John Cassavetes Quotes

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

The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.

I have always been much better at asking questions than knowing what the answers were.

The marvelous thing about a good question is that it shapes our identity as much by the asking as it does by the answering.

I've always been really curious about things and slightly confused by the world, and I think someone who feels that way is in a good position to be the one asking questions.

I really like questions. I like people who write scripts because they're asking questions, not because they're giving answers. It's something that I look for.

Education is the foundation for all we do in life, it shapes who we are and what we aspire to be. Creativity fuels innovation, and it's what all states should strive to instill in the next generations.

Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.

Theater is there to search for questions. It doesn't give you instructions.

I don't think you want to give all the answers, but I think every answer you do give should bring up another question, and not all questions should be answered.

When I was a teenager, reading for me was as normal, as unremarkable as eating or breathing. Reading gave flight to my imagination and strengthened my understanding of the world, the society I lived in, and myself. More importantly, reading was fun, a way to live more than one life as I immersed myself in each good book I read.

I love to doubt as well as know.

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

The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.

I like to write about questions that interest me, not the conclusions I've come to.

I believe that education is all about being excited about something. Seeing passion and enthusiasm helps push an educational message.

I am really more interested in questions than in giving answers.

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

Once you start asking questions, innocence is gone.

We get wise by asking questions, and even if these are not answered, we get wise, for a well-packed question carries its answer on its back as a snail carries its shell.

God may be in the details, but the goddess is in the questions. Once we begin to ask them, there's no turning back.

To me, what is important in the theater is that we don't want to make a conclusion. We don't want to make a statement, don't want to say what something is. We want to ask, 'What is it?'

To me the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can’t give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don’t know anything like enough yet. That I haven’t understood enough. That I can’t know enough. That I’m always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom… Those who tell you that you can only live by accepting an absolute authority: don’t think of that as a gift. Think of it as a poison chalice. Push it aside, however tempting it is. Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.

I don't have the answers. But I am asking the questions, and that's the fun part. I'm like the kid in class with his hand up, going, 'Um...' I think that's a powerful place to create from.

Writing isn't necessarily about what one knows but what one wants to know.