I Asked For Wonder Quotes & Sayings

Lincoln," Sam had asked him on one of those nights, the summer before their senior year, "do you think we'll get married some day?"
"I hope so," he'd whispered. He didn't usually think about it like that, like "married." He thought about how he never wanted to be without her. About how happy she made him and how he wanted to go on being that happy for the rest of his life. If a wedding could promise him that, he definitely wanted to get married.
"Wouldn't it be romantic," she said, "to marry your high school sweetheart? When people ask us how we met I'll say, 'We met in high school. I saw him, and I just knew.' And they'll say, 'Didn't you
ever wonder what it would be like to be with someone else? — Rainbow Rowell

Indirectly, though, he was present in many of our conversations. Once, for instance, my father asked me a series of questions that suddenly made me wonder whether I understood even my father whom I felt closer to than any man I have ever known. "You like to tell true stories, don't you?" he asked, and I answered, "Yes, I like to tell stories that are true." Then he asked, "After you have finished your true stories sometime, why don't you make up a story and the people to go with it? "Only then will you understand what happened and why. "It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us." Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them. — Norman Maclean

You know the real reason we celebrate Christmas, don't you? I mean, beyond Santa Claus and jungle bells and Christmas trees?
You mean because Jesus was born? she asked.
Yes ... but did you ever think how Jesus was born? I mean, have you considered how it was such a humble birth, in a small barn ... how he was laid in a hay trough ... how the Son if almighty God humbled himself to be born in such lowly conditions? Have you thought about it like that? Jesus could have been born in a fine palace. After all, he was the Son of God. But for some reason God chose humble beginnings for His son. Do you ever wonder why? ... I think because God wanted to show that his love could reach to everyone, no matter who they were, from the poorest of poor to great kings. — Melody Carlson

A dread of white people now came to live permanently in my feelings and imagination. As the war drew to a close, racial conflict flared over the entire South, and though I did not witness any of it, I could not have been more thoroughly affected by it if I had participated directly in every clash. The war itself had been unreal to me, but I had grown able to respond emotionally to every hint, whisper, word, inflection, news, gossip, and rumor regarding conflicts between the races. Nothing challenged the totality of my personality so much as this pressure of hate and threat that stemmed from the invisible whites. I would stand for hours on the doorsteps of neighbors' houses listening to their talk, learning how a white woman had slapped a black woman, how a white man had killed a black man. It filled me with awe, wonder, and fear, and I asked ceaseless questions. One evening I heard a tale that rendered — Richard Wright

Jane, who is much better at reading guide books than I am (I always read them on the way back to see what I missed, it's often quite a shock), discovered something wonderful in the book she was reading. Did I know, she asked, that Brisbane was originally founded as a penal colony for convicts who committed new offences after they had arrived in Australia ? I spent a good half hour enjoying this single piece of information. It was wonderful. There we British sat, poor grey sodden creatures, huddling under our grey northern sky that seeped like a rancid dish cloth, busy sending those we wished to punish most severely to sit in bright sunlight on the coast of the Tasman Sea at the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef and maybe do some surfing too. No wonder the Australians have a particular kind of smile that they reserve exclusively for use on the British. — Douglas Adams

Lost," I say, dropping the photo on to the counter. "I've lost Elizabeth." She pauses a moment and straightens to look at the photo. "Oh, was it an advert you wanted?" Breath floods into my lungs. "Yes. Yes, that's it. I wanted to place an advert." "I'll get you a form. Awful, cats, aren't they?" I nod, feeling as though I've missed some part of the conversation. I nod, but I quite like cats, and I wonder what this woman has against them. "I remember when my auntie lost her Oscar. She was frantic. Missing for weeks, he was. Found him in a beach hut in the end. Have you asked your neighbours to look in their sheds?" I stare at the woman. I can't imagine finding Elizabeth in a shed. But perhaps it is a good suggestion. Perhaps it's just me it doesn't make sense to. I borrow a pen and write beach hut on a scrap of paper. — Emma Healey

Skepsis. I am a true skeptic, born under the noble sign of skepsis, the sign of the man who knows that all astrology is absolutely and without reservation the bullest of bullsh*t that ever there was. It is a senseless delusion that does not even have the benefit of being harmless fun. It is a harmful bore. Harmful to the human spirit, harmful to the dignity and wonder of the real universe and the real power of the mind to think for itself. I hate astrology with a fervor that is almost frightening. - Stephen Fry (when asked what sign he would be if he could create his own zodiac) — Stephen Fry

Jasper was clearly impressed. "Katie," he said, "I didn't realize you knew so much about dinosaurs."
"Yeah," said Katie resentfully. "I had to redo a class project on them when I was in fifth grade. They asked us to make a model of a dinosaur, so I made one by covering one of my old Star-Wonder Glitter Ponies with clay. You know, I gave him wings and stuff. The teacher didn't like it because he said there wasn't a real dinosaur that had wings and four legs. And a pink-and-blue sparkly mane. He gave me a D-minus and said it was a sad day for paleontology. — M T Anderson

Back inside, I'm shown an antique cabinet in which members of the community, famous for their homegrown produce, dried herbs.
The Oneida Community was an upstate tourist attraction right from the start, second, Valesky says, to Niagara Falls. I'm taking the same guided tour offered a hundred and fifty years ago to prim rubbernecks who came here to peep at sex fiends. I wonder how many of my vacationing forebears went home disappointed? They thought they were taking the train to Gomorrah but instead they got to watch herbs dry. Valesky opens a drawer in the herb cabinet so I can get a whiff. He mentions that back in the day, when one tourist was shown the cabinet she rudely asked her community-member guide, "What's that odor?" To which the guide replied, "Perhaps it's the odor of crushed selfishness." Valesky grins. "How about that for a utopian answer?" To my not particularly utopian nose, crushed selfishness smells a lot like cilantro. — Sarah Vowell

I glanced heavenward and asked for help to stop acting like a complete idiot around Niko. If this was how my ancestors responded to sexy men, it was a wonder we'd ever propagated. — Rebecca Chastain

Vices are simply overworked virtues, anyway. Economy and frugality are to be commended but follow them on in an increasing ratio and what do we find at the other end? A miser! If we overdo the using of spare moments we may find an invalid at the end, while perhaps if we allowed ourselves more idle time we would conserve our nervous strength and health to more than the value the work we could accomplish by emulating at all times the little busy bee.
I once knew a woman, not very strong, who to the wonder of her friends went through a time of extraordinary hard work without any ill effects.
I asked her for her secret and she told me that she was able to keep her health, under the strain, because she took 20 minutes, of each day in which to absolutely relax both mind and body. She did not even "set and think." She lay at full length, every muscle and nerve relaxed and her mind as quiet as her body. This always relieved the strain and renewed her strength. — Laura Ingalls Wilder

What place is this," Drizzt asked the cat quietly, "that I call home? These are my people, by skin and by heritage, but I am no kin to them. They are lost and ever will be. "How many others are like me, I wonder?" Drizzt whispered, taking one final look. "Doomed souls, as was Zaknafein, poor Zak. I do this for him, Guenhwyvar; I leave as he could not, His life has been my lesion, a dark scroll etched by the heavy price exacted by Matron Malice's evil promises. "Goodbye, Zack!" he cried, his voice rising in final defiance. "My father. Take heart, as do I, that when we meet again, in a life after this, it will surely not be in the hellfire our kin are doomed to endure. — R.A. Salvatore

My daughter Penelope has just looked over my shoulder to see what I have done so far. She remarks that it is beautifully written, and every word of it true. But she points out one objection. She says what I have done so far isn't in the least what I was wanted to do. I am asked to tell the story of the Diamond and, instead of that, I have been telling the story of my own self. Curious, and quite beyond me to account for. I wonder whether the gentlemen who make a business and a living out of writing books, ever find their own selves getting in the way of their subjects, like me? If they do, I can feel for them. In the meantime, here is another false start, and more waste of good writing-paper. What's to be done now? Nothing that I know of, except for you to keep your temper, and for me to begin it all over again for the third time. — Wilkie Collins

Until death," Jem replied gently. "Those are the words of the oath. 'Until aught but death part thee and me.' Someday, Will, I will go where none can follow me, and I think it will be sooner rather than later. Have you ever asked yourself why I agreed to be your parabatai?"
"No better offers forthcoming?" Will tried for humor, but his voice cracked like glass.
"I thought you needed me," Jem said. "There is a wall you have built about yourself, Will, and I have never asked you why. But no one should shoulder every burden alone. I thought you would let me inside if I became your parabatai, and then you would have at least someone to lean upon. I did wonder what my death would mean for you. I used to fear it, for your sake. I feared you would be left alone inside that wall. But now ... something has changed. I do not know why. But I know that it is true."
"That what is true?" Will's fingers were still digging into Jem's wrist.
"That the wall is coming down. — Cassandra Clare

So how does she know?
If you stay, I'll do whatever you want. I'll quit the band, go with you to New York. But if you need me to go away, I'll do that, too. Maybe coming back to your old life would just be too painful, maybe it'd be easier for you to erase us. And that would suck, but I'd do it. I can lose you like that if I don't lose you today. I'll let you go. If you stay.
That was my vow. And it's been my secret. My burden. My shame. That I asked her to stay. That she listened ...
I wasn't about to tell her about the promise I'd made. A promise that in the end, I was forced to keep.
But she knew.
No wonder she hates me.
In a weird way, it's a relief. I'm so tired of carrying this secret around. I'm so tired of feeling bad for making her live and feeling angry at her for living without me and feeling like a hypocrite for the whole mess. — Gayle Forman

I wonder if people who asked for God to intervene in our world, really know what they are asking. Will they want to be there when God really does intervene? — C.S. Lewis

The Top Ten Reasons Why Virgin Val Sucks
10. She called me a one-hit-wonder.
9. She doesn't appreciate the endearing nickname I gave her.
8. She makes me write stupid blogs about her at four in the morning.
7. She's encouraging people not to have sex.
6. She blew me off when I asked her out.
5. She has a crush on a douche bag.
4. She won't answer any of my calls.
3. She's such a tease with her look-but-don't-touch policy.
2. I played a whole effing concert just for her and she didn't come even though she told me she would. (You're such a liar!)
And the #1 reason why Virgin Val sucks?
I still want her anyway. — Kelly Oram

Seeing those scars, those marks that he most definitely had never asked for, I had to wonder how he felt about being permanently marked up against his will. — Jay Crownover

Getting the role in '300' saved me. I'd been out of work for 11 months after 'The Brothers Grimm.' Once the film came out and didn't do so well, the director Terry Gilliam blamed me for absolutely everything. It was pretty appalling, and I had started to wonder if I'd ever get another job again when I was asked to audition for '300.' — Lena Headey

For the first thirty-something years of my life, I never once asked my dad if he was OK . . . and now I've done it twice in one week. I wonder if this is just the way it is. Are all our parents, collectively, fucked up? Have they always been fucked up, and it just takes us until our own adulthood to figure that out? — Matthew Norman

A man had been in prison for twenty years. When he left they gave him his old clothes. In the pocket he found a ticket from a shoe repair shop. Perhaps the shop is still there. Perhaps they still have my old shoes, he thought to himself. So off he went and sure enough it was there." I've been on holiday for a long time, I wonder if you have my shoes?" asked the man. The old man went into the back of the shop and came back after two minutes. "They'll be ready on Thursday. — Jeremy Taylor

What are your pleasures and pursuits, Lord Moncrieffe?" Miss Eversea asked too brightly, when the silence had gone on for more than was strictly comfortable or polite.
That creaky conversation lubricant. It irritated him again that she was humoring him.
"Well, I'm partial to whores."
Her head whipped toward him like a weather-vane in a hurricane. Her eyes, he noted, were enormous, and such a dark blue they were nearly purple. Her mouth dropped, and the lower lip was quivering with shock or ... or ...
"Whor ... whores ... ?" She choked out the word as if she'd just inhaled it like bad cigar smoke.
He widened his own eyes with alarm, recoiling slightly.
"I ... I beg your pardon - Horses. Honestly, Miss Eversea," he stammered. "I do wonder what you think of me if that's what you heard. — Julie Anne Long

He communicated via napkin which was probably a Brechtian alienation device.
wonder if it possible for you to sleep on stage because I've got poem where I say things about you while you sleep?
I asked to hear the poem first and he wrote: whole point is your not knowing.
Hard to believe they fund his PhD. — Joe Dunthorne

I wonder why Steven wasn't at swimming club tonight?" Archie asked.
"He's caught bronchitis," Mrs Akran said.
Imran thought for a second before replying. "I would like to catch a dinosaur too. I wonder what he feeds it?"
Archie looked at his friend his face looked as if he was in pain before he burst out laughing. "Imran you're tragic. Bronchitis is like a bad cold it's not a type of dinosaur. — Mark A. Cooper

Life was a fairy-tale, then, it is a tragedy now. When I was 43 and John Hay 41 he said life was a tragedy after 40, and I disputed it. Three years ago he asked me to testify again: I counted my graves, and there was nothing for me to say. I am old; I recognize it but I don't realize it. I wonder if a person ever really ceases to feel young - I mean, for a whole day at a time. — Mark Twain

Who are you?' one soldier asked in wonder after listening to him play for hours. 'Are you man or angel?' He laughed quietly. 'I'm both,' he said. 'I'm man because I live in a cold solitary cell. I'm an angel because I live above my circumstances.' The — Odafe Atogun

Aren't you failing English?" I asked.
Angeline flushed. "It's not my fault."
"Even I know you can't write an article on Wikipedia and then use it as a source in your own essay." Sydney had been torn between horror and hysterics when she told me.
"I took 'primary source' to a whole new level!"
Honestly, it was a wonder we'd gotten by for so long without Angeline. Life must have been so boring before her. — Richelle Mead

Fay had a spot of blood on the left side of her mouth and I took a wet cloth and wiped it off. Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love. — Charles Bukowski

One time I was standing on a corner in Chicago & a man stopped his car & asked for directions to a place I knew & I said that's too easy, ask me something harder & he yelled & said he wasn't playing games kid & then he drove off & I think about him sometimes & wonder if he ever got there. — Brian Andreas

He began to attack the bone with a regular knife and spoon. Until I nudged him with an elbow. "The marrow shovel." It was meant to reach down to the bottom of a bone and lift the marrow out. He reached for the utensil. "That's right. I always forget!" He wouldn't if Aunt had been his teacher. "Why do you think it is that we can't just use a knife?" I smothered a laugh as I remembered that I had asked Aunt that very same thing. "I don't know." "Neither do I. This table is a pigeon trap. A dozen different forks and knives and spoons. Four different goblets. All of them just waiting to be knocked over or misapplied and mishandled. It's a wonder anyone is ever tempted to eat!" "You're doing quite well." "Franklin's much better at all of this than I am." "But you're much better at conversing." "And making you laugh? Am I better at that?" I smiled. "Yes. I would say so." "Good. Because that, at least, is something worthwhile. — Siri Mitchell

Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Are you so very hungry?" asked Dorothy, in wonder. "You can hardly imagine the size of my appetite," replied the Tiger, sadly. "It seems to fill my whole body, from the end of my throat to the tip of my tail. I am very sure the appetite doesn't fit me, and is too large for the size of my body. Some day, when I meet a dentist with a pair of forceps, I'm going to have it pulled." "What, your tooth?" asked Dorothy. "No, my appetite," said the Hungry Tiger. — L. Frank Baum

I chanced a shy look at Sam, and found he was already staring at me. When our eyes met, we both blushed but didn't look away. His curiosity, his energy, his wonder for the world had reawakened the part of me I was so sure I'd lost.
"What now?" he asked.
I smiled. "Next stop the pyramids?"
He grinned, and impulsively I lifted my chin and kissed him. For a moment, the warmth of that kiss drove away the pain and the horrors of the last few days. I leaned into him as much as my bandages allowed, until at last I pulled my lips away and rested my forehead against his.
"The pyramids, the North Pole, the moon," Sam replied, his voice a bit hoarse. "Next stop anywhere, as long as you're there. — Jessica Khoury

I've always asked to be able to speak and write about injustice and to do it in a way that would encourage people to make things better for everyone. — Stevie Wonder

My name is Lev," said Lev.
"My name is Lydia," said the woman. And they shook hands, Lev's hand holding the scrunched-up kerchief and Lydia's hand rough with salt and smelling of egg, and then Lev asked, "What are you planning to do in En gland?" and Lydia said, "I have some interviews in London for jobs as a translator."
"That sounds promising."
"I hope so. I was a teacher of English at School 237 in Yarbl, so my language is very colloquial."
Lev looked at Lydia. It wasn't difficult to imagine her standing in front of a class and writing words on a blackboard. He said, "I wonder why you're leaving our country when you had a good job at School 237 in Yarbl?"
"Well," said Lydia, "I became very tired of the view from my window. Every day, summer and winter, I looked out at the schoolyard and the high fence and the apartment block beyond, and I began to imagine I would die seeing these things, and I didn't want this. I expect you understand what I mean? — Rose Tremain

Don't worry, due'ane," He murmured lowly...."Who's Dewey Anne." I asked him, voice gruff. He was so familiar, this Bracken, but so strange, naked next to me. I could touch
him, I realized with wonder. I could run my hands from his flank to his shoulder, and he would welcome the touch because he was mine.
You are." He whispered, and I met his eyes. "It's elfish, the feminine noun
for 'other equal half'. You are my other. My everything."
--Wounded
(Bracken and Cory) — Amy Lane

So if the Infernum is an empy interior, what's Heaven in their conception?" I asked, nudging him.
"A second inside-out house, inside, or rather 'outside' the first," he said. "If you cross its threshold, you realize our world, for all its wonder, has been but a shdow, another kind of empitness. Heaven is more than this. — Rachel Hartman

The great Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, "I did not ask for success, I asked for wonder."17 — Rob Bell

The world is a wonder that somebody asked, nobody knows cause nobody has,

Since love was created I love a lot,
some people love a tiny dot, even the littlest of friendship can merge become huge and serge love. That's why the world was created , for loving,and adoring.
so enjoy love to the max, because nobody will be waiting for you — Avis

You ever wonder what happens to people when they die?" I asked. He shrugged. "Not really. I mean, I guess they go to heaven? That's where my Grans went." "I think about it a lot," I said. "I think when people die, their souls go to heaven but just for a little while. Like that's where they see their old friends and stuff, and kind of catch up on old times. But then I actually think the souls start thinking about their lives on earth, like if they were good or bad or whatever. And then they get born again as brand-new babies in the world." "Why would they want to do that?" "Because then they get another chance to get it right," I answered. "Their souls get a chance to have a do-over. — R.J. Palacio

While much recent historicist criticism has assumed early nineteenth-century readers attuned to subtle ideological nuances in poetry, actual responses from readers often come closer to clulessness ... It is no surprise that no one understood Blake, but other poets fared not much better ... Coleridge's 'Christabel' was 'the standing enigma which puzzles the curiosity of literary circles. What is it all about?', while another reviewer asked about Shelley, 'What, in the name of wonder on one side, and of common sense on the other, is the meaning of this metaphysical rhapsody about the unbinding of Prometheus?'. Even Keats was condemned for 'his frequent obscurity and confusion of language' and his 'unintelligible quaintness'. Byron, never to be outdone, boasted in 'Don Juan' that not only did he not understand many of his fellow poets, he did not understand himself either: 'I don't pretend that I quite understand / My own meaning when I would be very fine.' ... — Andrew Elfenbein

Ronan said, "A piece of Cabeswater. A piece of a dream. It's what I asked for. And this is ... this is what I think it should look like, probably." Adam felt the truth of it. This awful and impossible and lovely object was what a dream was when it had nothing to inhabit. Who was this person who could dream a dream into a concrete shape? No wonder Aglionby bored Ronan. — Maggie Stiefvater

I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

She asked another question: "What does it matter if the rhinos die out? Is it really important that they are saved?"
This would normally have riled me ... but I had come to think of her as Dr. Spock from Star Trek - an emotionless, purely logical creature, at least with regards to her feelings for animals. Like Spock, though, I knew there were one or two things that stirred her, so I gave an honest reply.
" ... to be honest, it doesn't matter. No economy will suffer, nobody will go hungry, no diseases will be spawned. Yet there will never be a way to place a value on what we have lost. Future children will see rhinos only in books and wonder how we let them go so easily. It would be like lighting a fire in the Louvre and watching the Mona Lisa burn. Most people would think 'What a pity' and leave it at that while only a few wept — Peter Allison

All right, You Great Git, You've asked for it. I'll cover the world in Tastee-Freez and Wimpy Burgers. I'll fill it with concrete runways, motorways, aircraft, television, automobiles, advertising, plastic flowers, frozen food and supersonic bangs. I'll make it so noisy and disgusting that even You'll be ashamed of Yourself! No wonder You've so few friends. You're unbelievable! — Peter Cook

I never think it's right to chew gum in front of other people, but a lot of times I'll come in for a meeting chewing gum and I'll forget I'm chewing it. Then you don't want to swallow it because it stays in your system for seven years or something, so I've asked to throw it away. I've started to wonder if that's why I didn't get certain movies. — Jennifer Lawrence

-Paint-
My girlfriend is so besotted that she can't take her eyes off me. After we've turned out the light she puts on her night-vision goggles, and watched me as I sleep. Quite often I am woken by her sighing and involuntary yelps of happiness. This has been going on for years, and is showing no sign of abating. Once I asked her to stop all this infra-red activity, but it didn't really work; I'd wake up to find her covering me in luminous paint, and softly whispering, 'Sometimes I wonder if you know how much I love you. — Dan Rhodes