All The Wrong Questions Quotes

All the wrong questions have been asked and the correct answers are not true. ~ Michael Hogan

(on the Pip and Squeak asking for a taxi tip)
"How about a tip?"
"Here's a tip," I said. "Next time you're at the library, check out a book about a champion of the world."
"By that author with all the chocolate?"
"Yes, but this one's even better It has some very good chapters in it."
"That's the kind of tip we can use," Squeak said. "Pip reads to me between fares. ~ Lemony Snicket

You don't spend your life hanging around books without learning a thing or two. ~ Lemony Snicket

'The Long Goodbye' is one book I like to read over and over again, and it was an enormous inspiration for 'All The Wrong Questions'. ~ Daniel Handler

Josephine caught my eye and gave me a signal we'd used for years to indicate that one of us had to leave. The signal was mouthing the words "I have to leave" and pointing at the door. ~ Lemony Snicket

I've already spent ten years of my life apologizing for that band. As their manager, that's all I really did. Apologize. For years afterward I'd walk into a hotel lobby and the receptionist would call to me, 'Mr. McGhee.' And I'd run up and drop to my knees and say, 'Oh, Jesus, I'm really sorry.'
They'd look at me funny and say, 'No, nothing's wrong. You have a telephone call.'
And I'd breathe a sigh of relief and thank the good Lord above that I wasn't managing Mötley Crüe anymore.

~ Doc McGhee. ~ Motley Crue

I just watched an episode where Steve Austin fights a Russian Venus probe that landed on Earth by mistake. As an expert in interplanetary travel, I can tell you there are no scientific inaccuracies in the story. It's quite common for probes to land on the wrong planet. Also, the probe's large, flat-panel hull is ideal for the high-pressure Venusian atmosphere. And, as we all know, probes often refuse to obey directives, choosing instead to attack humans on sight. So ~ Andy Weir

You understand nothing, I told him with a weary shake of the head, but I would not try to make him understand. That there was no justification for it: the murder of another, no matter how vile. We had all been wrong and, blackest of ironies, I had known this to hold that precious and wondrous thing, life, in my hands. To hold it in my hands before I destroyed it. ~ Krisi Keley

When you stop chasing all the wrong things, you give the right things a chance to catch you. ~ K. Bromberg

A pissant is somebody who thinks he's so damn smart, he can never keep his mouth shut. No matter what anybody says, he's got to argue with it. You say you like something, and, by God, he'll tell you why you're wrong to like it. A pissant does his best to make you feel like a boob all the time. No matter what you say, he knows better. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

It [speaking with words that bring about harmony] consists of speaking of what is good about people, instead of what is wrong with them. For some people this is an almost impossible exercise, for they have become totally habituated to speaking critically. We all seem to have a special talent for finding critical things to say about the world, about others, and about ourselves! (117) ~ Jean-Yves Leloup

I told them this was their language, this English, this most marvellous and expressive cloak of meaning and imagination. This great, exclamatory, illuminating song, it belonged to anyone who found it in their mouths. There was no wrong way to say it, or write it, the language couldn't be compelled or herded, it couldn't be tonsured or pruned, pollarded or plaited, it was as hard as oaths and as subtle as rhyme. It couldn't be forced or bullied or policed by academics; it wasn't owned by those with flat accents; nobody had the right to tell them how to use it or what to say. There are no rules and nobody speaks incorrectly, because there is no correctly: no high court of syntax. And while everyone can speak with the language, nobody speaks for the language. Not grammars, not dictionaries. They just run along behind, picking up discarded usages. This English doesn't belong to examiners or teachers. All of you already own the greatest gift, the highest degree this country can bestow. It's on the tip of your tongue. ~ A.A. Gill

Listen to me, Dad. When Dylan's first cornea went bad, I grieved for the perfect child he should have been. I told myself that the diagnosis was wrong. I bargained with God - you know, make his eyes right and I'll do anything. When that didn't work I was absolutely furious that my child had to face this. In the end I had no choice. I had to accept it, because that was the only way I could help Dylan." She straightened. "Grieving is a process. Anger is part of it." She paused. "Right now, you're angry that Mom left you alone. But you're taking it out on Jill and me, and we both need you. You can drink all you want - ~ Barbara Delinsky

Come in and see, that something seemed to whisper in my head. Never mind all the rest of it, Jake - come in and see. Come in and visit. Time doesn't matter in here; in here, time just floats away. You know you want to, you know you're curious. Maybe it's even another rabbit-hole. Another portal. Maybe it was, but I don't think so. I think it was Derry in there - everything that was wrong with it, everything that was askew, hiding in that pipe. Hibernating. Letting people believe the bad times were over, waiting for them to relax and forget there had ever been bad times at all. ~ Stephen King

I actually don't have any fear of people reading Wild and going out unprepared. Because one of the best things that ever happened to me was that I went out unprepared. And when you really think about it, all I did wrong was that I took too much stuff, which is the most common backpacker mistake. The part that I wasn't prepared for is the part you can't prepare for. ~ Cheryl Strayed

Girlhood ... is the intellectual phase of a woman's life, that time when, unencumbered by societal expectations or hormonal rages, one may pursue any curiosity from the mysteries of the yo-yo to the meaning of infinity. These two particular pursuits were where I left off in the fifth grade when I discovered a hair growing in the wrong place and all hell broke loose. ~ Alice Kahn

There's different ways of doing things wrong, Lynn, and not all of it is choosing to hurt others. Sometimes it's the things you don't do that make you feel the worst. ~ Mindy McGinnis

Sometimes you just have to give yourself permission to feel how you feel until it passes. I think one of the problems we all have is thinking that feeling sad is wrong. No. It's okay to feel sad. It's okay to feel sad for as long as you need to.
Just don't get lost in there, and forget you are more than your sorrow. You are so much more beautiful and strange than the struggles that you've been through. You are far stronger the moment you realize that. Not many people will understand that strength isn't feeling nothing, it's feeling everything and continuing to move forward despite it. ~ Jennifer Megan Varnadore

I don't get it, man. That dude has zero game, then suddenly he up and jets with a hottie? Meanwhile I can't buy a date."
"Makes no sense." Hi, face serious.
I pressed a fist to my lips, considering. "What'd the girl look like?"
"Hot."
Ben shifted his weight. I heard Hi chuckle behind me.
I choked back my mounting frustration. "Could you be more specific?"
"Oh, right." Cole rubbed his oily chin and squinted at the ceiling. "She had, like, nice hair. It was sorta . . . black? Or maybe brown. Not blonde, for sure. And she was kinda tall. But not really. Oh, and I think she wore a T-shirt. Could be wrong, though."
I stared at the useless witness before me.
What a moron.
"Can you remember anything else, Cole?" Catching his eye, I tried to urge the memory from his brain by force of will. "Anything at all?"
For a moment, Cole's face screwed up in thought, then it bloomed with contentment. "He said I could have his mattress. Solid dude, that Jordan."

Hi snapped on his seat belt. "Not everyone is college material."
Shelton shook his head. "I'm surprised that guy remembers to breathe. ~ Kathy Reichs

...[H]uman reason in its pure use, so long as it was not critically examined, has first tried all possible wrong ways before it succeeded in finding the one true way. ~ Immanuel Kant

I guess it's just this feeling that my body is secretly all wrong. Which means any guy who assumes I'm normal is going to flip his shit if we get to the point of nakedness. Whoa. Nope. Not what I signed up for. ~ Becky Albertalli

Time would heal the wound that was Frank; the world would continue to spin, to wobble, its axis only slightly skewed, momentarily displaced, by the brief, shuddering existence of one man -one THING - a post-human mutant, a blurred Xerox copy of a human being, the offspring of the waste of technology, the bent shadow of a fallen angel; Frank was all of these things. . . he was the sum of everything dark and sticky, the congealment of all things wrong and dark and foul in this world and every other seedy rathole world in every back-alley universe throughout the vast garbage dump of creation; God rolled the dice and Frank lost. . . he was a spiritual flunkie, a universal pain-in-the-ass, a joy-riding, soul-sucking cosmic punk rolling through time and space and piling up a karmic debt of such immense magnitude so as to invariably glue the particular vehicle of the immediate moment to the basement of possibility - planet earth - and force Frank to RE-ENLIST, endlessly, to return, over and over, to a flawed world somewhere to spend the Warhol-film-loop nights of eternity serving concurrent life sentences roaming the dimly lit hallways of always, stuck in the dense overshoes of physicality, forever, until finally - one would hope there is always a FINALLY - eventually, anyway - God would step in and say ENOUGH ALREADY and grab Frank by the collar of one of his thrift-shop polyester flower-print shirts and hurl him out the back door of the cosmos, expelling the rotten orb into the gr ~ George Mangels

But here is the heart of the moral issue for many of us. Simply put, those around the world who have contributed least to global warming and climate change will be the most and first to be impacted by the consequences of it all. Sadly, it's an old story. We, the affluent, create the problem, and the poor pay the price for our sins. It is wrong, and it is a sin-ours. ~ Jim Wallis

The thing about games is, players often say they don't care about story, but then if you took the story out, what would their reaction be? If no one cared about story, we'd all still be playing Pac-Man. There's nothing wrong with Pac-Man, but the point is, there's a genre of games in which you want to become part of that world. ~ Karen Traviss

Science is the key to our future, and if you don't believe in science, then you're holding everybody back. And it's fine if you as an adult want to run around pretending or claiming that you don't believe in evolution, but if we educate a generation of people who don't believe in science, that's a recipe for disaster. We talk about the Internet. That comes from science. Weather forecasting. That comes from science. The main idea in all of biology is evolution. To not teach it to our young people is wrong. ~ Bill Nye

There were going to be plenty of them who would have been just as opposed to the Republic. Trust the wrong one, and they'd all be fed straight to the Empire. Leia. Luke. All of them. It was the nature of the game. ~ James S.A. Corey

[Ford said] ".. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur. "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going in for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. ~ Douglas Adams

It is funny how we hurt ourselves, isn't it? We're the reason of what happens to us, we're the reason of our suffering, we choose the wrong people to hang with, to date and to love. The mind blames the heart, the heart blames the lover and that's how the cycle of life and love goes. Sometimes, we're so afraid to lose people and end up alone. Despite of their hurting, we think that if we chase them away we'll never be able to fill their places, we fear feeling empty and alone and most of all we fear the fact that they may move on before us. ~ Yasmine Marouf Araibi

People say, 'Don't you get tired of people coming up to you all the time?' But what's wrong with strangers saying they love you? ~ John C. Reilly

Look, I admire people who can spend all their time living smack in the middle of their problems and fears. But if I had that innate capability, I probably wouldn't have become a drunk. And in early sobriety I saw nothing wrong with taking my reality in small doses. ~ Kristi Coulter

Letting the banks go bust instead of perpetually bailing them out is the right way to go.Iceland Did It Right; All others are doing it wrong. ~ Ziad K. Abdelnour

I earned my place,
With the tidal waves.
I can't escape this feeling,
That something ain't right.
I called my name
As I crashed the gates,
Still I can't escape this feeling
That something ain't right. ~ All Time Low

All of us in society are supposed to believe that cruelty to animals is wrong and that it is a good thing to prevent needless suffering. So if that is true, how can meat be acceptable under any but the most extraordinary circumstances, such as perhaps roasting the bird who died flying into a window? ~ Ingrid Newkirk

All my habits through life have been singularly removed from any condition of reliance on others, and the feeling - right or wrong - that aloneness is my proper position has prevailed since my early childhood, no doubt nourished and strengthened by many and quick-following bereavements. ~ Dorothea Dix

The longer they stayed on, and the better they knew each other, the better she at least could see their mistake, and the more misguided their lives became - like a long proof in mathematics in which the first calculation is wrong, following which all other calculations move you further away from how things were when they made sense. ~ Richard Ford

To be sure, I'm not perfect wife material: I'm neurotic. I'm compulsive. I speak before I think and can't cook worth a damn. I'm messy and germaphobic all at once, and it's not entirely unheard of for me to get hold of the wrong end of the stick and then hang there like a pitbull. ~ Sara Gruen

How far have you walked for men who've never held your feet in their laps?
how often have you bartered with bone, only to sell yourself short?
why do you find the unavailable so alluring?
where did it begin? what went wrong? and who made you feel so worthless?
if they wanted you, wouldn't they have chosen you?
all this time, you were begging for love silently, thinking they couldn't hear you, but they smelt it on you, you must have known that they could taste the desperate on your skin?
and what about the others that would do anything for you, why did you make them love you until you could not stand it?
how are you both of these women, both flighty and needful?
where did you learn this, to want what does not want you?
where did you learn this, to leave those that want to stay? ~ Warsan Shire

For Love surely lies heartbroken at all the tears cried in its name, the curses flung at its efforts ... there is nothing wrong with love; there is just something wrong with us. ~ Sinovuyo Nkonki

When Sebastian, cearly delighted to be treated like one of the guys, didn't move, Alex bared his teeth. "Depeche-toi!"
Sebastian depeched. Alex turned back, all Cheshire cat smile.
"No," I said.
"No what?"
"No,you are not going to teach me all the cool words so I can go to Chamonix and be conversational."
"Good." He leaned in so I could see the faint dusting of freckles on his nose and smell spearmint gum. "Chamonix is so 1990s. Everyone who is anyone goes to Courchevel these days."
I turned on my heel and started to walk off.
"Jeez. Ella." He loped after me. "What if your problem? Conversational, my ass. Talking to you is like dancing around a fire in paper shoes."
I stopped. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"It's an expression my Ukranian babushka likes. I'll explain it at our first turtoring session."
I scowled at his shirt. This one had what looked like a guy riding a dolphin instead of the ubiquitos alligator or polo player. "There isn't going to be a tutoring session."
"Winslow seems to think otherwise."
"Wouldn't be the first thing she's wrong about," I muttered.
He gave an impressive sigh. The dolphin lurched, but the little guy on it held tight. "You don't want to fail French, do you? That would be a serious admission of weakness from an Italian girl."
I almost smiled. Instead, I announced. "Fuhgeddaboudit. I'll buy a 'Teach Your Poodle French in Ten Easy Lessons' online. Problem solved, and Winslo ~ Melissa Jensen

Going back to the basis, the phrase 'Fight Like A Girl', and we've all heard that growing up. And by that they mean that you're some kind of weakling and have no skills as a male. It's said to little boys when they can't fight yet, and it ridicules us. By the time we were born, the most of us hear things which program you to accept and know that you are less than your male counter part. It comes apparent in the way you're paid for your job, it comes apparent when yóu are not allowed to go outside after a certain hour because you stand a good chance of getting raped while no one says that to your boyfriend. While women, anywhere, live in some kind of fear, there is no equality and that is mathematically impossible. We cannot see that change or solved in our lifetimes, but we have to do everything that we can. We should remind ourselves that we are fifty-one percent. Everyone should know that fighting like a girl is a positive thing and that there is not inherently anything wrong with us by the fact that we are born like ladies. That is a beautiful thing that we should never be put down because of. Being compared to a woman should only make a man feel stronger. It should be a compliment. In this world we're creating it actually is.

I remember this one guy who came to our show in Texas or something and he had painted his shirt "real men fight like a girl", and I cried, because he was going away in the army next day. He bought my book because he wanted something he co ~ Emilie Autumn