Then if you ask your grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she also says, "Why, of course, I did, child," but if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days, she says she never heard of his having a goat. Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she sometimes forgets your name and calls you Mildred, which is your mother's name. Still, she could hardly forget such an important thing as the goat. Therefore there was no goat when your grandmother was a little girl. This shows that, in telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most people do) is as silly as to put on your jacket before your vest.
Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really always the same age, so that does not matter in the least.
Source: The Little White Bird (1902), Ch. 14
“Asking a man if he could be trusted was like asking an unwed girl if she was a virgin. The question mattered, but the asking of it was a gross insult.”
Hart's Hope (1983)
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Orson Scott Card 586
American science fiction novelist 1951Related quotes
On what he spoke about in his meeting with Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama (9 May 2001); a scene in that film has the character played by Bill Murray telling a story about having caddied for the Dalai Lama.
“Asking what the question is, and why the question is asked, is always asking a pertinent question.”
Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), p. 17.
“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”
“There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.”
[John J. B. Morgan and T. Webb Ewing, Making the Most of Your Life, 2005, 75 http://books.google.fr/books?id=5i-JlfkMEUUC&pg=PA75]
Attributed
Variant: No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.
He said, "Her silence means her consent."
Sahih Bukhari, 9:85:79 https://sunnah.com/bukhari/89/7
“People are always asking, does God exist? Of course she does. The real question: what is she like?”
Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 4 (p. 69)