Go Ask Alice Quotes & Sayings

I like a lot of Margaret Atwood, I like much of Alice Munro. Again, if you were to ask me about male writers, there's often a novel I admire, but not all of their works. — Ann Beattie

Do you really think these are Alice's tears?" I ask. "That I'm supposed to make them go away somehow?"
"I'm the wrong guy to ask. I just saw a skeleton with antlers and a forest of aphid-noshing flower zombies. — A.G. Howard

Another case for the dumbness of reading, however, is that books do not contain answers, but rather pose more questions. And asking questions makes you look dumber, not smarter.
I thought Alice's Adventures in Wonderland would be a delightful romp through a child's subconscious, but while reading it I started to ask questions like "How do you really speak to other humans when our language often means the opposite of what is intended?" and "How do I really know anyone?" And so on, until I was asking the question "Why even exist at all?"
That didn't make me smarter! That made me wish for death, and being dead looks way dumber than being alive. — Dan Wilbur

Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit came near her, — Lewis Carroll

I can't just go up to people standing in the snow at the German-Austrian border and ask them: "Are you an Islamist?" When people flee to us from war zones, we first have to help. But we also have to be quick to look very closely at who it is that is coming. — Alice Schwarzer

Anyhow, he say, you know how it is. You ask yourself one question, it lead to fifteen. I start to wonder why us need love. Why us suffer. Why us black. Why us men and women. Where do children really come from. It didn't take long to realize I didn't hardly know nothing. And that if you ast yourself why you black or a man or a woman or a bush it don't mean nothing if you don't ask why you here, period. So what you think? I ask. I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, he say, the more I love. — Alice Walker

He spent the next ten minutes giving a speech about the great day that is the day of their Surrender, and I can't be bothered to remember it all (it went on for nine minutes too long, if you ask me), but suffice it to say that it was a heart-warming speech that excited the crowd and sent jitters up Alice's skirts; and anyway, I hope you don't mind but I'd like to skip ahead to the part where things actually happen. — Tahereh Mafi

You know our Alice. She plays hide-and-seek but sometimes forgets to ask someone to look for her. — Gregory Maguire

I bet the pill is harder to get than drugs
which shows how screwed up this world really is! — Beatrice Sparks

At the beginning of every semester, I ask my graduate students whether there is something I should read that will help me understand their work. — Alice McDermott

But somebody said there was billions bet on this. You'd think they'd be lined up three deep the whole way. And that there'd be TV coverage"
"It's discouraged."
"Why?"
"Why ask me?"
"Because you know," Garraty said, exasperated.
"How do you know?"
"Jesus, you remind me of the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, sometimes," Garraty said. "Don't you ever just talk? — Stephen King

There was a nook in the house that contained what they called the Turkish Room, which was for intimate conversation. And when my mother had her sixth birthday, her grandmother led her into the Turkish Room. They were both named Inez. And on that day Big Inez gave Little Inez a plantation all her own. Two thousand acres. Then her little sister came running in and said, "Grandmother, can I have a plantation too?" And Big Inez looked down and said, "Child, your name is Alice. You were named for your Yankee grandmother. Go ask your Yankee grandmother for a plantation. — Adam Gopnik

Do you know what they call themselves, all these people?"
Alyss shook her head. How could she know?
"Alyssians." Bibwit spelled it out.
Her heart gave a little jump. Alyssians? No, they ask too much of me. "I don't think I'm ready for all of this," she said. — Frank Beddor

If this were a courageous country,
it would ask Gloria to lead it
since she is sane and funny and beautiful and smart
and the National Leaders we've always had
are not.
When I listen to her talk about women's rights
children's rights
men's rights
I think of the long line of Americans
who should have been president, but weren't.
Imagine Crazy Horse as president. Sojourner Truth.
John Brown. Harriet Tubman. Black Elk or Geronimo.
Imagine President Martin Luther King confronting
the youthful "Oppie" Oppenheimer. Imagine President
Malcolm X going after the Klan. Imagine President Stevie
Wonder dealing with the "Truly Needy."
Imagine President Shirley Chisholm, Ron Dellums, or
Sweet Honey in the Rock
dealing with Anything.
It is imagining to make us weep with frustration,
as we languish under real estate dealers, killers,
and bad actors. — Alice Walker

Notwithstanding the poverty of my outside experience, I have always had a significance for myself, and every chance to stumle along my straight and narrow little path, and to worship at the feet of my Deity, and what more can a human soul ask for? — Alice James

So your husband's home with the little ones? - it'll be good for him, let him see what it's like with kids all day, right? men never understand until you ask them to do it and then they say, Well, the kids only act like this with me, it has to be much easier when you're with them, isn't that the truth? They're really thinking, You can't possibly put up with this day after day, can you? — Alice McDermott

Being human means losing everything we love best in the world," she murmured as she released me. "But would you ask to be anything else? — Alice Hoffman

She hoped he wouldn't ask what she was doing at the party. If she had to say she was a poet, her present situation, her overindulgence, would be taken as drearily typical. — Alice Munro

The snag in being married to a person who knows more or less everything is that one gets hopelessly lazy ... I never look things up in books because all I need to do is ask him, and when he gives me the answers I don't properly commit them to memory because I know if I forget all I have to do is to ask him again. It is rather like keeping one's brain in a suitcase. — Alice Thomas Ellis

When I ask my medical students to describe their image of a woman who elects to birth with a midwife rather than with an obstetrician, they generally describe a woman who wears long cotton skirts, braids her hair, eats only organic vegan food, does yoga, and maybe drives a VW microbus. — Alice Dreger

Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: '
that begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness
you know you say things are "much of a muchness"
did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?' 'Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, 'I don't think
' 'Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter. This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though — Lewis Carroll

You can donate marrow for her, Alice Faye, you can't cure her. You can win a poker tournament, but that won't make her want to live. So I'll ask you again: Who are you, and what are you doing here? Because Munny sure doesn't want you to be her, and she wants someone to be out in the world living since she's got the market cornered on dying right now. — Elle Lothlorien

But where do we go?"(Elinor)
"I used to think there was a plan, a rough plan, but a plan all the same," the doctor admitted. "Now, I believe there are a thousand plans. Every breath, every decision, influences the plan, expands it, shortens it, twists it all around. It's always changing. Those of us lucky enough to make it through the multitude of possible diseases and accidents get old. We get tired. We close our eyes."
"And then? Where are we then?"
Silly to ask him as though he knew, but in fact the doctor didn't hesitate. He took Elinor's hand and placed it on his chest, in the place where he knew his heart to be.
"There."
Elinor smiled and thought at last. At last someone had told her the truth. — Alice Hoffman

Whenever I want to know how to cook something, I can't ask one chef - I have to ask six. — Alice Waters

A latter-day Go Ask Alice, BEAUTIFUL is raw, gritty, and powerful, an intense ice-pick jab to the heart. A stunning debut and a must-read. — R.A. Nelson

Country manners. Even if somebody phones up to tell you your house is burning down, they ask first how you are. — Alice Munro

I don't know. I imagine good teaching as a circle of earnest people sitting down to ask each other meaningful questions. I don't see it as a handing down of answers ... — Alice Walker

I've got a surprise." Jase opens the door of the van for me a couple days later. I haven't seen Tim or Nan since the incident at the B&T, and I'm secretly glad for a break from the drama.
I slide into the van, my sneakers crunching into a crumpled pile of magazines, an empty Dunkin' Donuts coffee cup, various Poland Spring and Gatorade bottles, and lots of unidentifiable snack wrappers. Alice and her Bug are evidently still at work.
"A surprise, for me?" I ask, intrigued.
"Well, it's for me, but you too, kind of. I mean, it's something I want you to see."
This sounds a little unnerving. "Is it a body part?" I ask.
Jase rolls his eyes. "No. Jeez. I hope I'd be smoother than that."
I laugh. "Okay. Just checking. — Huntley Fitzpatrick

Fans always ask, 'What did the bedroom look like?' All they ever saw was Alice or Ralph going in and out. — Audrey Meadows

This was the kind of moral dilemma Pauline often got her into. Mr. Someone-or-Other, Pauline had mouthed. Adele at lunch with him, crying. But Mr. Who? She turned to her typewriter, Pauline's eyes still on her. She would like to ask "Who?" - but to do so, in that same mouthing whisper Pauline had used, would be to enter too fully into Pauline's tale, Pauline's bitter triumph, and, in some way, into Pauline's unhappy life. But Mr. Who? — Alice McDermott

Today Americans, who used to feel welcomed wherever we went, travel abroad with trepidation. We know we are not trusted or liked, that we are even hated, by millions of people around the globe. We must ask ourselves why this is so and do the work of discovering our historical behavior toward the other countries and peoples of the planet. As disturbing as this will be, it is a first step toward a peaceful existence. Not because we can make peace for our country, but because we can make peace without ourselves by changing any harmful behavior or attitudes that contribute to our present predicament. Choose any country on the map that appears to hate America. Listen to what people are shouting at their rallies and read what their banners proclaim in the street. Sit with their anger until you can see America through their eyes... Remember that you, yourself, are America. The U.S. Behave as if you are the entire country and carry yourself with humility and dignity. — Alice Walker

I'm just a friendly bystander who they occasionally ask questions of. That's my level of involvement. — Alice Sebold

A lot of people ask questions that they don't want to answer themselves, and if we're honest about the intimacy that we have with our parents, you wish them the best and you wish them the worst more than anybody else in the world. I think everyone has had a moment in their life where they wished a parent ill, and I think it's perhaps a very romantic idea that that doesn't happen. — Alice Sebold

'American Horror' goes for a very specific kind of Seventies suburban downer ambience - 'Flowers in the Attic' paperbacks, Black Sabbath album covers and late-night flicks like 'Let's Scare Jessica to Death.' It even has 'Go Ask Alice'-era urban legends. — Rob Sheffield

I'll have to think about it, but I can do that," Taryn said. "Of course you can," Dannon said. "But don't think about ways to trick them or outsmart them. Just focus on your ignorance. You don't know anything, but you're willing to speculate, and you'd like some information from them - to hear what they think." "What about you and Carver?" "We can handle it," Dannon said. "We've spent half our lives lying to cops, of one kind or another. Nobody else on the staff knows. Might not be a bad idea for us to stay away completely . . . unless they ask for us." "Let's do that," Taryn said. "Maybe you two could start doing some advance security work." "I'll talk to Ron," Dannon said. He heard high heels, and said, "Here comes Alice. — John Sandford

Before I embark on any new venture, I ask myself: will the joy of doing this make me lose track of any concern for time? If the answer is yes, I proceed! — Alice Walker

Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit. It? I ask. Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It. But what do it look like? I ask. Don't look like nothing, she say. It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you cam feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found it. — Alice Walker

I've read Flowers in the Attic and The Other Side of Midnight and Go Ask Alice and I don't want to read any more books where the girl dies in the end. — Rebecca Godfrey

By-the-bye, what became of the baby?" said the Cat. "I'd nearly forgotten to ask."
"It turned into a pig," Alice answered very quietly, just as if the Cat had come back in a natural way.
"I thought it would," said the Cat, and vanished again. — Lewis Carroll

It's a good thing most people bleed on the inside or this would be a gory, blood-smeared earth. — Beatrice Sparks

Cheshire Cat: If I were looking for a white rabbit, I'd ask the Mad Hatter.
Alice: The Mad Hatter? Oh, no no no ...
Cheshire Cat: Or, you could ask the March Hare, in that direction.
Alice: Oh, thank you. I think I'll see him ...
Cheshire Cat: Of course, he's mad, too.
Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people.
Cheshire Cat: Oh, you can't help that. Most everyone's mad here.
[laughs maniacally; starts to disappear]
Cheshire Cat: You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself. — Lewis Carroll

Fourth time's the charm, she says to people who ask her what the secret of a happy marriage is, but that's not the way she feels about it. She knows now that when you don't lose yourself in the bargain, you find you have double the love you started with, and that's one recipe that can't be tampered with. — Alice Hoffman

Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse," said the Hatter, "when the Queen bawled out 'He's murdering the time! Off with his head!'"
"How dreadfully savage!" exclaimed Alice.
"and ever since that," the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, "he wo'n't do a thing I ask! It's always six o'clock now. — Lewis Carroll

I wanted to write in you. — Beatrice Sparks

I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love. — Alice Walker

Everyone, this is the new girl. Elder knows her. New girl, this is everyone." A few people look up politely; some actually smile. Most, however, look wary at best, disgusted at worse. The nurse closest to me jabs her finger behind her ear and starts whispering to nobody.
"What's wrong with her?" I ask Harley as he leads me to the table he was sitting at.
"Oh, don't worry, we're all mad here."
I giggle, mostly from nerves. "It's a good thing I read Alice in Wonder-land . I definitely think I've fallen into the rabbit hole."
"Read what?" Harley asks.
"Never mind." All around me, eyes follow my every move.
"Look," I say loudly. "I know I look different. But I'm just a person, like you." I hold my head up high, looking them all in the eyes, trying to hold their stares for as long as possible.
"You tell 'em," says Harley with another Cheshire grin. — Beth Revis

He backed off, the way he always does, but it won't happen a second time. If he ever sees her again he's going to go right up to her and ask her to marry him, that's what he'll do. He's sick of letting fate roll right past him. — Alice Hoffman

But this did not seem likely to happen. She went on and on, a long way, but wherever the road divided there were sure to be two finger-posts pointing the same way, one marked 'TO TWEEDLEDUM'S HOUSE' and the other 'TO THE HOUSE OF TWEEDLEDEE.' 'I do believe,' said Alice at last, 'that they live in the same house! I wonder I never thought of that before - But I can't stay there long. I'll just call and say "how d'you do?" and ask them the way out of the wood. If I could only get to the Eighth Square before it gets dark!' So she wandered on, talking to herself as she went, till, on turning a sharp corner, she came upon two fat little men, so suddenly that she could not help starting back, but in another moment she recovered herself, feeling sure that they must be. — Lewis Carroll

Happiness," he says, "is the price of profound thought."
"Who's that quote from?" I ask.
He winks. "Me. — Alice Oseman

The funny thing is, when I ask people with dark skin if they would change their color, they tell me no, and when I ask women if they would rather be men, they tell me no, and I get the same response when I ask people with unusual anatomies if they would take a magic pill to erase their unusual features. — Alice Dreger

When I talk about intersex, people ask me, 'But what about the locker room?' Yes, what about the locker room? If so many people feel trepidation around it, why don't we fix the locker room? There are ways to signal to children that they are not the problem, and normalization technologies are not the way. — Alice Dreger

One pill makes you larger, And one pill makes you small, And the ones that Mother gives you Don't do anything at all, Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall. — Anonymous

I sure wasn't going to ask Aunt Sally, because if she told me once that getting your period was like a moth becoming a butterfly, she'd probably say that sexual intercourse was like a deer getting antlers or something. — Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Everybody wants attention and admiration. Nobody wants to be criticized. The sweetest sound in the English language is the sound of a person's own name. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly. Let the other person save face. — Alice Schroeder

No man in the New City could love her as Hatcher did - of that Alice was certain. It was deep and all-consuming but somehow never suffocating. It was unselfish. It did not ask for anything and yet he made no secret of his need. There was no one in the world like Hatcher, and if she hadn't been mad, there would be no Hatcher for her. — Christina Henry