Without Asking Quotes & Sayings

The right road is rarely the easy road. And no war is ever fought without casualties."
"Is that what this is?" Sophie asked. "A war?"
"Unfortunately, yes. A quiet war to stop a louder one from raging. You may hate me for asking this of him, but this is the cold reality we all face. We cannot control the actions of others, nor stop them from disappointing us. We can only use the anger and pain to fuel us. To help us rise above. — Shannon Messenger

You never give away your heart; you lend it from time to time. If it were not so, how could we take it back without asking? — Jeanette Winterson

Frankenstein took some flesh and bones and blood and made a man out of them; the man ran away and fell to raping and robbing and murdering everywhere, and Frankenstein was horrified and in despair, and said, I made him, without asking his consent, and it makes me responsible for every crime he commits. I am the criminal, he is innocent. — Mark Twain

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

When I began my pilgrimage I left the Los Angeles area without a cent, having faith that God would provide me with everything I needed. Although I have never asked for anything, God has provided me with everything along the way. Without ever asking for anything I've been supplied. — Peace Pilgrim

The point of asking questions is to find true answers; the point of measuring is to measure accurately; the point of making maps is to find your way to your destination ... In short, the goal of truth goes without saying, in every human culture. — Daniel Dennett

For the courage of her heart, which I saw face down the greatest horrors I know without breaking. For the high and hungry intelligence of her mind, which never stops asking questions, nor thinking about the answers. For the spark of her spirit, which could teach bonfires how to burn. That's three. Enough for going on with. All this is set beside me, and you ask me instead if I want dirt? I do not understand farmers — Lois McMaster Bujold

In the World Wars, people were perfectly able to shoot other people just because they belonged to the wrong country, without ever asking what their opinions were. Faith too is like that. — Richard Dawkins

When standing in the middle of the marvelous mountains and deep forests, in the earthy smell of all beginnings and endings, I often find myself asking what I have if all my possessions were taken away. Without money, car, house; or power and fame, if there are any, who am I?
In that very moment, being away from the external voices and left alone in nature, I find my answer. — Zi Nguyen

I know how you like to be asked and not told. But I'm not asking you to marry me ... I'm telling you to marry me, Lake.. because I can't live without you. — Colleen Hoover

Can you train yourself to love the right man? Of course you can. The problem is forgetting about the wrong man, the one passing by who came in a door that was left open without asking permission. — Paulo Coelho

The woe of mortality makes humans God-like. It is because we know that we must die that we are so busy making life. It is because we are aware of mortality that we preserve the past and create the future. Mortality is ours without asking
but immortality is something we must build ourselves. Immortality is not a mere absence of death; it is defiance and denial of death. It is 'meaningful' only because there is death, that implacable reality which is to be defied. — Zygmunt Bauman

I was not great behind the counter. I had a week off without asking for it. Another time, we had a cart go up in flames, and we went out on another cart, which we wrecked by running it into the cart that was on fire. — Mike Weir

When I asked her if she was afraid to fall in love, she damn near doubled over. "Afraid? My heart has been through hell and back. Yet it never quits, refuses to rest, gives without asking in return, and is deeper than the deepest sea. It's love, my dear, that should fear me." That night my heart was signed, by my one of a kind. — J. Raymond

I know tonight will be no more than some very heavy petting," Cooper said full of sincerity. "I know my hand and I will have to finish the job without you. I know all that so don't freak out when I ask this question. Deal?"
"Ask first."
Cooper grinned. "This weekend, I'd like you to come to my house and hang out. We have the pool and a TV the size of this restaurant. Oh, a pool table too. It'll be fun and I'd like to spend time with you like we did tonight. You're pretty irresistible when you're relaxed."
"But I'm resistible when I'm tense? I've been tense since we met so why do you keep asking me out?"
"Fine, you're irresistible period, but you're especially sexy when you let yourself be you. Teasing me like that was pretty awesome, though I think I really might need medical attention now. — Bijou Hunter

Preaching is asking people to do what you yourself failed to do and expect they fail so that you can come back and preach at them the next day — Bangambiki Habyarimana

You're not a Black man. You're a human being in God's eyes. So when you sit down to talk to someone and you talk to them in really intelligent terms, you ask difficult questions, there's a militancy that's assigned to you without you asking for it, because you are simply judged by what you look like. If you're a white person asking the same questions, you'd be one of these CNN guys and say how brilliant he is. That doesn't work for you, because this is the world we live in. — James McBride

Charles, a footman who had once worked on his father's farm and who loved animals, appeared and came over to help her prepare dishes of boiled chicken and brown rice for the cats and dogs waiting eagerly at their feet.
When guests were staying, Charles often assisted with the care of her furry brood. Without asking, he set to work, even taking a few moments to gather fresh meat scraps for Aeolus, her wounded hawk, and cut-up apple and beetroots for Poppy, a convalescing rabbit who had an injured leg. He gave her several more apple quarters for the horses, who got jealous if she didn't bring them treats as well.
Once all her cats and dogs were fed, Esme set off for the stables, laden pail in hand, Burr trotting at her heels. She stopped along the way to chat with the gardener and his assistant, who gave her some timothy grass, comfrey and lavender to supplement the hay she regularly fed Poppy. — Tracy Anne Warren

It's not that I believe women are more ethical. I will say that one of women's greatest weaknesses is probably our greatest strength. We are incredibly hard on each other. We ask all the questions. Men are more easygoing. If you've ever been in a group of women, you'll recognize this: Nobody gives one woman the opportunity to lead the way without asking a whole lot of questions. — Vicki Donlan

If successful people have one common trait, it's an utter lack of cynicism. The world owes them nothing. They go out and find what they need without asking for permission; they're driven, talented, and work through negatives by focusing on the positives. — Mike Zimmer

Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds
justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner. — Anne Rice

I think that the warriors who have aided me are sent to us much like the covering is. Yahweh determines what we need and sends it in the day of war, sometimes even without our asking, thogh Ihave found that asking is what he wants from us.
Benaiah was confused ... But why the day of war? ... Why not everyday?
(David) Every day is the day of war. — Cliff Graham

A friend who offers help without asking for explanations is a treasure beyond price. — Robert A. Heinlein

The wooden devil got a good laugh out of the ones who passed by, though. They were so funny she couldn't even feel sorry for them. They tried so hard to keep track of time. Whenever they were together they couldn't let sixty of their minutes pass without asking each other what time it was; as if time was a volatile currency that they either possessed or did not possess, when in fact time was more of a fog that rose inexorably over all their words and deeds so that they were either forgotten or misremembered. — Helen Oyeyemi

While most of humanity was scrabbling for a piece of bread,a roof over their head and a job that would allow them to live with dignity,Ralf Hart had all of that,and it only made him feel more wretched.If he looked back on what his life had been lately,he had perhaps managed two or three days when he had woken up,looked at the sun-or the rain-and felt glad to see the morning,just happy,without wanting anything,planning anything or asking anything in exchange.Apart from those days,the rest of his existence had been wasted on dreams,both frustrated and realized-a desire to go beyond himself,to go beyond his limitations;he had spent his life trying to prove something,but he didn't know what or to whom. — Paulo Coelho

A girl didn't live through sixteen years of life without any boy ever asking her out to suddenly having two best friends fighting over her. — Linda Kage

Well, someone asks, how can we be sure God is trustworthy? The answer is that this is the one part of the Lord's Prayer Jesus himself prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, under circumstances far more crushing than any of us will ever face. He submitted to his Father's will rather than following his own desires, and it saved us. That's why we can trust him. Jesus is not asking us to do anything for him that he hasn't already done for us, under conditions of difficulty beyond our comprehension. Luther adds, following Augustine, that without this trust in God, we will try to take God's place and seek revenge on those who have harmed us.203 — Timothy J. Keller

People love super heroes. It's true we're impressed by their bravery and fortitude, their supernatural gifts and physical brawn. But the fact is, villains possess these same qualities. So why our admiration for the hero and not the nemesis? Because of virtue. A super hero gives everything to defend what's good and right without seeking praise or reward. Think about it. All the great heroes give without taking, help without grumbling, sacrifice without asking recompense. A super hero's real strength, what we absolutely fall in love with, is his finer virtue. — Richelle E. Goodrich

In the letter he left for the coroner he had explained his reasoning (for suicide): that life is a gift bestowed without anyone asking for it; that the thinking person has a philosophical duty to examine both the nature of life and the conditions it comes with; and that if this person decides to renounce the gift no one asks for, it is the moral and human duty to act on the consequences of that decision ... Alex showed me a clipping from the Cambridge Evening News. 'Tragic Death of "Promising" Young Man.' ... The verdict of the coroner's inquest had been that Adrian Flinn (22) had killed himself 'while the balance of his mind was disturbed.' ... The law, and society, and religion all said it was impossible to be sane, healthy, and kill yourself. Perhaps those authorities feared that the suicide's reasoning might impugn the nature and value of life as organised by the state which paid the coroner? — Julian Barnes

It's foolish to bet on a horse without talking to him first. I know it seems silly to ask a horse who's going to win a race - but it's no sillier than asking anyone else. — Gracie Allen

Everybody has a home team: It's the people you call when you get a flat tire or when something terrible happens. It's the people who, near or far, know everything that's wrong with you and love you anyways. These are the ones who tell you their secrets, who get themselves a glass of water without asking when they're at your house. These are the people who cry when you cry. These are your people, your middle-of-the-night, no-matter-what people. — Shauna Niequist

THAT'S YOUTH for you; it sets its own limits without even asking if the body can take it. Yet the body always does. — Paulo Coelho

Without having to think about it, I knew Julian and Zav were sitting in the front seats and Sasha was in the back. I could imagine her leaning forward from time to time, asking for a joke to be repeated or pointing out some funny road sign. Trying to campaign for her own existence, before finally giving up and lying back on the seat. Letting their conversation thicken into meaningless noise while she watched the road, the passing orchards. The branches flashing with the silver ties that kept away birds. - — Emma Cline

People are so familiar with the show that I think they're perfectly happy to let it go by without asking any questions. There's a passivity to how we experience 'The Sound of Music.' — Jack O'Brien

[O]nly the sea is like a human being ... always moving, always something deep in itself is stirring it. It never rests; it is always wanting, wanting, wanting. It hurries on; and then it creeps back slowly without having reached, moaning. It is always asking a question and it never gets the answer. — Olive Schreiner

You could call a people primitive, if you chose to judge them by how big their homes were, or how the managed to defend themselves, without studying their knowledge, or asking how they viewed the world; but what would that say about you? — Adam Centurione

I don't want you to leave without me. A wife belongs with her husband, and he belongs with her. I'm always selfish with you, asking you to move here, asking you to wait until it's good for my career before you leave, but there it is. — Christina Lauren

It is impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the addict finds, or hopes to find, in the drug or the addictive behaviour. — Gabor Mate

I know that if a film is ready to emerge out of what I write, I'll be able to go off and make it without asking anyone's permission. — Francis Ford Coppola

I steal into their dreams," he said. "I steal into their most shameful thoughts, I'm in every shiver, every spasm of their souls, I steal into their hearts, I scrutinize their most fundamental beliefs, I scan their irrational impulses, their unspeakable emotions, I sleep in their lungs during the summer and their muscles during the winter, and all of this I do without the least effort, without intending to, without asking or seeking it out, without constraints, driven only by love and devotion. — Roberto Bolano

Isn't that just typical. You're either asking for it, or having it forced upon you without your consent. Who decided women always have to be passive in sex? — Nenia Campbell

What went on between you and my mom? Did you seduce all the Liddell women? Did you tell them the same pretty words you told me?" I curl my legs beneath my dress, feeling small and vulnerable for even asking.
Morpheus scoots aside some glass with his boot and kneels. He takes my hand in his. "I've known but three generations of Liddell women. Counting the ones in London, there's been twenty or so. Most were oblivious and unreachable - they didn't hear the nether-call. The others weren't strong enough to face their lineage without losing their minds. As for Alison, she and I were business partners. There has never been more than that between us. There's only one Liddell I desire, only one who earns my undying devotion." He works a fingertip into the lace at my elbow and drags off the glove. "The one who was my truest friend ... who took my place and braved the attack that was meant for me." — A.G. Howard

Those who have abandoned belief must still believe in us. They are sure that they are right not to believe but they know belief must not fade completely. Hell is when no one believes. There must always be believers. Fools, idiots, those who hear voices, those who speak in tongues. We are your lunatics. We surrender our lives to make your nonbelief possible. You are sure that you are right but you don't want everyone to think as you do. There is no truth without fools. We are your fools, your madwomen, rising at dawn to pray, lighting candles, asking statues for good health, long life. — Don DeLillo

We have to keep asking ourselves: 'What does it all mean? What is God trying to tell us? How are we called to live in the midst of all this?' Without such questions our lives become numb and flat. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

I run my fingers along the thick, fabric wallpaper to steady myself. Putting one foot in front of another feels like learning to walk all over again. My body's still working. Heart's still beating. Lungs still moving. But not because I want them to. They do those things on their own, without me even asking. So why didn't they do it for Eamon ? How could his body just give up on him like that ? Fall apart. It made him seen so fragile, and I don't want to remember him that way. He was the strongest guy I knew. How could he break so easily ? It seems like our bodies would be built better. It just doesn't fucking seem real. — Jolene Perry

If I should say that he is a victim of injustice, then I would be asking by implication for sympathy; and if one insists upon looking at this boy as a victim of injustice, he will be swamped by a feeling of guilt so strong as to be indistinguishable from hate. Of all things, men do not like to feel that they are guilty of wrong, and if you make them feel guilt, they will try desperately to justify it on any grounds; but, failing that, and seeing no immediate solution that will set things right without too much cost to their lives and property, they will kill that which evoked in them, the condemning sense of guilt. And this is true of all men- whether they be white or black -it is a peculiar and powerful, but common need. — Richard Wright

Friendship is about more than facts. It's about knowing what someone is thinking, or knowing enough to know that you don't. But I guess it's also about not letting too much time go by without asking them questions, so you don't end up looking at them one afternoon, the sun so bright you have to squint, realizing that you hardly recognize the person they've become. — Nina LaCour

The book from which you take your teaching, Dr. Halse, says that man shall not live by bread alone. These days you're asking men to live without even bread. — Winston Graham

In countries of more advanced civilisation and of a more insurrectionary spirit, the public, accustomed to expect everything to be done for them by the State, or at least to do nothing for themselves without asking from the State not only leave to do it, but even how it is to be done, naturally hold the State responsible for all evil which befalls them, and when the evil exceeds their amount of patience, they rise against the government and make what is called a revolution; whereupon somebody else, with or without legitimate authority from the nation, vaults into the seat, issues his orders to the bureaucracy, and everything goes on much as it did before; the bureaucracy being unchanged, and nobody else being capable of taking their place. A very different spectacle is exhibited among a people accustomed to transact their own business. In France, a large part of the people — John Stuart Mill

It is a rule of mine never to ask unsolicited questions of people over twenty-one. I am only giving them the option of lying if they choose to. They would tell me the truth without my asking if they wanted me to know. To me that's fair enough. — Dorothy West

If we had everything we wanted and needed without asking of Heavenly Father, we would lose sight of the hand of God in our lives. — Elaine A. Cannon

Don't you dare try to die again without asking my permission! — Shungiku Nakamura

Daffy had stopped talking, without her noticing. It was if he'd run out of words. He did a peculiar thing, then; he reached out and touched Mary's cheekbone; lightly, as if he was brushing away a speck of coal dust. She thought of Doll, that first morning, wiping mud out of the lost child's eyes. Her throat hurt, all at once, as if she were swallowing a stone. She wished the two of them could stay forever frozen in this moment, hidden in the grass, as the setting sun slid across the fields of Monmouth. Before any asking, any refusal. While this strange, tame young man was still looking at her as is she were worth any price. — Emma Donoghue

He drew his chair closer and reached for her hand. "Kate, look at me," he said. Her chin was still pointing down, but her eyes came up to meet his. Her expression nearly drove the breath from him. How could she wear her feelings so openly and still function? "So now you know. I've never let myself get close to a woman because I'm not a good long-term bet. But I care for you. I've always cared for you." Without asking permission, he reached up behind her neck to stroke the heavy coil of her hair. He leaned forward, giving her plenty of time to pull away if she chose. She didn't. He kissed her softly on the mouth. Nothing had ever felt more right or natural than kissing Kate, and she didn't pull away from him. She leaned toward him and kissed him back. — Elizabeth Camden

I could see that making judgments about people so that they are tried and sentenced in your head, without asking them for their perspective, is both unethical and unproductive. So I learned to love real integrity and to despise the lack of it. — Ray Dalio

Contemplating an object fixedly with the mind, asking myself, 'What is it?' without thinking of any other object or relating it to anything else for hours on end. — Simone Weil

I don't wanna go throught the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
Without your all-consuming
Passion inside of me
I don't wanna spend my whole life asking
What if I had given everything?
Instead of going through the motions. — Matthew West

The demon say's "Do you view sexual acts between individuals of the same gender to be an abomination?" ...
"Do you approve," the demon says, "of marriage between individuals of differing racial backgrounds?"
The demon continues without hesitation, asking, "Should the Zionist state of Israel be allowed to exist?"
Question after question, I'm stumped. Even fingers crossed. The paradox: Is God a racist, homophobic, anti-semantic ass? Or is God testing to see if I am? — Chuck Palahniuk

Can you just trust in our love, without asking me to prove it every single second? — Lauren Myracle

Don't let a day go by without asking who you are ... each time you let a new ingredient to enter your awareness. — Deepak Chopra

God will not let me get the blessing without asking. Today I am setting my face to fast and pray for enlightenment and refreshing. Until I can get up to the measure of at least two hours in pure prayer every day, I shall not be contented. Meditation and reading besides. — Bonar Law

Whatever we owe, it is our part to find where to pay it, and to do it without asking, too; for whether the creditor be good or bad, the debt is still the same. — Seneca The Younger

We have to find alternative ways of producing our raw materials without asking nature to do it for us. — Jochen Zeitz

Will you have kids?"
"You make such an attractive case for the reproductive plunge. I don't know, Duncan. Childhood is so exhausting."
"As a parent?"
"I mean as the child. Not sure it's fair to drop somebody else into life without giving them a choice in the matter."
"You'll find it's kind of tough to canvass the opinion of sperm."
"I prefer asking the eggs - they're more articulate. Anyway, aren't you the guy who's always bemoaning the future of humanity? Saying how the worst jerks always have millions of babies, meaning the world gets worse every generation?"
"Exactly why decent people need to have kids. — Tom Rachman

Are you asking if I would have been better off if I'd never met my wife, or married her, or lost her? I'll tell you this, a day with her was better than a life without her. — Alice Hoffman

To live moment to moment is the life of meditation. Then life becomes spontaneous without any effort; then nobody can make you miserable, nobody can disappoint you, nobody can make you a failure because in the first place you were not trying to be a success; you were not asking the future to be in a certain way. So whatever happens, the next moment you can rejoice. It is always your victory. — Rajneesh

When we ask we are owning our needs. Asking for love, comfort or understanding is a transaction between two people. You are saying: I have a need. It's not your problem. It's not your responsibility. You don't have to respond, but I'd like something from you.
This frees the other person to connect with you freely and without obligation. When we own that our needs are our responsibility we allow others to love us because we have something to offer. Asking is a far cry from demanding. When we demand love, we destroy it. — Henry Cloud

He went into the Gray Joy, drank a glass of Arkanarian brew, patted the hostess's cheek, and deftly used one of his swords to flip the table of the usual informer, who was gawking at him with empty eyes. Then he walked over to a far corner and tracked down a shabby bearded man with an inkwell around his neck. "Hello, Brother Nanin," he said. "How many petitions have you written today?"
Brother Nanin smiled shyly, showing small, decayed teeth. "There aren't many petitions written nowadays, noble don," he said. "Some people think that asking is pointless, while others expect that in the near future they'll be able to take without asking. — Arkady Strugatsky

Liberals don't care. Their approach is to rip out society's foundations without asking if they serve any purpose. Why do we have immigration laws? What's with these borders? Why do we have the institution of marriage, anyway? What do we need standardized tests for? Hey, I like Keith Richards - why not make heroin legal? Let's take a sledgehammer to all these load-bearing walls and just see what happens! — Ann Coulter

Without asking her permission, someone is trying to intrude her life, draw her attention, in short, to bother her. — Milan Kundera

I have this table in my new house. They put this table in without asking. It was some weird nouveau riche marble table, and I hated it. But it was literally so heavy that it took a crane to move it. We would try to set up different things around it, but it never really worked. I realized that table was my ego. No matter what you put around it, under it, no matter who photographed it, the douchebaggery would always come through. — Kanye West

The older I grow and the more I abandon myself to God's will, the less
I value intelligence that wants to know and will that wants to do; and
as the only element of salvation I recognize faith, which can wait patiently,
without asking too many questions. — Umberto Eco

The people who keep asking if they can't lead a decent life without Christ, don't know what life is about; if they did they would know that 'a decent life' is mere machinery compared with the thing we men are really made for. — C.S. Lewis

If you're asking me if I like your company, the answer is yes. If, on the other hand, you're asking me if I could live without you, the answer is also yes. — Paulo Coelho

I knew what she was asking, of course. I'd been asking it myself a moment before. But I wasn't sure how you went from dreams to reality without the magic leaking out - or becoming too wild and powerful. — Scott Westerfeld

Who's he going to outwit?" Sophia asked.
"Relatives." Grandmother said. "Nasty relatives. They tell him what to do without asking him what he wants, and so there's nothing at all he really does want. — Tove Jansson

I sometimes go months without remembering you.
Some griefs bless us that way, not asking much space. — Laure-Anne Bosselaar

Again I insist upon the point. The whole of the sexual revolution has been a colossal failure, and has wrought untold human misery. The move for same-sex pseudogamy is inextricable from that revolution; it is grafted upon it and cannot survive or even appear to make sense without it. We cannot have a good nation unless we are a good people. We cannot be a good people when we throw contempt upon manhood and womanhood and the virtue that honors their beauty and their being for one another; it is like asking for clean sleaze, or cold love. — Anthony M. Esolen

I think there is a legitimate critique of reformism, as a politics that is content with making small changes in society without asking for bigger and deeper changes. And revolutionary reforms, meaning actions that we take in small ways to make the world a better place and disrupt some of the ways that capitalism is reproduced. — Cynthia Kauffman

Go to hell. I'm not playing this game with you."
"Who's playing? I'm just giving you what you want even if you won't say it. That's why you like me, right?" He ground harder. "'Cause I'll touch you when I want, without asking, and I'll do it right. But he treats you like you'll break. Doesn't like to get messy."
I flinched. "Don't use things I told you against me."
"So admit it," Raymond said, pushing my pants down. "You like me because I'm not scared to get nasty. — Santino Hassell

I'm here to tell you, though, ladies that the term "gold digger" is one of the traps we men set to keep you off our money trail; we created that term for you so that we can have all our money and still get everything we want from you without you asking for or expecting this very basic, instincual responsibility that men all over the world are obligated to assume and embrace ... KNOW THIS: It is your right to expect that a man will pay for your dinner, your movie ticket, your club entry fee, or whatever else he has to pay for in exhange for your time. — Steve Harvey

The more specific your questions the better. If you feel that you can't really continue the conversation without asking questions, you need to ask specific questions. — Patrick King

We are all wounded. But wounds are necessary for his healing light to enter into our beings. Without wounds and failure and frustrations and defeats, there will be no opening for his brilliance to tickle in and invade our lives. Failures in life are courses with very high tuition fees, so I don't cut classes and miss my lessons: on humility, on patience, on hope, on asking others for help, on listening to God, on trying again and again and again. — Bo Sanchez

We want to help you regain clarity about your individual power. Everyone has it. No one can ever take it away from you. No one can ever do anything "bad" to you. No one can assert into your experience. Everything, without exception, comes only by your individual invitation to it. Do you understand the process of asking? When you give something your attention and it becomes your dominant vibration relative to the subject-that is your asking. So, deliberate creating is not so much about looking out into the world and saying, "Oh, there are things that are good that I want to create or attract into my experience, and there are things that are bad that I don't want to create or attract into your my experience." Deliberate creating is more about deliberate allowing. Deliberate allowing is more like deliberate vibration. — Abraham Hicks

The snow has not yet left the earth, but spring is already asking to enter your heart. If you have ever recovered from a serious illness, you will be familiar with the blessed state when you are in a delicious state of anticipation, and are liable to smile without any obvious reason. Evidently that is what nature is experiencing just now. The ground is cold, mud and snow squelches under foot, but how cheerful, gentle and inviting everything is! The air is so clear and transparent that if you were to climb to the top of the pigeon loft or the bell tower, you feel you might actually see the whole universe from end to end. The sun is shining brightly, and its playful, beaming rays are bathing in the puddles along with the sparrows. The river is swelling and darkening; it has already woken up and very soon will begin to roar. The trees are bare, but they are already living and breathing. — Anton Chekhov

I don't get it," Clarence whispered to me. "We're the only ones in the place. When are your friends supposed to get here?"
"Why, bab?" asked the cream pitcher, its top opening and closing like a tiny silver mouth. "Are you thinking about asking one of the waitresses out instead?" The chuckle that followed was a little coarser than the silvery-bell variety one usually expects from invisible spirits. Clarence let out a yelp like a dog whose tail has just found its way under a foot and was halfway to the front door before I could convince him to come back. At the other end of the long room the waitresses looked up without interest, then went back to discussing particle physics or whatever else was keeping them from bringing me a glass of water — Tad Williams

Asking questions is an essential part of police investigation. In the ordinary sense a police officer is free to ask a person for identification without implicating the Fourth Amendment. — Anthony Kennedy

Perhaps I was being picky, but I really didn't think being able to spell orgasm without being spotted a vowel was asking too much. — Summer Daniels

Be sure then to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press on the gossip of the hour. Do not read what you shall learn, without asking, in the street and the train. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A scientist places an ad in a Paris newspaper offering a free horoscope. He receives about 150 replies, each, as requested, detailing a place and time of birth. Every respondent is then sent the identical horoscope, along with a questionnaire asking how accurate the horoscope had been. Ninety-four per cent of the respondents (and 90 per cent of their families and friends) reply that they were at least recognizable in the horoscope. However, the horoscope was drawn up for a French serial killer. If an astrologer can get this far without even meeting his subjects, think how well someone sensitive to human nuances and not overly scrupulous might do. — Carl Sagan

As I helped him up, I felt him shake all over, so I asked him to forgive me, without knowing what for, but that was my lot, asking forgiveness, I even asked forgiveness of myself for being what I was, what it was my nature to be. — Bohumil Hrabal

Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the Kingdom. If you may have everything by asking in His Name, and nothing without asking, I beg you to see how absolutely vital prayer is. — Charles Spurgeon

And in some ways, to me, that's one of the inspiring and powerful things about the Great Migration itself. There was no leader, there was no one person who set the date who said, 'On this date, people will leave the South.' They left on their own accord for as many reasons as there are people who left. They made a choice that they were not going to live under the system into which they were born anymore and in some ways, it was the first step that the nation's servant class ever took without asking. — Isabel Wilkerson

Well, friend, I don't know about your tastes, but I tend to like it very bloody," Myrnin said. He shifted position, dragging Claire along like a rag doll without any effort at all. "Have we been introduced?"
"Probably not. Why, are you asking me out, sweetheart?"
"You're not my type, darling. Is this one yours?"
"No," Frank said, and looked at Shane, just in a quick flicker. "Let's say she's a friend of the family. — Rachel Caine

But if sleep it was, of what nature, we can scarcely refrain from asking, are such sleeps as these? Are they remedial measures - trances in which the most galling memories, events that seem likely to cripple life for ever, are brushed with a dark wing which rubs their harshness off and gilds them, even the ugliest, and basest, with a lustre, an incandescence? Has the finger of death to be laid on the tumult of life from time to time lest it rend us asunder? Are we so made that we have to take death in small doses daily or we could not go on with the business of living? And then what strange powers are these that penetrate our most secret ways and change our most treasured possessions without our willing it? Had Orlando, worn out by the extremity of his suffering, died for a week, and then come to life again? And if so, of what nature is death and of what nature life? — Virginia Woolf

I think the roots of this antagonism to science run very deep. They're ancient. We see them in Genesis, this first story, this founding myth of ours, in which the first humans are doomed and cursed eternally for asking a question, for partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. It's puzzling that Eden is synonymous with paradise when, if you think about it at all, it's more like a maximum-security prison with twenty-four hour surveillance. It's a horrible place. Adam and Eve have no childhood. They awaken full-grown. What is a human being without a childhood? Our long childhood is a critical feature of our species. It differentiates us, to a degree, from most other species. We take a longer time to mature. We depend upon these formative years and the social fabric to learn many of the things we need to know. — Ann Druyan

If anyone went on for a thousand years asking of life: 'Why are you living?' life, if it could answer, would only say, 'I live so that I may live.' That is because life lives out of its own ground and springs from its own source, and so it lives without asking why it is itself living. — Meister Eckhart

Zack stepped toward Mollie, and without asking permission, tugged her into his arms. "Let's dance," he said impulsively. Her eyes widened in alarm. "Don't be ridiculous." Mollie was not the sort to be drawn out of her comfort zone without a little prodding. She tried to skitter out of his arms, but he hauled her back. "Let me do all the work, Mollie. I know what I'm doing." Like any good Pole in Chicago, Zack had been dancing since childhood and confidently led Mollie in a rousing jig. She was clumsy at first, but all she had to do was follow his lead. The tension in her back relaxed, and she learned the steps. Her smile started out hesitant, then bloomed wider. With her face illuminated by firelight and laughter, she was perfect in his arms. — Elizabeth Camden

Love is invisible and comes and goes where it wants, without anyone asking about it. — Miguel De Cervantes

Science attempts to figure out laws and then uses it later. While the work of art reflects the cosmic order without asking for an explanation — Alija Izetbegovic