Quotes & Sayings About Not Answering

Christianity is not a set of teachings to understand. It is a Person to follow. As he walked with Jesus, Andrew watched Jesus heal the sick, teach God's wisdom, and demonstrate God's power. Andrew not only learned about God; he actually experienced Him! Moments will come when you stand at a crossroads with your Lord. You will have a hundred questions for Him. Rather than answering the questions one by one, Jesus may say, "Put on your shoes, step out onto the road, and follow Me." As you walk daily with Him, Jesus will answer your questions, and you will discover far more than you even knew to ask. — Henry T. Blackaby

I've been giving interviews for the last 25 or 30 years, more often than not answering the same questions over and over again, ad nauseum. — Boyd Rice

- With respect, Professor McGonagall, I'm not quite sure you understand what I'm trying to do here.
- With respect, Mr. Potter, I'm quite sure I don't. Unless - this is a guess, mind - you're trying to take over the world?
- No! I mean yes - well, NO!
- I think i should perhaps be alarmed that you have trouble answering the question. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

She could not escape asking (in the exact words and mental intonations which a thousand million women, dairy wenches and mischief-making queens, had used before her, and which a million million women will know hereafter), "Was it all a horrible mistake, my marrying him?" She quieted the doubt
without answering it. — Sinclair Lewis

I certainly hope I'm not still answering child-star questions by the time I reach menopause. — Christina Ricci

I don't mean to be ungrateful but if someone's out there answering prayers, mine's not at the top of the list — Franny Billingsley

John Seely Brown, the former director of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, once said, The essence of being human involves asking questions, not answering them. — Eric Schmidt

At this point I feel I would be remiss to not mention the prevalence of a specific kind of person who enters the field of book publishing. This is the English lit major who never should have left academia, a genius who has read all of V.S. Naipaul but can't photocopy title pages right side up. This person is very thin, possibly vegan, probably Ivy League. He or she feels as if answering the phone in a chipper voice is a form of legalized prostitution. He or she has a single quirky fashion piece, usually red or black, and waxes poetic about typewriters and the British, having never truly known either. Regardless of sex, they all want to be David Foster Wallace when they grow up. — Sloane Crosley

There is poetry and there is beauty in real sympathy; but there is more - there is action. The noblest and most powerful form of sympathy is not merely the responsive tear, the echoed sigh, the answering look; it is the embodiment of the sentiment in actual help. — Octavius Winslow

You will remember this when all else fades, this moment, here, together, by this well. There will be certain days, and certain nights, you'll feel my presence near you, hear my voice. You'll think you have imagined it and yet, inside you, you will catch an answering cry. On April evenings, when the rain has ceased, your heart will shake, you'll weep for nothing, pine for what's not there. For you, this life will never be enough, there will forever be an emptiness, where once the god was all in all in you. — John Banville

He wondered if he would live to see the blossom on his apple trees and felt an answering pop inside himself. Ah, so it would not be long now. It began to snow lightly, the last flakes to fall before the spring. He put on his wedding finery, the clothes he had worn so long ago when he married his beloved Pamposh, and which he had kept all this time wrapped in tissue paper in a trunk. As a bridegroom he went outdoors and the snowflakes caressed his grizzled cheeks. His mind was alert, he was ambulatory and nobody was waiting for him with a club. He had his body and his mind and it seemed he was to be spared a brutal end. That at least was kind. He went into his apple orchard, seated himself cross-legged beneath a tree, closed his eyes, heard the verses of the Rig-Veda fill the world with beauty and ceased upon the midnight with no pain. — Salman Rushdie

Man must be an emptiness, a nothingness, which is not a pure nothingness (reines Nichts), but something that is to the extent that it annihilates Being, in order to realize itself at the expense of Being and to nihilate in being. Man is negating Action, which transforms given Being and, by transforming it, transforms itself. Man is what he is only to the extent that he becomes what he is; his true Being (Sein) is Becoming (Werden), Time, History; and he becomes, he is History only in and by Action that negates the given, the Action of Fighting and of Work - of the Work that finally produces the table on which Hegel writes his Phenomenology, and of the Fight that is finally that Battle at Jena whose sounds he hearts while writing the Phenomenology. And that is why, in answering the "What am I?" Hegel had to take account of both that table and those sounds. — Alexandre Kojeve

Her hands tightened on him. "I mean it," she said. "We're not doing this."
"Define this."
"We're not going to be friends."
"Deal," he said.
"We're not going to even like each other."
"Obviously."
She stared into his eyes, hers turbulent and heated. "And no more kissing - "
He swallowed her words with his mouth, delving deeply, groaning at the taste of her. He heard her answering moan, and then her arms wound tight around his neck.
And for the first time since his arrival back in Santa Rey, they were on the same page. — Jill Shalvis

Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally "bright", did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. — Ray Bradbury

Texting is a lot like an answering machine. If you don't want to talk to somebody, it's like screening your calls. To me, it's a way of communication, but not one that I favor. — Pat Gillick

I'm not going to lie, there are more interesting ways to spend your time than answering questions about yourself. But if there were no questions to ask me, I might have a beef with that. — Colin Farrell

You never say what I wish you'd say, and you frequently say nothing at all when it's clear you should say something, so it's not entirely fantastical that you'd say a certain thing when you mean something else entirely." He opened his mouth, shut it, and considered the ground briefly before responding. "I remember studying Fleet Admiral Starcrest's Mathematical Probabilities Applied to Military Strategies as a young boy and finding that less confusing than what you just said." Now it was her turn for a stunned pause before answering. "Sicarius?" She laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. "Was that a joke?" "A statement of fact. — Lindsay Buroker

My eyes already touch the sunny hill. Going far ahead of the road I have begun. So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp; it has inner light, even from a distance- and charges us, even if we do not reach it, into something else, which, hardly sensing it, we already are; a gesture waves us on answering our own wave ... but what we feel is the wind in our faces. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Sister, why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Cage the animals at night?"
"Well ... " She looked up and out through the barred window before answering me."We don't want to, Jennings, but we have to. You see, the animals that are given to us we have to take care of. If we didn't cage them up in one place, we might lose them, they might get hurt or damaged. It's not the best thing, but it's the only way we have to take care of them."
"But if somebody loved one them," I asked, "wouldn't it be a good idea to let them have one? To keep, I mean?"
"Yes, it would be. But not everyone would love them and take care of them as you would. I wish I could give them all away tomorrow." She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. "But I can't. My heart would break if I saw just one of those animals lying by the wayside uncared for, unloved. No, Jennings. It's better if we keep them together. — Jennings Michael Burch

Why did you spend your whole life working in an insurance company? You should have been a painter, a musician, well, I don't know. Why didn't you follow your calling?"

Don Rigoberto nodded and reflected a moment before answering.

"Because I was a coward, son," he finally murmured. "Because I lacked faith in myself. I never believed I had the talent to be a real artist. But maybe that was an excuse for not trying. I decided not to be a creator but only a consumer of art, a dilettante of culture. Because I was a coward is the sad truth. So now you know. Don't follow my example. Whatever your calling is, follow it as far as you can and don't do what I did, don't betray it. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

But Aoi found it impossible to fully open herself up to any of her
new friends. She could laugh with them, rant with them, even play
at falling in love with them. But there remained a certain line she was loath to let anybody cross, and if someone tried to come closer
than that, she hastily erected a wall, not answering the phone and
staying away from classes until a more comfortable distance reasserted
itself. — Mitsuyo Kakuta

Sometimes God's way of answering prayer is not by removing the pressure, but by increasing your strength to bear it. — Elizabeth George

On Quora, you're not answering questions because you want to get points or because you have nothing else to do. — Adam D'Angelo

Texts between Dr. Stayner & Livie(with a little help from Kacey)
Dr. Stayner: Tell me you did one out-of-character thing last night
Livie: I drank enough Jell-O shots to fill a small pool, and then proceeded to break out every terrible dance move known to mankind. I am now the proud owner of a tattoo and if I didn't have a video to prove otherwise, I'd believe I had it done in a back alley with hepatitis-laced needles. Satisfied?
Dr. Stayner: That's a good start. Did you talk to a guy?
Kacey(answering for Livie): Not only did I talk to a guy but I've now seen two penises, including the one attached to the naked man in my room this morning when I woke up. I have pictures. Would you like to see one?
Dr. Stayner: Glad you're making friends. Talk to you on Saturday — K.A. Tucker

I remember being seven and asking my mom if I was as pretty as Monique [my best friend in grade school]. And with all the love in the world, my mom looked at me and said, 'Oh, honey, you're so funny.' So, she doesn't lie to me ... she answers the question by not answering and instead tells me what she thinks is my greatest strength. — Jennifer Aniston

What would the masters do?
when people arn't successful, they sometimes wonder, why not? they get answers, then they wonder why those answers don't seem to meet their needs. they get the wrong answers, and they get upset about it. perhaps they're really getting the right answers, but answering the wrong questions.
too many people ask nothing but "Why" questions.
they analyze and analyse problems - but no solution. "you can analyse a glass of water and you're left with a lot of chemical components, but nothing you can drink".
"Why?" questions can drive us crazy. "What?" questions drive us sane.
What questions lead us to practical solutions. — Peter McWilliams

Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice? — Virginia Woolf

You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well know that if you ask a person what numbers make up twelve, taking care to prohibit him whom you ask from answering twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, 'for this sort of nonsense will not do for me,' - then obviously, if that is your way of putting the question, no one can answer you. But suppose that he were to retort, 'Thrasymachus, what do you mean? If one of these numbers which you interdict be the true answer to the question, am I falsely to say some other number which is not the right one? - is that your meaning?' - How would you answer him? Just as if the two cases were at all alike! he said. Why should they not be? I replied; and even if they are not, but only appear to be so to the person who is asked, ought he not to say what he thinks, whether you and I forbid him or not? — Plato

Sionnach smiled in the way of the falsely modest and added, "Forgive me for not standing, but I can't find the energy just yet."
the answering heat flare was enough to raise the temperature in the cave, enough to explain the fine sheen of sweat on Sionnach's body. It wasn't comfortable, but it was useful at hiding the truth. He waited as Keenan's gaze took in the candles, the glasses beside the bed, and the fact that Sionnach was seemingly naked. There were moments in every faery's life that were too perfect to have been planned, and Sionnach was having just such a moment as he reclined in Rika's bed grinning while the faery who had caused such upheaval in Rika's life - and in their desert - very obviously misinterpreted the clues. — Melissa Marr

Historically, philosophy does not have an impressive track record of answering questions about natural world in a decisive manner. — Christof Koch

I remember hearing myself start to whimper, a five-year-old, crouched by the side of the road, staring into my father's eyes, whimpering because it was so dark and there was no one coming to help, whimpering because my mother was back in the crushed car, not moving, and my father was lying here in the dirt, not answering me, not holding me, not comforting me, not helping my mother get out of the car, and there was blood, so much blood, and broken glass everywhere, and it was so dark and so cold and no one was coming to help. — Kelley Armstrong

... Marco's answers and objections took their place in a discourse already proceeding on its own, in the Great Khan's head. That is to say, between the two of them it did not matter whether questions and solutions were uttered aloud or whether each of the two went on pondering in silence. In fact, they were silent, their eyes half-closed, reclining on cushions, swaying in hammocks, smoking long amber pipes.
Marco Polo imagined answering (or Kublai Khan imagined his answer) that the more one was lost in unfamiliar quarters of distant cities, the more one understood the other cities he had crossed to arrive there ... — Italo Calvino

Then I noticed a small plate of complimentary marshmallows near Chloe's elbow and it suddenly seemed clear that I didn't love Chloe so much as marshmallow her. What it was about a marshmallow that should suddenly have accorded so perfectly with my feelings towards her I will never know, but the word seemed to capture the essence of my amorous state with an accuracy that the word love, weary with overuse, simply could not aspire to. Even more inexplicably, when I took Chloe's hand and told her that I had something very important to tell her, that I marshmallowed her, she seemed to understand perfectly, answering it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever told her. — Alain De Botton

Because I'm not thinking about the fiber content in stain resistant carpet." My eyes remained stubbornly shut.
"What does that mean?"
"It means ... " I lifted my lids and found him surveying me with simple curiosity. I swallowed a new thickness in my throat, knowing that I needed to tell him the truth. "It means my brain finds you more interesting than all the really interesting trivial facts I could be contemplating or researching at present."
His answering smile was leisurely, measured; "I think that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. — Penny Reid

It quickly became a tracking operation, though. My chariot could not keep up with his truck. By the time I caught up with him, his truck was parked in one of those asphalt wastelands. What are they called again"?
The Tuatha De Danann have no problem asking Druids for information. That's what we're for, after all. The secret to becoming an Old Druid instead of a dead Druid is to betray nary a hint of condescension when answering even the simplest questions.
"They are called parking lots," I replied.
"Ah, yes, thank you. He came out of a building called 'Crussh', holding one of these potions. Are you familar with the building, Druid?"
"I belive that is a smoothie bar in England."
"Quite right. So after I killed him and stowed his body next to the doe, I sampled his smooth concoction in the parking lot and found it to be quite delicious".
See, sentences like that are why I nurture a healthy fear of the Tuatha De Danann. — Kevin Hearne

From this it does not of course follow that there are no natural or human rights; it only follows that no one could have known that there were. And this at least raises certain questions. But we do not need to be distracted into answering them, for the truth is plain: there are no such rights, and belief in them is one with belief in witches and in unicorns. — Alasdair MacIntyre

Long ago it was said that "one half of the world does not know how the other half lives." That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the struggles, and less for the fate of those who were underneath, so long as it was able to hold them there and keep its own seat. There came a time when the discomfort and consequent upheavals so violent, that it was no longer an easy thing to do, and then the upper half fell to inquiring what was the matter. Information on the subject has been accumulating rapidly since, and the whole world has had its hands full answering for its old ignorance. — Jacob A. Riis

At first I'm sort of answering everything the way you're 'supposed to' answer, and I lost a bunch of followers ... I was like, 'What the hell is this all about? What is Twitter supposed to be about? If you're not answering your fans, then what's the point?' — Rick Hoffman

I'm really not up for answering any questions that start with how, when, where, why or what. — John Green

She is dead. Almost certainly dead. Nearly conclusively dead. She is, at the very least, not answering her telephone. — Catherynne M Valente

I spoke of an Army on the point of entering an enemy's territories. Answering the question as to the cause of delay: 'Waiting for supplies.' The answer might also have been: 'Waiting for instructions, 'Waiting for orders.' If the last dispatch had not been received, with the final orders of the commander in chief, the army dared not move. Even so in the Christian life - as deep as the need of waiting for supplies is that of waiting for instructions. — Andrew Murray

She gave Rachel her usual obsessively loving smile, including Phin in it, too, as her future son-in-law. Such a nice couple, her smile said. What lovely grandchildren they'll give me. And they'll live right next door.
Phin's answering smile said, Not a chance in hell, while Rachel gazed at Justice and Mercy, pretending she'd never heard of pornography or sex, or Phin, for that matter. — Jennifer Crusie

Our goal is to build this up as a knowledge base that anyone can look at. We're not just interested in people answering their friends' one-off questions. — Adam D'Angelo

You do not have to incriminate yourself. But once you assert your innocence, and once you say you didn't do anything wrong, you can't then use the Fifth Amendment to say, 'I'm not answering questions.' — Rush Limbaugh

When I interview people, and they give me an immediate answer, they're often not thinking. So I'm silent. I wait. Because they think they have to keep answering. And it's the second train of thought that's the better answer. — Robin Leach

We can best help children learn, not by deciding what we think they should learn and thinking of ingenious ways to teach it to them, but by making the world, as far as we can, accessible to them, paying serious attention to what they do, answering their questions
if they have any
and helping them explore the things they are most interested in. — John Holt

It was not so much shame that I experienced as the feeling that the actual world was an unfamiliar organism utterly unlike the world of my imagination. I was assailed by a sensation of desolation more intense than anything I had previously known, as if I had been abandoned at dusk in an autumnal wasteland where no answering sound would ever come, however often I called. Is that, I wonder, what is meant by the pat phrase "disappointed love"? — Osamu Dazai

Well," I said, "I have to go."
He said, "Can I call you?"
I waited a long time before answering, though not, of course, as long as he'd made me wait. I let him stand there with the question in the air while I took a good long look at him, let him stand there while I stepped to the street and raised my arm for a cab. At exactly that moment, as though dispatched by some god I didn't really believe in anymore - the god of drama or god of perfect things - or maybe by my own fairy god god, a cab came. I got in, and closed the door. — Melissa Bank

As a woman, as a lesbian, as a Jew, much of what I call history, others will not. But answering that challenge of exclusion is the work of a lifetime. — Joan Nestle

Before I was ever a poet, my father was writing poems about me, so it was a turning of the tables when I became a poet and started answering, speaking back to his poems in ways that I had not before. — Natasha Trethewey

I had not yet gotten into the world of light. But I felt as one who, standing outside, could knock against the wall and hear an answering knock from within. — Simon Newcomb

I have been hired by Allah to get a wage, which if the space between the Earth and sky is filled up with pearls, still (the wage) would be more than it, for each of the questions I may answer you. Therefore, I deserve it that I must not feel tired or exhausted (in answering your questions). — Fatima Bint Muhammad

The worst grotesque situations: believing one knows oneself, believing one knows everything about some topic, believing one has judged with absolute impartiality, believing one will love and be loved forever. In conversation, people think one thing and, in trying to communicate it, say something else. The interlocutor hears one thing, but understands something different. When answering, one does not respond to what the other person initially thought, nor to what the other person said, but to what one has understood. The final result: a conversation between deaf people who do not even know how to listen to themselves. — Alejandro Jodorowsky

Just so you know Labrodor retrivers do not howl.Begals Howl.Wolves howl. Labs do not howl, at lestnot well. Marley attempted twice to howl, both times in answer to a passing police siren, tossing back his head, forming his mouth into an O shape, and letting loose the most pathetic sound Ihave ever heard, more like gargling than answering the call of the wild. Butnow,no question about it he was howling. — John Grogan

If you're not popular, then everyone is not wanting anything to do with you, or not answering the phone. — Hilary Duff

If you care so much about it," she asks him, "then why did you run?"
He takes a moment before answering, shifting his weight and grimacing again. "Their work is good," he says. "It just isn't mine."
This baffles her. His motives - his hazy integrity. It was easy to dismiss Lev as "part of the problem" when she did not know him, but now it's not so easy. He's a paradox. This is a boy who almost blew himself to bits in an attempt to kill others, and yet he offered himself to the parts pirate in order to save Miracolina's life. How could someone go from having no respect for one's own existence to being willing to give himself as a sacrifice for someone he barely knows? It flies in the face of the truths that have defined Miracolina's life. The bad are bad, the good are good, and being caught in between is just an illusion. There is no gray. — Neal Shusterman

The only power that can effect transformations of the order (of Jesus) is love. It remained for the 20th century to discover that locked within the atom is the energy of the sun itself. For this energy to be released, the atom must be bombarded from without. So too, locked in every human being is a store of love that partakes of the divine- the imago dei, image of god ... And it too can be activated only through bombardment, in its case, love's bombardment. The process begins in infancy, where a mother's initially unilateral loving smile awakens love in her baby and as coordination develops, elicits its answering smile ... A loving human being is not produced by exhortations, rules and threats. Love can only take root in children when it comes to them- initially and most importantly from nurturing parents. Ontogenetically speaking, love is an answering phenomenon. It is literally a response. — Huston Smith

I'm not good at texting because I'm an older generation, old school. And nobody ever listens to the answering machine anymore. It's terrible. — Igor Levit

My belief assumed a form that it commonly assumes among the educated people of our time. This belief was expressed by the word "progress." At the time it seemed to me that this word had meaning. Like any living individual, I was tormented by questions of how to live better. I still had not understood that in answering that one must live according to progress, I was talking just like a person being carried along in a boat by the waves and the wind; without really answering, such a person replies to the only important question-"Where are we to steer?"-by saying, "We are being carried somewhere. — Leo Tolstoy

Discipline is the greatest weapon against the self-righteous. We must measure the virtue of our own controlled response when answering the atrocities of fanatics. And yet, let it not be claimed, in our own oratory of piety, that we are without our own fanatics; for the self-righteous breed wherever tradition holds, and most often when there exists the perception that tradition is under assault. Fanatics can be created as easily in an environment of moral decay (whether real or imagined) as in an environment of legitimate inequity or under the banner of a common cause.
Discipline is as much facing the enemy within as the enemy before you; for without critical judgment, the weapon you wield delivers- and let us not be coy here- naught but murder.
And its first victim is the moral probity of your cause. — Steven Erikson

Nature hath given not only to the highest, but also to the inferior, classes of the people of this nation, a boldness and confidence in speaking and answering, even in the presence of their princes and chieftains. — Giraldus Cambrensis

I would rather raise certain topics and maybe let you ruminate on them. I'm not big on answering them. — Harlan Coben

Dressed in a white labcoat over jeans and a pink buttoned blouse, Liza was in her late fifties, and was tall enough that she was very tired of answering whether or not she'd played basketball in school. It was fortunate her clients were, for the most part, dead - as that was the only type of person who didn't seem to bother her. — Brandon Sanderson

Unless you first do the hard work of answering those questions about a text, your meditations won't be grounded in what God is actually saying in the passage. Something in the passage may "hit" you - but it may hit you as expressing almost the opposite of what the biblical author, inspired by the Spirit, was saying. When that happens, you are listening to your own heart or to the spirit of your own culture, not to God's voice in the Scripture. A great number of books advise "divine reading" of the Bible today, and define the activity uncarefully as reading "not for information but to hear a personal word of God to you." This presents a false contrast. It is certainly true that meditation personalizes the Word, but before we can meditate on what the text personally means to us and our time, we must first need to know as much as possible what the author meant to say to his readers when he wrote it. — Timothy Keller

In the immortal children's Christmas pantomime Peter Pan, there comes a climactic moment when the little angel Tinkerbell seems to be dying. The glowing light that represents her on the stage begins to dim, and there is only one possible way to save the dire situation. An actor steps up to the front of the house and asks all the children, "Do you believe in fairies?" If they keep confidently answering "YES!" then the tiny light will start to brighten again. Who can object to this ? One wants not to spoil children's belief in magic - there will be plenty of time later for disillusionment - and nobody is waiting at the exit asking them hoarsely to contribute their piggy banks to the Tinkerbell Salvation Church. — Christopher Hitchens

As each situation in life represents a challenge to man and presents a problem for him to solve, the question of the meaning of life may actually be reversed. Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. Thus, logotherapy sees in responsibleness the very essence of human existence. — Viktor E. Frankl

Every time you walk into church, the first thing you see is a man on a cross. He died to save us-not to give us everything we want-to save us. That's what's so hard to understand. It's not about him answering your prayers-it's about you being like him not matter what happens on this Earth. 'Thy will be done.' There will always be sadness and pain. — Jack Mayer

She had started driving past his apartment to see whether or not his car was out front. She had looked up his phone number, and twice she had called his apartment from the pay phone in school, knowing he wouldn't be at home, just so she could hear how sexy his voice sounded on his answering machine. Was this what falling in love was supposed to feel like? — Francine Pascal

Parrot like an African Grey. Your job, when sitting the
exam, is not to display learning, your job is to regurgitate
whatever you were told or read in the syllabus. Regardless
of what you think about what you were told, your job is to
repeat it back.The "Dear Evil Tester" Letters
11
For multiple choice: don't think "what is the right answer?",
instead think "what do they think is the right answer?"

Evil Tester answering "Do you have any tips on taking the {insert
nominated certification board name here}
certification exam? — Alan Richardson

Tell me, Socrates, have you got a nurse? Why do you ask such a question, I said, when you ought rather to be answering? Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your nose: she has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep. What makes you say that? I replied. — Plato

Nothing will ever equal that moment of joyous excitement which filled my whole being when I felt myself flying away from the earth. It was not mere pleasure; it was perfect bliss. Escaped from the frightful torments of persecution and of calumny, I felt that I was answering all in rising above all.
[Said after making man's first ascent by hydrogen balloon in 1783] — Jacques Charles

My greatest hope for a future without another Deepwater Horizon disaster lies in our schools, living rooms and community centers, not in boardrooms, political chambers and big industry. If this happens again, we won't have the luxury of the unknown to shield us from answering 'Why?' — Philippe Cousteau Jr.

When Abba Anthony thought about the depths of the judgments of God, he asked, 'Lord, how is it that some die when they are young, while others drag on to extreme old age? Why are there those who are poor and those who are rich? Why do wicked men prosper and why are the just in need?' He heard a voice answering him, 'Antony, keep your attention on yourself; these things are according to the judgment of God, and it is not to your advantage to know anything about them.' — Anthony The Great

We were running one morning through the fall leaves. I looked at him and had what I supposed was a defining moment. I saw how handsome he is, how strong
mentally and physically. When I was with him, I ... I really liked myself. Being with him was fun. Easy. I'd never felt so intensely about anyone before, and it made me sad. I wanted him to be around for a long time, to be my friend forever, and I knew it didn't work that way. But it didn't occur to me that what I was feeling was romantic love. Not until Mick kissed me." Fielding smiled slowly, a blush warming his cheeks. I felt an answering smile hijack my own. "Which he would never, ever have done if not for the mistletoe. — Eli Easton

Why do you take Him to court for not answering anything a person asks? Job 33:13 — Beth Moore

It's just that it's a good idea not to let him have your phone number unless you possess an industrial-grade answering machine." "What? Why's that?" "Well, he's one of those people who can only think when he's talking. When he has ideas, he has to talk them out to whoever will listen. Or, if the people themselves are not available, which is increasingly the case, their answering machines will do just as well. He just phones them up and talks at them. He has one secretary whose sole job is to collect tapes from people he might have phoned, transcribe them, sort them and give him the edited text the next day in a blue folder. — Douglas Adams

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

Like my peers, I believed that the Bible was God's Word written down for me, answering all my questions about who God is and what God wants for my life, from the mundane to the ultimate. Or at least I knew that was what I needed to believe. But that was not what I found when I actually opened the Bible up and looked around inside. — Timothy Beal

History is not just about the analysis of evidence, unrolling vellum documents or answering exam papers. It is not about judging the dead. It is about understanding the meaning of the past - to realize the whole evolving human story over centuries, not just our own lifetimes. — Ian Mortimer

Andy: Andrew Makepeace Ladd, the Third, accepts with pleasure the kind invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Channing Gardner for a birthday party in honor of their daughter Melissa on April 19th, 1937 at half past three o'clock.
Melissa: Dear Andy: Thank you for the birthday present. I have a lot of Oz books, but not 'The Lost Princess of Oz.' What made you give me that one? Sincerely yours, Melissa.
Andy: I'm answering your letter about the book. When you came into second grade with that stuck-up nurse, you looked like a lost princess.
Melissa: I don't believe what you wrote. I think my mother told your mother to get that book. I like the pictures more than the words. Now let's stop writing letters. — A.R. Gurney

She asked me why I am not answering her questions. I looked at her with love and kept silent. Silence is my best answer for her intriguing questions. — Debasish Mridha

One thing which makes us find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he is about to say than of answering precisely what is said to him. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because 'God' is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, 'God' is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself. Each of us projects our limited experience on a cosmic screen in letters as big as our minds can fashion. For those whose vision is constricted (illiberal, narrow-minded people), this can have horrific consequences. But others respond to the munificence of creation with broad imagination and sympathy. Answering to the highest and best within and beyond themselves, they draw lessons and fathom meaning so redemptive that surely it touches the divine. — Forrest Church

We moved from wondering to answering, which has not served us well at all. — Richard Rohr

Her eyes narrowed. "You're not going to kill me, skin me, and wear my head as a hat?"
Yep. He was entertained. And, no. It wasn't normal. Instead of answering her question, he asked his own. "Do you want me to?"
"Not really."
"Then why are you asking?"
"Because according to my father, many teachers, and quite a few anger-management counselors, I seem to lack that little internal device that stops things that are best left unsaid from being said. — Shelly Laurenston

(Q)Please explain for me what is meant by "soul-mate" ...
(A) Those of any sect or group where there is the answering of one to another; as would be the tongue to the groove, the tenon to the mortise; or in any such where they are a complement one of another
that is what is meant by "soul-mate." Not that as from physical attraction, but from the mental and spiritual help. — Edgar Cayce

I don't like answering to other people's philosophies. I don't have any philosophy, I just believe in stuff. Either I believe in something or I don't. Like, I believe in the Rolling Stones but not in the Dave Clark Five. There's nothing philosophic about it. Whenever I'm linked with a movement, it pisses me off. — Patti Smith

Now some people are of the opinion that they are altogether holy and perfect, and go around the place with big deeds and big words, and yet they strive for and desire so many things, they wish to possess so much and are so concerned both with themselves and with this thing and that. They assert that they are seeking great piety and devotion, and yet they cannot accept a single word of reproval without answering back. Be certain of this: they are far from God and are not in union with him. — Meister Eckhart

She does not want to feel even the faintest temptation to call his mobile number, as she had done obsessively for the first year after his death so she could hear his voice on the answering service. Most days now his loss is a part of her, an awkward weight she carries around, invisible to everyone else, subtly altering the way she moves through the day. But today, the Anniversary of the day he died, is a day when all bets are off. — Jojo Moyes

Answering a letter from a church asking what else they should try after having failed to raise enough money on bake sales, bazaars, suppers, etc. Why not try religion? — Horace Greeley

You are the trip I did not take, you are the pearls I could not buy,
you are my blue Italian lake, you are my piece of foreign sky.
You are my Honolulu moon, you are the book I did not write,
you are my heart's unuttered tune, you are a candle in my night.
You are the flower beneath the snow, in my dark sky a bit of blue,
answering disappointment's blow with I am happy! I have you! — Anne Campbell

What's the point in answering, Warden? It's obvious that you've already tried and convicted me. If I tell you I am involved, you will believe me guilty. If I tell you I am not involved, you will believe me guilty. The only thing I can do is deny you your precious moral justification. She lifted a hand to her lips and pantomimed turning a key and throwing it away. — Jim Butcher

Don't worry about whether God is saying 'Yes' or 'No' to your (prayer) request. Don't be downcast when the answer is not in sight. Quick thinking of faith formulas and methods. Just commit every prayer to Jesus and go about your business with confidence that He will not be one moment early or late in answering. And, if the answer you seek is not forthcoming, say to your heart, 'He is all I need. If I need more, He will not withhold it. He will do it in His time, in His way; and, if He does not fulfill my request, He must have a perfect reason for not doing so. No mater what happens, I will always have faith in His faithfulness.' pg. 152. — David Wilkerson

But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look then was more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise. — Viktor E. Frankl

But spirituality, it seems to me, when answering the question, "Why should I be good? Why should I care for others?" says, "Because that is the best, most fulfilling way to live" Whether or not you receive an award or a payment is incidental. You are good and kind and loving because it is right, even though it is difficult sometimes. It fulfills the highest law, to treat others as we wish to be treated. — Philip Gulley

I'm not an answering machine, I'm a questioning machine. If we have all the answers, how come we're in such as mess? — Douglas Cardinal

Stop looking at me like that," I say, frowning and rubbing at my chest. He has this habit of making my heart sore, making my lungs feel like there's not enough air.
He tilts his head attractively, which only makes matters worse. "Like what?"
"Like you're molesting me with your eyes," I blurt out.
His answering laugh is long and deep. I can barely handle the affection in his gaze. "Okay, I'll try to stop. But if it all gets to be too much for you, this apartment happens to have a very nice bathroom. You can go rub one out again to take the edge off. I'll come listen, too, if that will help."
There he goes again, pushing me.
I do a slow blink at him before coming out with a rather masterful comeback. And when I say "masterful," I mean shit. "Why don't you go and rub one out?"
He cocks an eyebrow. "I don't rub out, darlin'. I jack off. — L. H. Cosway

Then, when she saw me not only answering nothing, but mute and utterly incapable of speech, she gently touched my breast with her hand, and said: 'There is no danger; these are the symptoms of lethargy, the usual sickness of deluded minds. For awhile he has forgotten himself; he will easily recover his memory, if only he first recognises me. And that he may do so, let me now wipe his eyes that are clouded with a mist of mortal things. — Boethius

I thought I was answering a question that I had heard that was about increasing the minimum wage - would I consider that. So let me just go on record and say this: I am not for decreasing the minimum wage. I did not say that and that is not something I would consider. — Linda McMahon

Philosophy, as long as a drop of blood shall pulse in its world-subduing and absolutely free heart, will never grow tired of answering its adversaries with the cry of Epicurus:
"Not the man who denies the gods worshiped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them, is truly impious"
Philosophy makes no secret of it. The confession of Prometheus:
"In simple words, I hate the pack of gods"
is its own confession, its own aphorism against all heavenly and earthly gods who do not acknowledge human self-consciousness as the highest divinity. — Karl Marx