A Quote by Philip Roth
Never in his life had occasion to ask himself, "Why are things the way they are?" Why should he bother, when the way they were was always perfect? Why are things the way they are? The question to which there is no answer, and up till then he was so blessed he didn't even know the question existed.
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When I decided to write about my brother and friends, I was attempting to answer the question why. Why did they all die like that? Why so many of them? Why so close together? Why were they all so young? Why, especially, in the kinds of places where we are from? Why would they all die back to back to back to back? I feel like I was writing my way towards an answer in the memoir.
I sort of expose the truth about common misconceptions, or you know, investigate why we do certain things culturally, why we have certain traditions, and ask the question, 'is this really the best way we can be doing things?'
Lying in bed, half-covered by the blankets, I would drowsily ask why he had come to my door that night long ago. It had become a ritual for us, as it does for all lovers: where, when, why? remember...I understand even old people rehearse their private religion of how they first loved, most guarded of secrets. And he would answer, sleep blurring his words, "Because I had to." The question and the answer were always the same. Why? Because I had to.
The mathematical question is "Why?" It's always why. And the only way we know how to answer such questions is to come up, from scratch, with these narrative arguments that explain it. So what I want to do with this book is open up this world of mathematical reality, the creatures that we build there, the questions that we ask there, the ways in which we poke and prod (known as problems), and how we can possibly craft these elegant reason-poems.
This crazy little party girl who loves to enjoy life actually has a purpose. So, that's really the core of why I've survived so many years and I can go and I can fall down and I can get back up. Why? Because I know why I'm here. That's the question that a lot of people need to answer when they do fall is, 'Why am I here?' If you can answer that question, you'll be able to dust yourself off and shine like a phoenix out of ashes.
Science is not the means by which we come to understand why physical laws and circumstances are the way they are. When we ask why - assuming the question is really 'why' and not 'how' - we are really asking to know the motive of some responsible agent capable of reason.
I think they were scared of me because I was different. I've always asked, 'Why? Why do I have to do that? Why do I have to look this way? Why do I have to dress this way? Why do I have to behave this way?'
Some things you just can't question. Like you can't question why two plus two is four. So don't question it, don't try to look it up. I don't know who made it, all I know is it was put in my head that two plus two is four. So certain things happen. Why does it rain? Why am I so sexy? I don't know.
There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
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?
My mother was given to a typical question: "We have always done this. Why should we do anything else?" But my wife's typical question was "We have always done this. Why don't we do it another way or, better still, why not do something else?"
You can't answer a kid's question. A kid never accepts any answer. A kid never says, 'Oh, thanks. I get it.'... They just keep coming with more questions - why, why, why? - until you don't even know who the fk you are anymore at the end of the conversation. It's an insane deconstruction.
Why are there beings at all instead of nothing? That is the question. Presumably it is not arbitrary question, "Why are there beings at all instead of nothing"- this is obviously the first of all questions. Of course it is not the first question in the chronological sense [...] And yet, we are each touched once, maybe even every now and then, by the concealed power of this question, without properly grasping what is happening to us. In great despair, for example, when all weight tends to dwindle away from things and the sense of things grows dark, the question looms.
I wanted to know why people follow rules blindly, or why girls had to act a certain way and boys didn't. Why could boys ask girls out and girls not ask guys out? Why did girls have to shave their legs and guys didn't? Why did society, like, set everything up the way they did? My whole adolescence was full of unanswered whys. Because they never got answered, I just kept lighting fires everywhere - metaphorically speaking.
Anything you say from your heart to God is a prayer. But "why" is rarely a useful question. When Job keeps asking God why he has had such loss and suffering, God says, "You wouldn't understand." I always want to know why, and I almost never have a good answer.
The question is not, "Why is there only one way to God?" but "Why is there even one way?"
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