Aunjanue Ellis Quotes

I think that's always the goal of art, is to make people ask themselves questions.

Not just art for art's sake, but I want to have films out there that will provoke authentic, holistic conversations about the human condition. And not provide the easy answers, but put it out there.

Politicians think they have answers for everything. We artists, we only have questions.

My movies are not movies of answers but of questions.

I think the deeper you go into questions, the deeper or more interesting the questions get. And I think that's the job of art.

A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good.

The great benefit of philosophy, which is also its great weakness, is that all its steps are taken in the spirit of doubt.

To me, the only purpose in making films, in my mind, is to talk about something and go to a place that might be difficult but that can make you still think and question.

In philosophy you're never 100% sure. You're always undermining what you think you know. That's always been my philosophy and my intellectual ethos.

Question everything. Your love, your religion, your passion. If you don't have questions, you'll never find answers.

Art does not exist only to entertain, but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for truth.

It's the duty of art to ask questions, not to provide answers. And if you want a clearer answer, I'll have to pass.

Never believe what you cannot doubt.

It is necessary to sleep upon the pillow of doubt.

Every philosophical review ought to be a philosophy of reviews at the same time.

I've always done music to push people to get them to get uncomfortable in their seat so they could wrestle with things. Not to become pew potatoes, just simply sitting there, growing fat with knowledge and not applying it. It's a mixed tape that's really aimed and geared toward hip hop culture.

The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.

I would simply ask why so many critics, so many writers, so many philosophers take such satisfaction in professing that the experience of a work of art is ineffable, that it escapes by definition all rational understanding; why are they so eager to concede without a struggle the defeat of knowledge; and where does their irrepressible need to belittle rational understanding come from, this rage to affirm the irreducibility of the work of art, or, to use a more suitable word, its transcendence.

Doubting pleases me no less than knowing

Whatever we think about and question a lot becomes questionable.

To philosophize is to doubt.

Doubt is often the beginning of wisdom.

With knowledge comes more doubt.

I get a great laugh from artists who ridicule the critics as parasites and artists manqués — sucha horrible joke. I can’t imagine a more perfect art form, a moreperfect career than criticism. I can’t imagine anything more valuableto do.