Question Quotations | Page 2

When economic conditions are difficult, people tend to be less generous and protect themselves; the question of solidarity doesn't mean much to them at that time.

I think one of the main challenges that the World Bank faces is creating an organizational structure that doesn't get in the way of its staff. We have fantastic staff. People told me as I was coming into the organization that the greatest asset of the World Bank Group is its staff, and I think there's no question that that's the case.

It's hard to look inside a person to answer a question about why anybody wants to be president. I suppose a combination of ambition, ego, and a real feeling that he could make a difference and could accomplish some things. All you ever had to do for Jimmy Carter was to tell him something was impossible, and he would usually do it.

It's important that people are open. Some people say, 'I'm going to be a doctor,' and they're a really good doctor. But for the rest of us, it's a big question mark. Just giving yourself a break, letting yourself try new things, and when something doesn't work out, moving along... it's all we can really do.

I think most people have creative ideas and have very strange, unorthodox impulses of things that they can do with their lives. I've had many of these over the years, but I decided the more important question was, 'When did I start calling this art?'

It's one thing when other African-Americans try to threaten my race card, but when people outside of my ethnicity have the audacity to question how 'down' I am because of the bleak, stereotypical picture pop culture has painted for me as a black woman? Unacceptable.

There is no question that chemical weapons attacks are a heinous abuse of humanity and power. But to assume that military strikes are an effective retribution for the crime committed is wrong.

I don't know many South Africans who don't have their eyes wide open to what it's like to be exposed to some sort of violence. The question is whether we choose to be cynical about it or not.

I'm a staunch believer that we are in an earth cycle. There's no question the planet is changing, and the fact that the Mayans had an end date and their history talks of change, I find that fascinating.

The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.

My intent was to gain experience for fiction I eventually hoped to write. But there's no question I was drawn in by the hope that journalism would be a creative, thrilling environment.

If somebody wants to book Alec Baldwin on one of our shows, and he wants to come on and talk to our people and say what he wants, I don't care. We would question him on his choice of words.

I think this is one of the greatest gifts of this era: Because of the Internet, we can start to type a question into Google and watch the question auto-fill. In that moment, we know someone else has asked that same question. The gift of realizing you're not alone is incredibly powerful.

To me, I was right from the beginning, because it's my right as an American to speak up and question our president, have my point of view, have my opinion, question what I want to question, and say what I want to say about our government.

The whole fame question is one that is constantly intriguing to me. I think that fame is something that other people create about you. Whether you jump into that or not is up to you - and whether you have the talents for jumping into it or not.

Yes, I have a website that puts out conservative news. Yes, I am part owner of a gun company. Yes, I'm a Republican who was cast into the limelight for having the temerity to confront Barack Obama on the question of redistributing wealth... But I'm a working man, and I'm working.

There are so many games where you fight aliens or zombies, and they have very high-fidelity graphics, but they don't ask the question of why the events are happening.

Not winning a title gives fuel to sportswriters and talking heads who question an athlete's true value.

The condition of all development is not to be content with the present, but to have the courage to ask how everything can be made better and the good fortune to find a right answer to this question in thought or in action.

The only moral question with suicide bombing is who the target is. And in that sense, the suicide bomber is no different from the stealth bomber or the cruise missile. If it is targeted at civilian people, then it is morally wrong, whether done by Bush, Blair, or a suicide bomber.

The law in question asserts, that the quantity of force which can be brought into action in the whole of Nature is unchangeable, and can neither be increased nor diminished.

No matter what happens in a child's home, no matter what other social and economic factors may impede a child, there's no question in my mind that a first-rate school can transform almost everything.

I find it very difficult to say no when I'm in Ireland. You do end up going around doing lots of events and things and not getting work done, and it's not just a question of having hours at the desk.

I think Wilco is going to definitely stand the test of time - no question - and Uncle Tupleo, and the whole No Depression scene, which is now alt-country. I think that's going to be around a long time.

There is no question that Taiwan is a state in any political science definition of a state.

The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, But Here or There as strikes the Player goes.

I think it's natural for any manager to want to grow his business. The question is at what rate, and in what direction, and in what format?

Baseball's future? Bigger and bigger, better and better! No question about it, it's the greatest game there is!

The military alone cannot end the conflict in Afghanistan. On that much nearly everyone can agree, offering a rare island of consensus among sides otherwise divided on the question of how and when America's longest-ever war should wind down.

Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.

For many people who were never religious or who leave the religion of their childhood behind, it's the experience of having children of your own that brings an urgency to the question of what you believe.

One day, when I was 33, I shifted. I suddenly saw acting as a higher calling. I understood that my goal was to serve the play. And I realized if an actor can make audiences' hearts resonate or make them question their values - that's an important thing to do!

Even under normal conditions, how we can distinguish various events, various experiences, and be able to reproduce it later is, of course, a very interesting question and, I think, one that we face in day to day life.

As our technology evolves, we will have the capacity to reach new, ever-increasing depths. The question is what kind of technology, in the end, do we want to deploy in the far reaches of the ocean? Tools of science, ecology and documentation, or the destructive tools of heavy industry?

They feel assured, as to yourself, that if the option remain with you, it is but a question of time and of form when and how a proclamation of emancipation will be issued.

The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?

For 'Prometheus,' I came back to a very simple question that haunted me that appears in the first 'Alien,' and no one answered in subsequent Alien films: who was the 'Space Jockey' - the big guy in the seat? If you really go into that, it becomes the basis for a pretty interesting story.

People like to know you're listening, and something as simple as a clarification question shows not only that you are listening but that you also care about what they're saying. You'll be surprised how much respect and appreciation you gain just by asking good questions.

Every argument on lynching in the South gets back sooner or later to the question of rape.

The only thing I hope I did was never put in question my love for the game, or my passion to be counted on when it mattered most.

The question I ask myself when adapting a book is how do I be true to the spirit and soul of the character? How would I describe this character in my medium? If you asked one person to do a painting of something and another to create a sculpture of it, you'll never ask, 'Why doesn't the painting look like the sculpture?'

I never understand why 'economist makes forecast' is ever a headline. Whether the economist in question is from the International Monetary Fund, a City forecasting group or the Treasury - a forecast is still not news.

We have no regulation of drones in the United States in their commercial use. You can see drones some day hovering over the homes of Hollywood luminaries, violating privacy. This question has to be addressed. And we need rules of operation on the border, by police, by commercial use, and also by military and intelligence use.

I became interested in this question of whether you can build wormholes for interstellar travel. I realized that if you had a wormhole, the theory of general relativity by itself would permit you to go backward in time.

Whether people care enough about local news to pay for it is, sadly, an entirely different question than whether our democracy requires a strong watchdog function at the local level to ensure safeguards against abuse, chicanery, and outright dishonesty.

To say that Jimmy Carter does not understand politics or is not a good politician denies the phenomenon by which he got to the White House. He is without question the best politician, when he's working at it, of anybody I have ever seen.

I think America's food culture is embedded in fast-food culture. And the real question that we have is: How are we going to teach slow-food values in a fast-food world? Of course, it's very, very difficult to do, especially when children have grown up eating fast food and the values that go with that.

I came here as a practical man, to talk, not simply on the question of peace and war, but to treat another question which is of hardly less importance - the enormous and burdensome standing armaments which it is the practice of modern Governments to sustain in time of peace.

I love to get to that place where I don't know what kind of music I'm doing; I don't know if it's any good. I don't know if it's anything. It's a big question mark. The idea is to have interesting results. That's my bottom line.

Put two ships in the open sea, without wind or tide, and, at last, they will come together. Throw two planets into space, and they will fall one on the other. Place two enemies in the midst of a crowd, and they will inevitably meet; it is a fatality, a question of time; that is all.

My approach to creating content is focused on pulling people out of their intellectual comfort zones. I'm interested in presenting ideas in unique ways that challenge people to question their assumptions.

There is no question that we are in a period in which we are going to have to use those sources to fund about 35 million dollars a year that used to be paid for by the federal government.

Faith accepts the Bible as the word and will of God and rests upon its truth without question and without other evidence.

There is no situation like the open road, and seeing things completely afresh. I'm used to traveling. It's not a question of meeting or seeing new faces particularly, or hearing new stories, but of looking at life in a different way. It's the curtain coming up on another act.

I think we have a good foundation which Mr. Lee Kuan Yew laid down, but you have to move forward. Now the question is what can Mr. Lee Hsien Loong and his team, and all our younger ministers can do now to build on the foundation which Mr. Lee Kuan Yew has built.

The stakes in my books tend to be kind of ridiculously high. In 'Kid vs. Squid,' the question is whether or not the California coast will be subsumed by the ocean in favor of the creation of a new Atlantis. In 'The Boy at the End of the World,' what's at stake is the survival of the human species.

Dress codes and gestures and attitudes have always inspired me, as has youth culture in general, although now I question it more. If you analyze youth cultures over history, there has always been something strict about them - you have to be like this or like that.

There's a huge dichotomy between people who grow up with alienation, which, for me, was invaluable, and people who grow up so completely privileged that it breeds this complacency and lack of desire to question or challenge or do anything significant. Those are the types of people who become partners at the corporate law firms.

There's no question that the next generation of terrorists, rather than going for small, little dramas, will go for the big one. They now understand that the way to get the world's attention is not strapping bombs to themselves in a pizza parlour, but to do something so horrific it gets you into the Guinness Book of World Records for terrorism.

It's always great when a director is just supportive of what you're doing. They're not so much critiquing you but giving you more ideas, giving you tons of things to work with, making you question your character and making you think about it... and making it seem like everything is limitless. That usually helps a lot.

The question is - did Richard Attenborough have a right to make 'Gandhi?' And did Danny Boyle have a right to make 'Slumdog Millionaire?' Quite honestly, if they didn't have the right to make these films, I had no right to make 'Elizabeth.'

For the moment, machines able to 'think' in anything approaching a human sense remain science-fiction. How we should prepare for their potential emergence, however, is a deeply unsettling question - not least because intelligent machines seem considerably more achievable than any consensus around their programming or consequences.

Obviously when it comes to the question of telling stories about other people's lives in a situation as political as South Africa, you get to be political.

But as you say, the fundamental stumbling block is the question of the future of the economy. And it's not just the sort of economic laboratory question, of what kind of system would best generate growth, which is the way it's presented.

There's no question that a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student's achievement, and we need to recruit, train and reward more such teachers. But here's what some new studies are also showing: We need better parents. Parents more focused on their children's education can also make a huge difference in a student's achievement.

'Beyond the Lights' was my fourth film. I gained a lot of knowledge, and I'm excited to share that with young filmmakers because I know how lost I was coming out of film school with that question of 'What's next?'

For Mitt Romney, the complex question of anti-Mormon bias boils down to the practical matter of how he can make it go away. Facing a traditional American anti-Catholicism, John F. Kennedy gave a speech during the 1960 presidential campaign declaring his private religion irrelevant to his qualifications for public office.

At issue was the question whether this man's faith could prevail against a man whose equal faith it was that this society is sick beyond saving, and that mercy itself pleads for its swift extinction and replacement by another.

I had to jump around in the arts for a while just to survive. I earned a little money here and there, playing the guitar at union meetings, functions. I sold some science-fiction stories. I knew there was absolutely no question of me not being connected with the arts, but I couldn't find any acting jobs.

I've never been a Clinton fan. He's had some accomplishments, and he's very skilled at politics, but, you know, he's had some successes and a very good economy. And the question is how much or how little of that does he deserve credit for.

I don't think that trauma is an illusion; there is no question in my mind that circumstances beyond our control can shape and define us. But ultimately, we make choices about letting ourselves be defined by our pasts.

The sanctity of a woman's right to control her own destiny is a moral force of its own... I came to realize that the question of choice is to be answered, not by the state, but by the individual.

Key is the question of where do new ideas come from. Historically, four places: government labs, big corporations, startup companies, and research universities.

My question about my art and my music has always been, 'Am I good, or am I good because?' I'm not the artist who wants to have the 'because' attached.

We're committed to making sure parents have affordable, quality early learning for their kids - there's no question about it.

I think that people like Bloomberg, they're complete thugs. No question about it. But on the other hand, it must be said that they are politically savvy. They don't get into those positions of power - in the case of Bloomberg, both economic and political power - by being anybody's fool.

GM has never been about feeding the world or tackling environmental problems. It is and has always been about control of the global food economy by a tiny handful of giant corporations. It's not wicked to question that process. It is wicked not to.

I believe that the question of the existence of God is an impenetrable mystery and beyond human comprehension.

I really liked the idea of creating a journal myself. It's like the way I clear my throat. I write a page every day, maybe 500 words. It could be about something I'm specifically worried about in the new novel; it could be a question I want answered; it could be something that's going on in my personal life. I just use it as an exercise.

I don't pay that much attention to sales figures or awards. To me, the big question is: 'Did you influence the next generation?' That's my goal.

I especially object to having my character assassinated by reference to events from my past which bear absolutely no relationship to the question of who the anthrax killer is.

But it required a disastrous, internecine war to bring this question of human freedom to a crisis, and the process of striking the shackles from the slave was accomplished in a single hour.

It's always the big question in our lives if you have a lot of success. What do you do with it? Buy more houses, buy more cars, buy more stuff, be wealthy and distant and unengaged? Or do you take all that good fortune that has come towards you and spread the love, do something with it?

How did it happen that an enlightened country like Germany was pulled into Nazism? That question has occupied me since 'The Tin Drum,' my first book. The story also shows that we can never know how a person's life will unfold; there is no guarantee that a person will do what is right and avoid what is not right.

Today, it's money. There's no question about that. Unless you endorse a grill that cooks hamburgers and steaks, where else can you make the kind of money that you can make in the ring if you're good?

A question I'm often asked by viewers is - what do I do when I taste something I don't like in one of our food segments? First of all you need to know that I like almost everything. Eating makes me hungry. That said, occasionally when something one of our guests whips up is not to my liking I'll usually say something like 'mmmmm... interesting.'

The question of how the eye works - that is, what happens when a photon of light first impinges on the retina - simply could not be answered at that time.

Due to the failure of politics, which has become a process of middle-management, art has become one of the last open spaces to question core beliefs and to design a viable future. Art becomes an open space where we can ask fundamental questions about ourselves.

One thing without any question that is true today and that is that the winner of the 28-minute commercial is President Barack Obama.

Over the past few years, many of us have increasingly begun to question the direction and meaning of our society as it has developed over the past several centuries.

If you are an open-minded and tolerant Muslim, you have enough knowledge to question the moves of a Christian governor or even the Ku Klux Klan. They called themselves a Christian organization, but how is that possible since Jesus didn't do that?

My parents, especially my father, discussed the question of my brothers' education as a matter of real importance. My education and that of my sister were scarcely discussed at all.

My first book, 'To Engineer Is Human,' was prompted by nonengineer friends asking me why so many technological accidents and failures were occurring. If engineers knew what they were doing, why did bridges and buildings fall down? It was a question that I had often asked myself, and I had no easy answer.

The great question of our time is, 'Will we be motivated by materialistic philosophy or by spiritual power?'

It has been discovered that all the world is made of the same atoms, that the stars are of the same stuff as ourselves. It then becomes a question of where our stuff came from. Not just where did life come from, or where did the earth come from, but where did the stuff of life and of the earth come from?

I like to write books where I get a question on the radio, and I don't have an answer for it.

There's no question that you can explore aspects of yourself through roles that you play, and you get a chance to investigate yourself; that's healthy, and it's therapeutic in a way. But if you're indulging yourself, exploration at the cost of the story or the project, that's not good.

I grew very skeptical of certain kind of Jewish separatism in my youth. I mean, I saw the Jewish community was always with each other; they didn't trust anybody outside. You'd bring someone home, and the first question was, 'Are they Jewish, are they not Jewish?'

The question is not, will there be difficulties and threats to our existence, but how will we deal with them and what can we learn from them. How can they become blessings to society, as a life threatening disease is to an individual, by teaching us about the meaning of our life and existence?

I don't mind writing so I didn't find that difficult, it's just a question of finding the time to do it. I kind of like the direct connection with the fans actually, it's pretty neat.