shy
and did easily cry
when confronted by characters callous and sly?

What if dragons did good
but were misunderstood
so men mercilessly slew the beasts right where they stood?

What if dragons aren’t missed
because there is no list
of extinct types of quarry that now don’t exist?”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a Few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year

“I was never really about the money. Every business I've ever started has been more of a curiosity and a kind of "What if...”
― Blake Mycoskie

“Est-ce qu’on peut avoir la nostalgie de ce qui n’a pas été?”
― Justine Lévy, Nothing Serious

“You know someone asked me today did I believe in God. I told them yes because there has to be something that started this whole Universal Balance thing in the cosmos.
The guy (not mentioning names) said I was wasting my time with the belief of a higher entity. Well, this is my logic in the equation.
"If you are correct in believing there is not God, by passing on love, harmony and trying to do right by humanity, I am growing as a human to be a better person and when I die and if there is no God then I have harmed no one.
But if I am right and God exists and you do not worship or believe in God you are a better candidate to going to hell than I am so, I am not taking any chances.”
― Marlan Rico Lee

“I was never allowed to have any pets. Sometimes I think a puppy might have changed everything.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“You'll always be my favourite "What If".”
― Nitya Prakash

“As I sat next to him on the piano bench, I said, “What if I’d never walked into the music store . . .”
Sam smiled gently and looked at me as he played the keys on the piano ever so softly. And then he said, “But you did.”
I decided that was my answer to questions of fate. I could go around asking myself what if x hadn’t happened, and the answer would always be, “But it did.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, One True Loves

“Imaginhe how more exciting our lives would be, if we lived a nightmare, a walking Jason, an article about a deformed Leather Face, a HELL raising Cenobite, an expressionless white masked Halloween killer, an actual sighting of flying lights, or even a proven haunted town named Silent Hill”
― Dean Mackin

“We need to focus on what-is, not on what-ifs.”
― Ari Gunzburg, The Little Book of Greatness: A Parable About Unlocking Your Destiny

“India's political economy is replete with tales of how things did not happen. The lament is preceded by the ubiquitous 'if only', about how solutions were thought of but the ideas did not translate into action.”
― Shankkar Aiyar, Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India's 12-Digit Revolution

“She nibbled on a couple of cucumber sandwiches and a slice of cold Welsh rarebit (the cheese had solidified and was a little chewy, just the way she liked it). She wondered what a picture of it would result in: a plate of iced biscuits with the power to cause sudden growth?”
― Liz Braswell, Unbirthday