If you still have to ask†shame on you.

-Armstrong, Louis known as Satchmo
Habitual response when asked what is jazz? Quoted in M  Jones Salute to Satchmo (1970).

To ask the hard question is simple.

-Auden,W(ystan) H(ugh)
  Poems, no.27.

   Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one 110 that askethreceiveth; and hethat seekethfindeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

-Bible (NewTestament)
St Matthew 7:7^8.

The real pitch lake is simply about two hundred asphalt tennis courts, in very bad condition, set in the midst of somegently undulating greenmeadows.Iam inclined to ask for my money back.

-Huxley, Aldous Leonard
  On the Trinidad Pitch Lake. Beyond the Mexique Bay.

For Love's sake, kiss me once again, I long, and should not beg in vain, Here's none to spy, or see; Why do you doubt, or stay? I'll taste as lightly as the Bee, That doth but touch his flower, and flies away. Once more, and (faith) I will be gone: Can he that loves, ask less than one?

-Jonson, Ben
The Underwood,'A Celebration of Charis', no.7 (published1640).

Why were they proud? again we ask aloud, Why in the name of Glory were they proud?

-Keats,John
  Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems, 'Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil', stanza16.

   We stand today on the edge of a new frontier. But the new frontierof which I speak isnot a set of promises.It is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them. It appeals to their pride, not their pocketbooköit holds out the promise of more sacrifice instead of more security.

-Kennedy,John F(itzgerald)
  On accepting the Democratic Convention's presidential nomination,15  Jul.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what yourcountry can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.

-Kennedy,John F(itzgerald)
  Inaugural address, Washington, 20  Jan.

Ask Nureyev to stop dancing, ask Sinatra to stop singing, then you can ask me to stop playing.

-King, BillieJean ne¤  e Moffitt
  Quoted in Colin  Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

Ask me no more: what answer should I give? I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: Yet,O my friend, I will not have thee die! Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live.

-Tennyson
  The Princess, pt.7, added song, stanza 2.

People do what you pay them to do, not what you ask them to do.

-Waldron, Hicks
  In theWall StreetJournal,17 Apr.