John Edgar Wideman Quotes

A lot of my songs are just posing questions, because I'm on a journey to find the answers myself.

I don't think writers should write about answers. I think writers should write about questions.

Sometimes we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.

Our minds, bodies, feelings, relationships are all informed by our questions. What you ask is who you are. What you find depends on what you search for. And what shapes our lives are the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never think of asking.

My most important quality or property is curiosity. And that had its beginning in what I was going to do with my life.

I think it's normal that for a part of your life you have a lot of questions, and you're interested in all possible theories.

Writing on 'Love' is so steeped in self-analysis. The writer's room can feel like therapy.

I always start out with an idea, even a boring idea, that becomes a question I don't have answers to.

A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us.--What was that god thinking who counseled, "Know thyself!" Did he perhaps mean,"Cease to concern yourself! Become objective!"--And Socrates?--And "scientific men"?

Everyone thinks writers must know more about the inside of the human head, but that's wrong. They know less, that's why they write. Trying to find out what everyone else takes for granted.

Having children made me go down a road of serious introspection and self-examination. I think it's informed and hopefully enhanced my creativity.

Writing has got to be an act of discovery....I write to find out what I'm thinking about.

One should be an enigma not just to others but to oneself too. I study myself. When I'm tired of that I light a cigar to pass the time, and think: God only knows what the good Lord really meant with me, or what He meant to make of me.

In the best writers, the outward-reaching interest in the 'found subject' leads back at a hairpin to some uncomfortable inner recognition that the writer has journeyed very far to see; he comes home half-dead.

I've always been a person that is searching for truth and always wants to go further, deeper.

Every time you do something, make something, it's final in a way, but it's not. It immediately raises a great set of questions. And if you become a question addict, which I am, you immediately have something you need to pursue.

Uncertainty is a very good thing: it's the beginning of an investigation, and the investigation should never end.

I'm interested in people who have lived, who are searching and questioning.

The greatest gift is not being afraid to question.

I love to write a book out of questions; in fact, I think it's the only way my writing can operate, if there's something I don't understand.

Whenever you're writing something that's reflective, you have to put yourself through some sort of ordeal just to understand the way you're feeling.

I never think of the reader. I am curious about things; I need to find out, so off I go.

Curiosity is the best motive for writing: curiosity about the world at large, or about oneself.

I think I write about things that are mysterious to me.

I make work not to give answers but to question things.