Top 100 I Ask Why Not Quotes
#1. Some say that "there is no such thing as free lunch". And, I ask, why not?
The joy of giving without expecting anything in return from a particular source is simply magic.
Ana Ortega
#2. Do you believe in ghosts, Dim?" "Certainly not: but like every sensible man, I'm afraid of them. Why do you ask?
Arthur C. Clarke
#3. I do not know what arguments mean in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#4. I do not understand why, when I ask for grilled lobster in a restaurant, I'm never served a cooked telephone.
Salvador Dali
#5. What do you think?" I ask.
"Your suit looks like mine." Kenji frowns. "I'm supposed to be the one with the black suit. Why can't you have a pink suit? Or a yellow suit-"
"Because we're not the freaking Power Rangers," Winston says, rolling his eyes.
Tahereh Mafi
#6. When you get back to fundamental questions - 'Why should anything exist?' A, I'm not sure what the answer is in terms of the science, and B, I'm not sure that science can even ask that question.
John Rhys-Davies
#7. One day, someone said to me, 'Do you want to go jump out of an airplane?' I felt like I had nothing to lose anymore, so I said, 'Why not?' And every day since then, I ask myself that question.
Shania Twain
#8. I am one of the lingering bad ones, and so do I slink away, and pause, and ponder, and ponder, and pause, and do work without knowing why - not surely for this brief world, and more sure it is not for heaven - and I ask what this message of Christ means.
Emily Dickinson
#9. I'd say for those people who don't feel like they fit in, I'd want them to ask themselves why they want to, who they are trying to please, and whether or not those people are worth it. You know what they say: 'If they don't want you, then they don't deserve to have you.'
Connor Paolo
#10. If a society cannot even support somebody like me, then people ask: Who is under protection then? That's why there is such support for me. It is not because I am so beautiful or I am so charming. People feel: This guy is fighting for us.
Ai Weiwei
#11. Sometimes, when I tell folk my story, they ask why I did not run away from the pagans, why I did not escape southward into the lands where the Danes did not yet rule, but it never occurred to me to try. I was happy, I was alive, I was with Ragnar, and it was enough.
Bernard Cornwell
#12. As a boy in school, I already had the drive to be No. 1. If I achieve my goals, OK, but if not, I always ask why and try to rectify myself.
John Gokongwei
#13. I'm not a nosy person, but I'm always thinking 'I wonder why he did that? I wonder why this week he was this much better than last week?' I'm always wanting to ask questions of people. I think my advice would be get involved locally and see where it takes you.
Jill Douglas
#14. He stood and stepped up behind her. Why not? It's the truth. I like spending time with you. You're strong, beautiful and brave. What more could a man ask for?
Colleen Coble
#15. There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
Robert F. Kennedy
#16. I am totally fascinated by people and our history as I understand and continue to explore it. People have so much to give and so far to go and yet we have given and gone a great distance. It's really just interesting to ask: why not? And see where that takes me.
Nikki Giovanni
#17. You make me sound like some kind of heartless ice princess.'
'No, of course not, Belle. I must admit, you have always been uncommonly nice to every pimply-faced boy who has ever asked you to dance.'
'Thank you. I think.'
'It's probably why so many pimply-faced boys ask you to dance.
Julia Quinn
#18. 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
#19. You ask me if I love you and what you really mean is will I devour you, envelope you, obliterate life for you and worse, will I allow you to do that to me. That's why I never answer you, because I do love you, but not in the way you want, and I never will.
Rona Jaffe
#20. Journalists ask me, 'Why don't you ever talk about sex in your performances?' True, I don't talk about sex - not in my personal life and not in my professional life. This is modesty.
Gad Elmaleh
#21. I think I'm a very good reader of poetry, but obviously, like everybody, I have a set of criteria for reading poems, and I'm not shy about presenting them, so if people ask for my critical response to a poem, I tell them what works and why, and what doesn't work and why.
Diane Wakoski
#22. I'm beside myself with joy. I was worried you were going to ask me another one of your unequal grand questions.' 'Why not? I like your unequal grand answers!
Andrzej Sapkowski
#23. I don't know why anyone would want to ask an actor for dating advice. We are not the poster children for healthy relationships.
Ginnifer Goodwin
#24. The fan mail I get from kids are asking me questions which they do not ask their mothers and fathers. Because if they had, why write to me, a perfect stranger?
Maurice Sendak
#25. Why writers write I do not know. As well ask why a hen lays an egg or why a cow stands patiently while an underprivileged farmer burglarizes her.
H.L. Mencken
#26. Are you seriously having to ask why I won't date you?" She sounded so incredulous. "Would you like me to recite the list alphabetically?"
Actually, he did. "Let's hear it."
Not even a pause. "Asshat. Braggart. Cocky tied with chauvinist. Dumbass. Egotistical. Do I really need to go on?
Eve Langlais
#27. I'm a curious person. I like to ask questions. Well, why? People would say, it's never been done. It's never been done does not mean that it can't be done.
Kathy Ireland
#28. They did not ask my permission for their mediocrity, why should I ask theirs for excellence?
Murad S. Shah
#29. Because he was going to marry her.
"It is customary to ask," she now said as she turned to watch him button up a black shirt over that chest she'd licked and sucked and kissed not long ago.
"Why?" He shrugged. "I'm not giving you a choice.
Nalini Singh
#30. Who am I?? No, No you don't ask the questions I ask them my question is how much stupid are you??...You are so quite, why?? You don't have answer, it's not a problem you don't need to answer I kwow it!
Deyth Banger
#31. I am often asked why there is discrimination against women in science. And I have given it some thought. With prejudicial attitudes, you can't really do much. You can point out when people discriminate and ask them not to.
Christiane Nusslein-Volhard
#32. Why do you still want to find her? The whispers taunt me. Why? Why?
It's a question they ask over and over again. And my answer is always the same. Because I decide when she can leave. Not her.
Marie Lu
#33. Why are some people highly principled and willing to do anything for their principles, while most of us are not? And I am willing to not only ask, but also answer the question.
David Bezmozgis
#34. She lifted her chin and glared at him. "If you had but asked, I would've informed you that I do not attend masquerades." "That is precisely why I didn't ask.
Erica Ridley
#35. Man, you cannot be real," the human said softly.
"Why not?"
"You just can't."
She laughed a little. "Well, I am." He cleared his throat again. Offered her a lopsided grin.
"Mind if I ask you to prove it?"
"How?"
"Can I touch your hair?
J.R. Ward
#36. Why is there such vanity about hair? I make a point to bathe. I worry about boogers in my nose, and I ask the makeup artist to cover up my pimples, but beyond that, I try not to be too vain.
Anthony Edwards
#37. To look at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots of a map representing towns and villages. Why, I ask myself, should the shining dots of the sky not be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?
Vincent Van Gogh
#38. Your heart is everything. Why else would God ask for it first? I mean, why not ask for your mind? Your soul? Instead, God asks for our hearts.
Rachel Van Dyken
#39. 'Darling, you have to come home,' she started in as soon as I answered. 'You cannot possibly want to stay in that ... that tomb with bodies falling out of the wall!'
'I don't know why not,' I replied. 'It's everything a ghoul could ask for.'
Josh Lanyon
#40. Norfolk specializes in odd pronunciations. Hautbois is hobbiss, Wymondham is windum, Costessey is cozzy, Postwick is pozzik. People often ask why that is. I'm not sure, but I think it is just something that happens when you sleep with close relatives.
Bill Bryson
#41. I'm thirty-five and single because I am not gonna settle for somethin' that doesn't feel right, doesn't feel good, doesn't bring me joy, doesn't have my back, doesn't know how to cook, keep house, listen, laugh, make me laugh, give great head, or ask me why I do shit.
Kristen Ashley
#42. Do you have a boyfriend?" he asked.
"Huh?" Why would he ask her that?
"A big, mean-as-fuck, jealous guy who will break my neck with his bare hands if he knew I touched you?"
Toni shook her head.
"A raging case of herpes?"
"Of course not!"
"You're not making this any easier on me.
Olivia Cunning
#43. Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use Reason for his physician, he admits him not for his counsellor.
William Shakespeare
#44. Odi et amo; quare fortasse requiris, nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
(my translation: I hate and I love, you ask why I do this, I do not know, but I feel and I am tormented)
Catullus
#45. The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.
John Cage
#46. Don't even ask me why. I do not know, I have no answer to this insane behaviour.
Marina Abramovic
#47. Listen, you listen to the work and you decide whether you want to support it. But don't ask me why I'm doing it, because I really do not know the answer.
Joe Frank
#48. You ask me why I do not write something ... I think one's feelings waste themselves in words, they ought all to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring results.
Florence Nightingale
#49. So I want to make money. I think it's an OK goal to have. I always felt like I can't ask for that. But why not?
Mary Lambert
#50. Can you tell me where to find Tobias'? I ask. When I imagine his face, affection for him bubbles up inside of me and all I want to do is kiss him. 'Four, I mean. He's so handsome, isn't he? I don't really understand why he likes me so much. I'm not very nice, am I?'
-Tris
Veronica Roth
#51. Why are they sad and glad and bad? I do not know, go ask your dad.
Dr. Seuss
#52. I see the rainbow in the sky, the dew upon the grass; I see them, and I ask not why they glimmer or they pass. With folded arms I linger not to call them back; 'twere vain: In this, or in some other spot, I know they'll shine again.
Walter Savage Landor
#53. If a blind man were to ask me "Have you got two hands?" I should not make sure by looking. If I were to have any doubt of it, then I don't know why I should trust my eyes. For why shouldn't I test my eyes by looking to find out whether I see my two hands? What is to be tested by what?
Ludwig Wittgenstein
#54. Why? Why is it has to be this, why not the other way round? Is there a simpler way? What can I do with this? Ask yourself all sorts of questions.
Jack W.
#55. In the past there were people who were not rich but contented with their living style, laughing and happy all day. But when the new rich people appear, people look at them and ask, 'why don't I have a life like that too, a beautiful house, car and garden,' and they abandon their values.
Thich Nhat Hanh
#56. I ask her the most important question anybody has ever asked here or ever will: Did you ever fall in love with an Israeli man? "No. I couldn't." Why not? "I am a Palestinian. It is the same as a Jew falling in love with a German Nazi officer.
Anonymous
#57. It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious ... I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life.
Arthur Leonard Schawlow
#58. I ask why your Omnipotent God does not hold a man back when he is about to commit a sin or offence. It is child's play for God. Why did He not kill war lords? Why did He not remove the fury of war from their minds? In this way God could have saved humanity from great calamity and horror.
Bhagat Singh
#59. Can I ask you a question? I swear it's not about heaven."
Joi laughs. "Shoot."
"Why do you love me?" I ask her.
"Because you love me back," she says without hesitation.
"You have no idea how much," I tell her.
"Yes, I do," she says.
Kirsten Miller
#60. It appeals to the higher nature of the self to put aside food which once lived - I do not consider myself food, why should I ask all other creatures to consider themselves so?
Catherynne M Valente
#61. But this is neither here nor there why do I mention it? Ask my pen, it governs me, I govern not it.
Laurence Sterne
#62. I am just doing photo shoots. It's not something that extraordinary. I'm not a great artist, I'm not writing books, I'm not a painter, and people in the streets ask me for a picture or a note, and I say, 'Why?'
Carine Roitfeld
#63. Why not?' She asks the most challenging questions that a woman can ask. 'Why should I not read? Why should I not think? Why should I not speak?
Philippa Gregory
#64. When I go downstairs, my mom tells me I need to tuck in my shirt and wear a belt, "Why?" I ask, because I do not really care if I look respectable or not. I only want to get rid of Tiffany once and for all.
Matthew Quick
#65. It's so hard being handsome, isn't it?" I mocked him.
But he nodded and shrugged. "Sometimes I ask God why, but then I realize someone has to show the world the perfect male specimen. Why not me?
Amelia LeFay
#66. I've never liked the Thieves' Guild," said Teatime, without turning his head.
"Why not?"
"They ask too many questions."
"We don't ask questions," said Chickenwire quickly.
Terry Pratchett
#67. Oh, oh, I'm so sorry I just forgot that what I ask it can not be answered why??
You don't the rights to answer it, you don't have the guts, you are afraid aren't you?
Deyth Banger
#68. Does misfortune follow you everywhere, Miz Powell?" "Not normally," She pursed the lips that he found increasingly fascinating. "Why do you ask?"
"Because I'm thinking it might be prudent for me to increase my insurance before I drive you anywhere.
Victoria Vane
#69. You may well ask me why ... I took the time to write [books]. I can only reply that I do not know. There was no why about it. I had to: that was all.
George Bernard Shaw
#70. Why do the same people who believe in those deities doubt the existence of darker spirits? I ask all of you, how can a person believe in the light but not the dark?
John Searles
#71. I'd like to ask you a question, if I may."
"What?"
"All these poems you've written and hidden - so many poems. Why?"
While she thought, morning broke and the birds sang in the garden. "Because I could not stop.
Jeffrey Ford
#72. If one were to ask ... "What is slavery?" and I should answer in one word, "murder," my meaning would be understood at once. Why, then, to this other question: "What is property?" may I not likewise answer, "theft" ... ?
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
#73. You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain; I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care. As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown, I have a world apart that is not among men.
Li Bai
#74. Some would know
Why I so
Long still doe tarry,
And ask why
Here that I
Live, and not marry?
Thus I those
Doe oppose;
What man would be here,
Slave to Thrall,
If at all
He could live free here?
Robert Herrick
#75. I've become more and more aware of the promise and struggle to teach the global mind nowadays because I use every chance I get to ask faculty and administrators of management education programs why we don't offer at least one course - not even required, just an elective - on the world's religions.
Warren Bennis
#76. But that's the wrong question. Ask why everyone else is so pathetically stupid and why they're always whining about detention, I should get a medal for not slapping people in the face every day.
Laurie Halse Anderson
#77. No, I'm not in a bad mood. Why do you ask? You think I need to be in a bad mood to let you know I think you're an idiot?
Karen E. Quinones Miller
#78. Unfortunately, there's no greater rhyme or reason as to why it would be me. And since there is no answer as to why me, it's not a question I feel really entitled to ask.
David Rakoff
#79. I'm not a scholar or a psychologist, so I don't really think about why. But I do think about what it means to sing to and with people, to offer music to them, and to ask them to spend time with me.
Bobby McFerrin
#80. You ask me why I don't speak
Not a word at will
But write so much worth well over a mill'
Well I value words like I value kisses
A sober one, a closer one penetrates the heart
Darling it's how it mends it
Criss Jami
#81. I couldn't sleep," she confesses.
"Why not?" I ask.
She smiles at me. It's this sweet, innocent smile, and it makes my heart stammer.
"You didn't kiss me today," she says. "And I wanted you to.
Katie Kacvinsky
#82. It is not a shame to be knocked down by other people. The important thing is to ask when you're being knocked down, 'Why am I being knocked down?' If a person can reflect in this way, then there is hope for this person.
Bruce Lee
#83. I ask myself why I do it. Maybe it's to prove I'm still around. It takes a lot out of my body. I'm not an NBA player anymore. At my age, very few people can handle it.
Jerry Stiller
#84. He set the helmet on the floor beside the door and slung his jacket over the back of one chair. He tilted his head sideways to look at her, one eyebrow raised. "I'm not going to ask why. I'm going to make assumptions.
Paula Altenburg
#85. The misery stayed, not thought about but aching away, and sometimes I would have to ask myself, Why do I ache? Men can get used to anything, but it takes time.
John Steinbeck
#86. Somebody ask me, 'Alberto, why you not race in Torino?' I finished my career here in 1998, the 15 of March which was my last victory.
Alberto Tomba
#87. When critics or art historians or curators ask me why I still paint, the answer is that I am not naive.
Luc Tuymans
#89. Besides, if Hans came here, he might ask me to let him have some flour on credit, and that I could not do. Flour is one thing, and friendship is another, and they should not be confused. Why, the words are spelled differently, and mean quite different things. Everyone can see that.
Oscar Wilde
#90. I hate and I love. You ask why I do this? I do not know, but I feel and I am tormented. - CATULLUS
Kami Garcia
#91. Do you ever see someone doing something cool and you say to yourself, "I could do that" ... And then you don't? Ask yourself, why not? Honestly, why not? You really may not have a reason to do it, but if you'd regret not doing it? That's a whole other story.
Richie Norton
#92. I can't ask god why until I'm willing to ask why not.
Lori Wick
#93. So finally we tumble into the abyss, we ask God why he has made us so feeble. But, in spite of ourselves, He replies through our consciences: 'I have made you too feeble to climb out of the pit, because i made you strong enough not to fall in.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
#94. No one ever seems to question why the burden is all on the teacher to do the engaging, when we ask so little of the students, or for that matter, their parents." Her vehemence startled me. "I never thought of it that way," I told her. "No," she said, not unkindly. "But I promise, you will.
Tony Danza
#95. I'll be back as quick as I can," I said awkwardly.
"Sure."
"Stay cool."
"Don't worry, I'm not going to punch anybody."
I trotted to my car. As I slipped behind the wheel I heard the little girl ask Arnie loudly, "Why is your face all messy like that, mister?
Stephen King
#96. You seem to forget that the sun must set. You knew perfectly well that I would not be with you long enough. Still, you weep and cry and ask God 'Why' as if it were some kind of surprise. Why? Because love changes everything. Love's the surprise.
Kate McGahan
#97. You care for my daughter."
"My love for her is stronger than my hatred of you. 'Tis why I'll not raise arms against you today. Instead I ask your aid in the battle against the McHughs.
Maya Banks
#98. Why do want to find him so bad?' I ask after a while, but she's not listening. I watch her a bit
longer. 'Why do you want to find him so bad?' I ask again.
She blinks and comes out of her dream. She flicks the band on her wrist. 'I just do.' - Ed Skye
Cath Crowley
#99. I'm not saying that there weren't other inherent problems with the score that couldn't have been overcome with a bit of remixing, but why did they ask me to do it, and why did Griffin ask me to do it this way, for a film that had nothing to do with American vernacular?
Michael Nyman
#100. I'm here on this Planet for Give Love to Others, why They are Here I not Ask and Don't Know.
Jan Jansen
