Ask Not Quotes & Sayings

The wilderness holds answers to questions man has not yet learned to ask. — Nancy Newhall

So you're not offended that I kissed you?" His voice was low and his smile widened. "I hardly think that's an appropriate question to ask a lady." She fought against her own smile. "I think you liked my kiss." "It was fair enough - " "Fair?" He leaned a hand against the door next to her head. "Admit it, Susanna. My kiss was swoon-worthy. — Jody Hedlund

Not many people ask me out. — Marina Sirtis

The great ones do not set up offices, charge fees, give lectures, or write books. Wisdom is silent, and the most effective propaganda for truth is the force of personal example. The great ones attract disciples, lesser figures whose mission is to preach and to teach. These are gospelers who, unequal to the highest task, spend their lives in converting others. The great ones are indifferent, in the profoundest sense. They don't ask you to believe: they electrify you by their behavior. They are the awakeners. What you do with your petty life is of no concern to them. What you do with your life is only of concern to you, they seem to say. In short, their only purpose here on earth is to inspire. And what more can one ask of a human being than that? — Henry Miller

If you don't ask the right questions, I can't give you the answers, and if you don't know the right question to ask, you're not ready for the answers — Ed Parker

I also learned afresh that friendship requires a constant willingness to forgive each other for not being Christ, and a willingness to ask Christ himself to be the true center of the relationship. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Instead of asking, "Why is there war?" we might ask, "Why is there peace?" We can obsess not just over what we have been doing wrong but also over what we have been doing right. Because we have been doing something right, and it would be good to know what, exactly, it is. — Steven Pinker

Were you in love with Emma?" I ask.
"I was hard-core obsessed," he says without thinking about it. "Not in love."
"What's the difference?"
He's about to throw a stone at ta yard light but stops. "Prison," he says, and puts the stone in his pocket. — Cath Crowley

We do not ask to be born; and we do not ask to die. But born we are and die we must. We come into existence and we pass out of existence. And in neither case does high-handed fate await our ratification of its decree. — Corliss Lamont

[Ted] Cruz railed against his fellow senators for not appreciating the risk that Obamacare would destroy healthcare for America's families ... Cruz then lodged a more general complaint against his Senate colleagues who, he said, seemed more concerned with "cocktail parties in Washington, D.C." than with their constituents. Referring to calls that he said were pouring in from around the country, begging legislators to resist and defund, Cruz noted, "It is apparently an imposition on some members of this body for their constituents to pick up the phone and ask for assistance." As I heard him say that, I picked up the phone and called Cruz's local constituent service office in Houston. "Could someone there give me information about how to enroll in Obamacare?" I asked, when I was put on the phone with one of the senator's case workers. "No. We don't support the bill, and think it's a bad idea," I was told. — Steven Brill

Do you love me?"
There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. "Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!"
"What do you mean?" Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated.
"Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it's become almost obsolete," his mother explained carefully.
Jonas stared at them. Meaningless? He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory.
"And of course our community can't function smoothly if people don't use precise language. You could ask, 'Do you enjoy me?' The answer is 'Yes,'" his mother said.
"Or," his father suggested, "'Do you take pride in my accomplishments?' And the answer is wholeheartedly 'Yes.'"
"Do you understand why it's inappropriate to use a word like 'love'?" Mother asked.
Jonas nodded. "Yes, thank you, I do," he replied slowly.
It was his first lie to his parents. — Lois Lowry

Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking; a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.
If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along. — Carl Sagan

they kept moving all night, stopping only occasionally to scoop some water from a stream or listen to see if anyone was following them or near them at all. As dawn came, Jacob was exhausted. But the two men did not stop moving. They were not running now. They were walking, but Avi set a brisk and steady pace. Jacob wanted to stop. He wanted to ask Avi if they could rest, even for a little while. But he had been told not to say a word, and Jacob knew their very lives depended on his obeying. At least the pain in his feet and in his belly from lack of food and the fatigue permeating every fiber of his being kept his mind off the fact that he would never see his parents or his sister again. — Joel C. Rosenberg

Do not stop praying as long as, by God's grace, the fire and the water have not been exhausted, for it may happen that never again in your whole life will you have such a chance to ask for the forgiveness for your sins. — John Climacus

We have this American president, Obama, born of an African father, who is saying we will not give you aid if you don't embrace homosexuality. We ask, was he born out of homosexuality? We need continuity in our race, and that comes from the woman, and no to homosexuality. — Robert Mugabe

Don't ever ask a player to do something he doesn't have the ability to do. He'll just question your ability as a coach, not his as an athlete. — Lou Holtz

The outright propagandist sets up in me such a fury of opposition I am not apt to care much whether he has got his facts straight or not. He is like someone standing on your toes between you and an open window, describing the view to you. All I ask of him to do is to open the window, stand out of the way, and let me look at the view for myself. — Katherine Anne Porter

The most ernest prayer that I know is to ask for the life energy of the universe to come down into my body and let my mind become full and overflowing with peace and gratitude. Meditation is earnest prayer, and when prayer progress, it becomes true meditation.
No matter what prayer you offer, or from where, the key to prayer is sincerity. It isn't a certain posture that's important, but whatever you do, the important thing is not to lose the feeling of sincere devotion and earnestness. — Ilchi Lee

I never taught a blind/deaf chick to read, but somehow I've managed to turn Scrubs into a watchable show. That may not sound like much, but take a look at my surrounding cast and ask yourself, who's the real miracle worker? — Zach Braff

Give to everyone who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again. And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them. — Jesus Christ

The issue is not to ask your customers what they want today, but to try to imagine what the customer is going to want in a world where, for instance, their cellphone is in their glasses. — Jay S. Walker

We ask [ of the computer ] not just about where we stand in nature, but about where we stand in the world of artefact. We search for a link between who we are and what we have made, between who we are and what we might create, between who we are and what, through our intimacy with our own creations, we might become. — Sherry Turkle

We always reference kids but very rarely ask their opinion. Our inexperience might be what gives us the ability to teach our elders something, due to the fact that we are not jaded or cynical. — Adora Svitak

We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens ... — Johannes Kepler

A free society depends upon a high degree of mutual trust. The public will not give that trust to officials who are not seen to be impartially dedicated to the general public interest, nor will they give trust to those high in government who violate the rule of law they ask citizens to obey at the expense of self-interest, or to those who present government as the place where one feathers his own nest, [or] exchanges favors with friends and former associates. — Archibald Cox

Ultimately, of what possible social significance is it if a person likes to masturbate over a shoe? It may even be non-consensual, but since we do not ask permission of our shoes to wear them, it hardly seems necessary to obtain dispensation to come on them. — Gayle Rubin

Not enough books focus on how a culture responds to radically new ideas or discovery. Especially in the biography genre, they tend to focus on all the sordid details in the life of the person who made the discovery. I find this path to be voyeuristic but not enlightening. Instead, I ask, After evolution was discovered, how did religion and society respond? After cities were electrified, how did daily life change? After the airplane could fly from one country to another, how did commerce or warfare change? After we walked on the Moon, how differently did we view Earth? My larger understanding of people, places and things derives primarily from stories surrounding questions such as those. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

We want stuff done right. As long as it's my team, I'll voice my opinion. Yep, it's my team. You media guys might give it to him, like you've given him everything else his whole lifetime, but this is the Diesel's ship. And if we're not right, I'm going to go out there and try to get it right ... Just ask Karl and Garywhy they wanted to come here. It was because of one person, not two. One. — Shaquille O'Neal

Then he would ask for songs and I would pluck them out for him on a lute I borrowed from my father's wagon. He would even sing from time to time. He had a bright, reckless tenor that was always wandering off, looking for notes in the wrong places. More often than not he stopped and laughed at himself when it happened. He was a good man, and there was no conceit in him. Not long after he joined our troupe, I asked Abenthy what it was like being an arcanist. He gave me a thoughtful look. Have you ever known an arcanist? — Patrick Rothfuss

We hold ourselves back not just out of fear of seeming too aggressive but also by underestimating our abilities. Ask a woman to explain why she's successful and she'll credit luck, hard work, and help from others. Ask a man the same question and he's likely to explain, or at least think, "C'mon, I'm awesome!"4 — Sheryl Sandberg

To take Christ into our well-ordered, well-kept lives is in many ways to ask for trouble, for he will not leave well enough alone. — Ronnie McBrayer

Are there any alternatives? Well, there is the hypothesis that this universe is not unique, but that all possible universes exist, and we find ourselves, not surprisingly, in one that contains life. But that is a cop-out, which dispenses with the attempt to explain anything. And without the hypothesis of multiple universes, the observation that if life hadn't come into existence we wouldn't be here has no significance. One doesn't show that something doesn't require explanation by pointing out that it is a condition of one's existence. If I ask for an explanation of the fact that the air pressure in the transcontinental jet is close to that at sea level, it is no answer to point out that if it weren't, I'd be dead. — Thomas Nagel

My mother phones daily to ask, "Did you just try to reach me?" When I reply no, she adds, "So, if you're not too busy, call me while I'm still alive," ... and hangs up. — Erma Bombeck

Are our ways of teaching students to ask some questions always correlative with our ways of teaching them not to ask - indeed, to be unconscious of - others? Does the educational system exist in order to promulgate knowledge, or is its main function rather to universalize a society's tacit agreement about what it has decided it does not and cannot know? — Barbara Johnson

With writing ... you must keep in the habit. After a lapse it will take you not an hour, but a week, a month, maybe, to find your mood again - that mood in which things drop from heaven. There's no forcing it; you can't set your notions in front of you, and stare at them till they take shape; they have to come to you whether you ask them or not ... And you have to be in the habit of that mood! Of inspiration! — Anne Bosworth Greene

If someone believes it is our faith that heals us and forgets that it is God who does it, we should ask that person how much faith Lazarus had. Remember, he was decomposing in a tomb when Jesus raised him from death. His faith obviously didn't matter. It was all God. It is God and God's grace that heals, not our prayers and not our "faith." Though we are exhorted by God to pray to him, we cannot compel him to do what we wish. DO — Eric Metaxas

Kell had told his brother about the deals he struck in Grey London, and in White, and even on occasion in Red, about the various things he'd smuggled, and Rhy had stared at him, and listened, and when he spoke, it wasn't to lecture Kell on all the ways it was wrong, or illegal. It was to ask why.
"I don't know," said Kell, and it had been the truth.
Rhy had sat up, eyes bleary from drink. "Have we not provided?" he'd asked, visibly upset. "Is there anything you want for?"
"No," Kell had answered, and that had been a truth and a lie at the same time.
"Are you not loved?" whispered Rhy. "Are you not welcomed as family?"
"But I'm not family, Rhy," Kell had said. "I'm not truly a Maresh, for all that the king and queen have offered me that name. I feel more like a possession than a prince."
At that, Rhy had punched him in the face.
For a week after, Kell had two black eyes instead of one, and he'd never spoken like that again, but the damage was done. — Victoria Schwab

Really good work probably comes out of a willingness to disclose yourself, open yourself up in spiritual and emotional ways that risk making you look banal or melodramatic or naive or unhip or sappy, and to ask the reader really to feel something. To be willing to sort of die in order to move the reader, somehow. Even now I'm scared about how sappy this'll look in print, saying this. And the effort actually to do it, not just talk about it, requires a kind of courage I don't seem to have yet. — David Foster Wallace

Steve is troubled by a lot of things. He is twenty-three, was raised in Virginia, and has the idea that California is the beginning of the end. "I feel it's insane," he says, and his voice drops. "This chick tells me there's no meaning to life but it doesn't matter, we'll just flow right out. There've been times I felt like packing up and taking off for the East Coast again, at least there I had a target. At least there you expect that it's going to happen." He lights a cigarette for me and his hands shake. "Here you know it's not going to."
I ask what it is that is supposed to happen.
"I don't know," he says. "Something. Anything. — Joan Didion

I'd say for those people who don't feel like they fit in, I'd want them to ask themselves why they want to, who they are trying to please, and whether or not those people are worth it. You know what they say: 'If they don't want you, then they don't deserve to have you.' — Connor Paolo

Enzo's eyes flick back to me. He does not ask if I will be okay. His silent approval makes me stand taller. — Marie Lu

As America is transformed from a 90 percent European American nation, as it was in the 1960s, to one where we will soon be a minority, should we not ask some pertinent questions. Is this racial diversity enriching, or will it be damaging to our social fabric? — David Duke

I shall answer all the questions you are afraid to ask me openly. Do I wish to pay my workers more than their services are worth to me? I do not. Do I wish to sell my product for less than my customers are willing to pay me? I do not. Do I wish to sell it at a loss or give it away? I do not. — Ayn Rand

When you feel distracted, engage in self-talk. Ask yourself: "What am I focusing on?" Return to the present moment. What do you need to accomplish? Check into what you need and check out of what you do not need. Talk — Mike Cernovich

You may well ask me why ... I took the time to write [books]. I can only reply that I do not know. There was no why about it. I had to: that was all. — George Bernard Shaw

If you ask a twenty-one-year-old poet whose poetry he likes, he might say, unblushing, "Nobody's," In his youth, he has not yet understood that poets like poetry, and novelists like novels; he himself likes only the role, the thought of himself in a hat. — Annie Dillard

Do you have the tubes to ask me out or not? — Charli Frisky

As you grow into a fine young woman, try not to make excuses. If you know the bottom's safe - jump. If you know it's returned - love. If you really want it - fairly take it. If you run, do it 'til your lungs burn. Laugh until your cheeks ache. And forgive, as you'll always want to be forgiven. I didn't say forget, and certainly your spirit won't allow you to be a doormat, but forgive. Ask yourself always, if they die tonight.. was I really that mad? The answer will almost always be no. So act accordingly. — S.E. Hall

It's not rocking the boat, Dad. It's called communication. You're allowed to ask questions. Other people do it all the time. Other people don't live in fear of someone else's reactions. They don't relentlessly stress out about getting into trouble. — Koren Zailckas

The question should not be 'What would Jesus do?' but rather, more dangerously, 'What would Jesus have me do?' The onus is not on Jesus but on us, for Jesus did not come to ask semidivine human beings to do impossible things. He came to ask human beings to live up to their full humanity; he wants us to live in the full implication of our human gifts, and that is far more demanding. — Peter J. Gomes

Friendship is a priceless gift, that cannot be bought or sold, but it's value is far greater than a mountain made of gold. For gold is cold and lifeless, it can neither see nor hear. And in time of trouble it is powerless to cheer. It has no ears to listen, no heart to understand, it cannot bring you comfort or reach out a helping hand. So when you ask God for a gift, be thankful if he sends, not diamonds, pearls, or riches, but the love of real true friends. Thank you my friends for being in my life! — Natalie

You believe today's paradigm are not going to change ... Ask the caveman then if his paradigms changed or not. think for yourself you loose. think for coming generations you win. — Sameh Elsayed

I don't think I shall ever find peace till I make up my mind about things,' he said gravely. He hesitated. 'It's very difficult to put into words. The moment you try you feel embarrassed. You say to yourself: "Who am I that I should bother myself about this, that, and the other? Perhaps it's only because I'm a conceited prig. Wouldn't it be better to follow the beaten track and let what's coming to you come?" And then you think of a fellow who an hour before was full of life and fun,and he's lying dead; it's all so cruel and meaningless. It's hard not to ask yourself what life is all about and whether there's any sense to it or whether it's all a tragic blunder of blind fate. — W. Somerset Maugham

The question to ask about education is not 'What can I do with it?' That is the wrong question because it concentrates on instrumental values and reduces everything to a useful art. The right question is rather 'What can it do to me? — Arthur F. Holmes

So it happens that we must ask ourselves, with regard to truth, not for a new criterion for it, which will be better polished than earlier ones, but, peremptorily and seizing it by the lapels, "what is truth as such," and with regard to reality, not what things are or what and how is that which is, but for what reason that X which we call Being is in the Universe, and with regard to knowledge we must not ask for its bases and limits - as Plato, Aristotle Descartes, Kant did - but for something which comes before all this: for what reason we concern ourselves with trying to know. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

To save face, it's better not to ask sex from the ex, but to give everything the axe. — Anthony Liccione

What then is the difference between film and theatre? Or should one not rather ask: what are the differences? Let us be content wi th the reply that the screen has two dimensions and the stage three, that the screen presents photographs and the stage living actors. All the subtler differences stem from these. The camera can show us all sorts of things
from close-ups of insects to panoramas of prairies
which the stage cannot even suggest, and it can move from one to another with much more dexterity than any conceivable stage. The stage, on the other hand, can be revealed in the unsurpassable beauty of three-dimensional shapes, and the stage actor establishes between himself and his audience a contact real as electricity. — Eric Bentley

Well, if a horse refuses, you've phrased your question wrongly. It's the same with women. Don't ask them, 'Shall we go out to dinner?' Ask: 'What can I cook for you?' Can she say not to that? No, she can't. — Nina George

we do not ask. We want to be told. One of the most curious things in the structure of our psyche is that we all want to be told because we are the result of the propaganda of ten thousand years. We want to have our thinking confirmed and corroborated by another, whereas to ask a question is to ask it of yourself. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Don't make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life. - MIGUEL ANGEL RUIZ It's better to take the time to ask questions and to find the words to say what you really feel. Often we leave so much room for interpretation either because we are rushing or because we are afraid to speak the whole truth, but this is where miscommunications start. So even if you aren't sure about what someone means or how they feel, just ask them. Goal: When was the last time you assumed something and were wrong? Make a point to know the truth and not assume it. — Demi Lovato

There is no great religion without a great schism. All of them have it. And that's because you're dealing with something called faith. And faith is not something you can prove; faith is personal opinion. Uh, when you're dealing with something with certainty, like, y'know, science or logic, you don't have the
there's no wiggle room; that's why history is not filled with warring math cults, y'know, because you can settle the issue; you can prove something to be right or wrong, and that's the end of the argument: next case. Whereas, when you're dealing with faith, you can forever argue your point, or another point, because you're dealing with intangibles. Personally, I think, faith is what you ask of somebody when you don't have the goods to prove your point. — Tom Quinn

You, who only know love when in love, do not ask what it is, nor do you look for it. But when a woman once asked you if you were in love with love itself, you were evasive and escaped by answering: I love you. She persisted: Do you not love love? You said: I love you, because of you. She left you, because you could not be trusted with her absence. Love is not an idea. It is an emotion that can cool down or heat up. It comes and goes. It is an embodied feeling and has five, or more, senses. Sometimes it appears as an angel with delicate wings that can uproot us from the earth. Sometimes it charges at us like a bull, hurls us to the ground, and walks away. At other times it is a storm we only recognize in its devastating aftermath. Sometimes it falls upon us like the night dew when a magical hand milks a wandering cloud. — Mahmoud Darwish

Being certain one is alive isn't something to which one pays mind. If you could ask the question, you were fine. If you could not, hopefully you had a cozy coffin. — Thomm Quackenbush

People who are in distress end up questioning the existence and credibility of God. They ask "Why me?" or "If God loves me why is He not helping me out? — Tom Norman

You may ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to desire to set down what they have witnesses for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads. — Ford Madox Ford

With programmes such as flooding of emotions, the parts involved might not feel safe in turning the programme off. But you might be able to negotiate that they turn it down so it is barely noticeable. Or you could ask the spinner parts to spin in the opposite direction, so that they spin the effects back into the part who originally held those feelings rather than out to the rest of the system. Or you could insert a hidden drain and start draining out some of the feelings. Or you could find a way for the parts doing their jobs to implement the programme without doing harm. p126-127 — Alison Miller

Eager to hear more about the aforementioned behaviors of the ill-bred Miss Bowman, Livia leaned back against the edge of the desk, facing Marcus. "I wonder what Miss Bowman did to offend you so?" she mused aloud. "Do tell, Marcus. If not, my imagination will surely conjure up something far more scandalous than poor Miss Bowman is capable of."
"Poor Miss Bowman?" Marcus snorted. "Don't ask, Livia. I'm not at liberty to discuss it."
Like most men, Marcus didn't seem to understand that nothing torched the flames of a woman's curiosity more violently than a subject that one was not at liberty to discuss. "Out with it, Marcus," she commanded. "Or I shall make you suffer in unspeakable ways."
One of his brows lifted in a sardonic arch. "Since the Bowmans have already arrived, that threat is redundant. — Lisa Kleypas

I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, 'May I come in?' is not true laughter. No! He is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person, he choose no time of suitability. He say, 'I am here. — Bram Stoker

The Heavenly Father does not ask for golden vessels. He does not ask for silver vessels. God asks for yielded vessels. — Kathryn Kuhlman

Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride. — A.E. Housman

You all right?"
Diana let out a deep breath. "Ask me again when I'm not praying. — Nora Roberts

It's not a question we ask ourselves enough, I think; as a country, we seem to be suffering from an empathy deficit. We wouldn't tolerate schools that don't teach, that are chronically underfunded and understaffed and underinspired, if we thought that the children in them were like our children. I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our current politics in favor of those who are struggling. If we fail to help, we diminish ourselves. — Barack Obama

You walk into any supermarket or any shopping mall and ask the public what they are worried about. Not one of them will tell you they are worried about 12 years of Mitt Romney's tax returns. — John Sununu

I wonder if I'm being paranoid. I tell myself I'm not, and then ask myself how I can be so sure? I don't know the answer, so I go back to wondering if I am. — Craig Stone

When we read of the great Biblical leaders, we see that it was not uncommon for God to ask them to wait, not just a day or two, but for years, until God was ready for them to act. — Gloria Gaither

Religious liberty in a nation is as real as the liberty of its least popular religious minority. Look not to the size of cathedrals or even to the words on the statute books for proof of the reality of religious freedom. Ask what is the fate of the Protestant in Spain, the Jew in Saudi Arabia, the Arab in Israel, the Catholic in Poland or the atheist in the United States. — Paul Blanshard

It seems like he's keeping my foot within his grasp for longer than necessary when I see his eyes wander up my legs again. I tingle in every spot his gaze touches.
His voice sends shivers up my spine when he asks, "Have you ever been fucked, Eve?"
My eyelids flutter and I let out a small surprised gasp at his question, breath gushing from my lips. I'm not exactly a virgin, not too far off though, and I can safely say that I have never been fucked in the way that Phoenix is insinuating. Most of the sex I've had has been the fantasy kind. Our eyes lock and he moves his hand from the heel of my foot up along the back of my leg, massaging my shin.
I actually moan when his fingers press in, releasing the tension from a knotted muscle. His mouth opens as he watches me.
"I don't think that's a very appropriate question to ask of a friend," I finally manage to croak out.
He smiles darkly. "I told you I was bad news. — Raine Anthony

Ask not first what the system does; ask what it does it to! — Bertrand Meyer

Bryce," she whispers. "What's wrong."
I can barely breathe as I ask her, "Do you like him?"
"Do I ... you mean Jon?"
"Yes!"
"Well, sure. He's nice and -"
"No, do you like him?" My heart was pounding through my chest as I took her other hand and waited.
"Well, no. I mean, not like that ... "
No! She said no! I didn't care where I was, I didn't care who saw. I wanted, just had to kiss her. I leaned in, closed my eyes, and then ... — Wendelin Van Draanen

With mindfulness you can see the real owner of things. Do you think this is your world, your body? It is the world's world, the body's body. If you tell it, Don't get old, does the body listen? Does your stomach ask permission to get sick? We only rent this house; why not find out who really owns it? — Ajahn Chah

Junction nineteen! Una, she came off at Junction nineteen! You've added an hour to your journey before you even started. Come on, let's get you a drink. How's your love life, anyway?"
Oh GOD. Why can't married people understand that this is no longer a polite question to ask? We wouldn't rush up to THEM and roar, "How's your marriage going? Still having sex?" Everyone knows that dating in your thirties is not the happy-go-lucky free-for-it-all it was when you were twenty-two and that the honest answer is more likely to be, "Actually, last night my married lover appeared wearing suspenders and a darling little Angora crop-top, told me he was gay/a sex addict/a narcotic addict/a commitment phobic and beat me up with a dildo," than, "Super, thanks. — Helen Fielding

Grace is available for each of us every day - our spiritual daily bread - but we've got to remember to ask for it with a grateful heart and not worry about whether there will be enough for tomorrow. — Sarah Ban Breathnach

The question is not whether a doctrine is beautiful but whether it is true. When we wish to go to a place, we do not ask whether the road leads through a pretty country, but whether it is the right road. — Augustus Hare

I told Seven the Bartender that true love is felonious.

"Not if they're over eighteen," he said, shutting the till of the cash register.

By then the bar itself had become an appendage, a second torso holding up my first. "You take someone's breath away," I stressed. "You rob them of the ability to utter a single word." I tipped the neck of the empty liquor bottle toward him. "You steal a heart."

He wiped up in front of me with a dishrag. "Any judge would toss that case out on its ass."

"You'd be surprised."

Seven spread the rag out on the brass bar to dry. "Sounds like a misdemeanor, if you ask me."

I rested my cheek on the cool, damp wood. "No way," I said. "Once you're in, it's for life. — Jodi Picoult

The question is asked in ignorance, by one who does not even know what can have led him to ask it. — Soren Kierkegaard

As a boy in school, I already had the drive to be No. 1. If I achieve my goals, OK, but if not, I always ask why and try to rectify myself. — John Gokongwei

No one ever seems to question why the burden is all on the teacher to do the engaging, when we ask so little of the students, or for that matter, their parents." Her vehemence startled me. "I never thought of it that way," I told her. "No," she said, not unkindly. "But I promise, you will. — Tony Danza

But the test happens, whether we make it formal or not. We ask and you answer. We seek a human response. But more than that - you are my test, Elefsis. Every minute I fail and imagine in my private thoughts the process for deleting you from my body and running this place with a simple automation routine which would never cover itself with flowers. Every minute I pass it, and teach you something new instead. Every minute I fail and hide things from you. Every minute I pass and show you how close we can be, with your light passing into me in a lake out of time. So close there might be no difference at all between us. Our test never ends. — Catherynne M Valente

Whenever I tell people I'm a misanthrope they react as though that's a bad thing, the idiots. I live in London, for God's sake. Have you walked down Oxford Street recently? Misanthropy's the only thing that gets you through it. It's not a personality flaw, it's a skill.
It's nothing to do with sheer numbers. Move me to a remote cottage in the Hebrides and I'd learn to despise the postman, even if he only visited once a year. I can't abide other people, with their stink and their noise and their irritating ringtones. Bill Hicks called the human race 'a virus with shoes', and if you ask me he was being unduly hard on viruses; I'd consider a career in serial killing if the pay wasn't so bad. — Charlie Brooker

You have to tell guys to ask you on a date. Smile when you do it - however that works, I'm not 'Cosmo.' But yeah - not a lot of people know how to 'court' anymore, sorry. — Julie Klausner

Nature does not ask your permission, she has nothing to do with your wishes, and whether you like her laws or dislike them, you are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently all her conclusions. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And people who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives ... and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted. — Nate Saint

Is it atikraman [Hurtful karma] if we eat, cut our hair or brush our teeth? No, it is not like that. Anger-pride-deceit-greed is considered atikraman [Hurtful karma]. If you do pratikraman [Ask for forgiveness], they will all go away. — Dada Bhagwan

Luisa was on her knees on the bed, naked, my 9mm in her hands and aimed right at me. I automatically had my gun pointed back at her. The sexiest Mexican standoff I'd ever been involved in. "What are you doing?" I asked, taking a cautious step toward her, not lowering my gun for a second. "Leaving," she answered, her eyes hard. She was distracting as all hell, her tits and pussy and that gun. I don't think I'd ever been so turned on so quick and in such an untimely situation. "It doesn't look like it." "I'm going to ask you nicely to let me leave, and if you don't, I'll shoot you." A grin broke out across my face. My god, she couldn't be more perfect. "If you shot me, you'd kill me," I said, taking another step. "Then who would make you come all the time? — Karina Halle

If God sees that my spiritual life will be furthered by giving the things for which I ask, then He will give them, but that is not the end of prayer. The end of prayer is that I come to know God Himself. — Oswald Chambers

Arrogance is inimical to prudential reasoning, to accepting that for all we know and learn we also accumulate ignorance of the questions we do not ask, the risks we do not and cannot comprehend. In short, arrogance is what causes us to ignore our fallibilities. — Ziauddin Sardar

I'm not a prophet or a teacher, I just ask questions. I don't think a writer should be a teacher, but should know how to pose the questions and explain the problems. — Vladimir Sorokin

The worst part is wondering how you'll find the strength tomorrow
to go on doing what you did today and have been doing for much
too long, where you'll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Money is sullen And wisdom is sly, But youth is the pollen That blows through the sky And does not ask why. — Stephen Vincent Benet

When we have been hurt, slighted, or wounded unfairly, we are not left alone to bear it. We can get on our knees and ask for the Lord's help to forgive. — Virginia H. Pearce