On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
When my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1991, I asked him if he had any regrets, and he said no. I was a burnt-out litigation solicitor in my thirties, hating my life, and his cancer made me re-evaluate it all.
One of the questions I get asked a lot is, 'What do you do to stay in shape?' My glib answer is, 'I play.' But I mean it. Sure, I go to the gym, but I don't spend my life there. Most of my activity is outdoors, whether it's basketball or mountain biking or rock climbing.
I'm asked that a lot: 'James, is there really a continuing spiritual renaissance occurring on this planet? Look at all the conflict, look at the wars.' And I believe, yes, we're still moving toward a deeper spirituality. It's personal. It's grassroots. It's everybody trying to get their own connection made, and from there it grows out.
I have often been asked what I think about at the moment of take-off. Of course, no pilot sits and feels his pulse as he flies. He has to be part of the machine. If he thinks of anything but the task in hand, then trouble is probably just around the corner.
I have often asked myself if I would have worked as hard if I was as ill as Steve Jobs. My answer is that my wife most likely would not have let me work, and I would have stayed home. But I am not Steve Jobs.
I took the part in 'Mr. Holland's Opus' because no one had ever asked me to play 'a life' before. I get to age through 30 years. The idea really challenged me.
The attorney general called and asked me if I was willing to be interviewed for FBI director. And the truth is I told him I didn't think so, that I thought it was too much for my family. But that I would sleep on it and call him back in the morning. And so I went to bed that night convinced I was going to call him back and say no.
I became a clown when these docs came to the house in Berkeley and asked me to come cheer up kids. I'd just had my third spinal fusion and I was looking for something to take my mind off the pain I was in.
I am quite driven. I know what I think, and I know what I want to achieve, but I also hope that people who are asked to describe me would describe me as pretty down-to-earth, loyal, friendly. The more experience I have got in politics, I think the more I have allowed me to shine through.
I've probably done more than a thousand interviews, and I can't remember what people asked me two months ago or two days ago.
During the holiday season, we've asked everyone within the sound of my voice that if you're going to celebrate, celebrate in a responsible manner.
I had a reporter ask me how much I weigh. I said to him, 'You go first: How much do you weigh?' People always ask me what I eat. Other artists don't get asked these questions.
'What is this', and 'How is this done?' are the first two questions to ask of any work of art. The second question immediately illuminates the first, but it often doesn't get asked. Perhaps it sounds too technical. Perhaps it sounds pedestrian.
I got into the right frame of mind that I will serve my country. I didn't volunteer to do it, but they've asked me, so that's what I'll do.
No, I haven't asked for a guy's number, but I've always wanted to.
In the beginning, my equipment, I would rent them from teamster-types, really. I don't know where they got the cameras - I think from the TV stations. But I don't know if they asked the TV stations.
I went to a record store and asked for 50 cent. They kicked me out for pan-handling.
In 1978, when I was a non-Congress chief minister, we distributed surplus wheat among labourers. Later, when we visited a village, I asked a labourer whether he knew who sent the wheat. 'Yes, Indiraji - only Indiraji helps the poor.' Indiraji was a symbol for the weaker sections.
Most Americans and other Westerners claim to have read all or part of the Bible. However, when asked to identify even four books of the Bible or four of Jesus' disciples or four of the Ten Commandments, fewer than half even attempt to respond and fewer than one in ten respond correctly.
I know what I'm good at, and if I'm asked to do something I'm not - like hip-hop dancing - I get self-conscious.
When I joined Google, they asked me what title I wanted. I said, 'What about archduke?' They said, 'Well, that didn't meet our nomenclature. Why don't you be our Chief Internet Evangelist?' This was in 2005.
I was preppy, then suddenly switched around age 14. I asked my mother to go to this vintage store, and she let me buy a leopard swing coat, pink cigarette pants, and lime-green gloves.
I was wrapping up my stint on 'Daredevil' co-writing with Andy Diggle during the Shadowland story, when Marvel asked if I was interested in doing something else with DD but a bit different. When they explained the purpose of the 'Season One' books, I was intrigued - I'm a big advocate of books for people new to the medium - and said yes.
Everyone who has ever asked for asylum in Slovakia was granted asylum if that person met the conditions. There was never any discrimination based on religion.
It's just a great brand with great clothes. I'm just excited they asked me to be part of Penshoppe.
People have asked me why are Australians and Brits so good at American accents, and it's quite simple. We grew up listening to the American sound on our TV. That's why American actors have a hard time with foreign accents.
Somebody asked what I wanted on my gravestone. I'm just going to put: 'Glad I Could Help.'
A very beautiful young woman once asked me to sign her breasts. That was back when I was a hip young thing - it's been all downhill since then.
People have asked me, 'Is it about Apple or is it about Jobs?' and I say it's about how a man becomes his company and the company becomes the man. That has only happened a few times, like it happened with Ford, I think, they became inextricably linked together.
I'd always been the confident guy in school. I was good in math and English, but I was still shy. I couldn't get up and speak in front of people. I was asked to do it when I was 10 years old and I burst out crying.
Anybody that's asked, I've counseled that they not expand Medicaid eligibility. I've been critical of any expansion because you know what Washington does. It promises something for a finite period of time, and then it leaves you on the hook.
When my son was murdered, people asked me how I felt about God and what had happened to my son. I said, 'No, you can't go there. You have to understand that there is a devil, and he works 24/7. Whoever murdered our son was with the devil.'
This is what I asked for, and in this day and age that's what actually goes on. But what hurts me the most is that I work just as hard as any other actress around my age, like Scarlett Johansson, but I just don't get the opportunities that they get because people are so distracted by the mess that I created in my life.
I was completely unqualified to get into Harvard. But then I went to my interview for Harvard, and the woman asked, 'Why do you want to go here?' And I took out all of my comedy writing samples that I had done. I couldn't have been more delusional in terms of what I thought they wanted in a candidate for college.
If you'd come to me in 2012, when the last presidential election was raging and we were cooking up ever more complicated ways to monetize Facebook data, and told me that Russian agents in the Kremlin's employ would be buying Facebook ads to subvert American democracy, I'd have asked where your tin-foil hat was.