Quotes About Inquiry

There are questions of real power and then there are questions of phony authority. You have to break through the phony authority to begin to fight the real questions of power.

I am a mystery to myself.

What are you smoking and why aren't you sharing?

The inspector listened to folk talking, just throwing in a question occasionally, like tossing a pebble into a pool and waiting to see what the ripples stirred up.

What did your neighbours do before they retired?' Vera knew she should move on to the detail, to questions more relevant to the investigation, but she'd always been a nosy cow.

At nine o'clock he went into an estate agent's office and asked if they had a map of the town. He was afraid they would not give him one unless they thought he was a serious purchaser, so he came out with an armful of property details too

This was what Vera missed, now she had to spend so long at her desk. The prying and nebbing into other folk's business.

Interviewer: Didn't Sagan want to believe? Druyan: he didn't want to believe. he wanted to know.

And what greater might do we possess as human beings than our capacity to question and to learn?

At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the 'what if - what then' approach to writing and illustration.

Some authors, when starting a novel, imagine a place first. Others, a character starts taking shape in their head. I start with a hook, a situation, a 'what if.'

I don't write historical novels but novels that wonder, 'And what if it happened in this way and not in this other one?'

Our mandate expects that we will build on the Joint Inquiry's investigation and we will not be re-inventing the wheel. But we go to places which the Joint Inquiry was not permitted to explore.

Whenever I do a book, I'm usually guided by a question or something that I'm trying to tease out.

I would get so angry whenever I'd notice people looking at me weirdly. They'd even stop me on the street and ask questions about my skin color.

Genetics is where we come from. It's deeply natural to want to know.

Nonfiction, to me, feels like an argument, whereas a novel is like a series of questions.

I am no party man in this matter in any degree; and if I have any objection to the motion it is this, that whereas it is a motion to inquire into the manufacturing distress of the country, it should have been a motion to inquire into manufacturing and agricultural distress.

We should follow the facts wherever they lead us.

Studying whether there's life on Mars or studying how the universe began, there's something magical about pushing back the frontiers of knowledge. That's something that is almost part of being human, and I'm certain that will continue.

I wanted to find out exactly who was in charge, whether it was God Himself or whether it was scientists in the laboratory. It was us.

History, whether sacred or profane, hides her teaching from those who study her through coloured glasses. She only reveals truth to those who look through the cold clear medium of passionless inquiry, who seek the Truth without determining first the masquerade in which alone they will receive it.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

While you are experimenting, do not remain content with the surface of things.