Questioning Technique Quotes

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Why do analysts always answer a question with a question?

It's weird how you can make people feel comfortable, and then ask them an uncomfortable question, but it doesn't ruin their day.

Asking the right questions is half the solution to any problem.

Like any poll, it depends on the ethnicity of the person asking the questions and the nature of the questions.

If you ask questions that interest you, you'll get answers that interest your audience.

Never, never, never on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to, was a tenet I absorbed with my baby food. Do it, and you'll often get an answer you don't want.

I'm not the kind of actress who asks a lot of questions of my directors unless it's something I really need to know.

Oftentimes, if you're talking to a seasoned interviewer who asks you a question, they may do a follow-up if they didn't quite get it. It's rare that they'll do a third or fourth or fifth or sixth follow-up, because there's an implicit, agreed-upon decorum that they move on. Kids don't necessarily move on if they don't get it.

I don't see myself as a Larry King or somebody. When you do interviews, sometimes it turns to interrogations. I'm more of a conversationalist, not throwing hardball questions.

Active questions are the alternative to passive questions. There is a huge difference between, 'Do you have clear goals?' and 'Did you do your best to set clear goals for yourself?' The former is trying to determine the employee's state of mind; the latter challenges the employee to describe or defend a course of action.

One thing I tend to do is ask actors tons and tons of questions to try to get at what they're thinking but also to expose to them whatever box they've placed their characters in - to blow up that box so the journey can begin.

I was originally going to be a lawyer, and the only thing I remember from the art of cross-examination is - you can see this one coming up Sixth Avenue - never ask a question the answer to which you do not know.

Chris Matthews can't start any sentence without 'Let me ask you this... ' And I love Chris Matthews! But almost everybody in journalism does it. Who's stopping you? Just say it!

That's a very nice, generic-sounding question: "When did you know you were funny?" But it pre-supposes that I think I'm really hilarious. So that's kind of a loaded question.

I do not believe that I have had an interview with anybody in twenty-five years in which the person to whom I was talking was not annoyed during the early part of the interview by my asking stupid questions.

Lawyers know that certain witnesses are simply not going to be cooperative and are not going to answer the questions. And what matters at that point is what is your question? Because everything you want the jury to know should be in your question, or everything you want the jury to wonder about should be in your question.

When the facts are on your side, there is huge power in pitching with questions. Because questions are active rather than passive. They necessitate a response.

Who you talk to is just as important as what questions you ask and what you pull away from it.

There's an art to asking questions. Briefings are valuable but normally communicate primarily what the subordinate leader wants you to know, and often the picture they provide is incomplete.

I thank the Prime Minister for his remarks about me. Debating with him at the Dispatch Box has been exciting, fascinating, fun, an enormous challenge and, from my point of view, wholly unproductive in every sense. I am told that in my time at the Dispatch Box I have asked the Prime Minister 1,118 direct questions, but no one has counted the direct answers-it may not take long.

If you give me enough questions honestly answered, I can get you to the hollow core of any liberal position.

People like to know you're listening, and something as simple as a clarification question shows not only that you are listening but that you also care about what they're saying. You'll be surprised how much respect and appreciation you gain just by asking good questions.

I've learned over the years that sometimes if you ask the same question more than once you get different responses.

The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play