Why do people always expect authors to answer questions? I am an author because I want to ask questions. If I had answers, I'd be a politician.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the role of authors as seekers of truth rather than providers of answers.
Eugene Ionesco suggests that authors engage in a perpetual inquiry, exploring life's questions rather than simply providing definitive answers. The quote contrasts the role of authors with that of politicians, implying that while the former seek to ask and provoke thought, the latter are often expected to supply clear-cut solutions.
In practice
During a book club discussion on the nature of storytelling.
Since the death instinct exists in the heart of everything that lives, since we suffer from trying to repress it, since everything that lives longs for rest, let us unfasten the ties that bind us to life, let us cultivate our death wish, let us develop it, water it like a plant, let it grow unhindered. Suffering and fear are born from the repression of the death wish.
Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing. The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us.
No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa.
Drama lies in extreme exaggeration of the feelings, an exaggeration that dislocates flat everyday reality.
Language should almost break up or explode in its fruitless effort to contain so many meanings.
The brightest light, the light of Italy, the purest sky of Scandinavia in the month of June is only a half-light when one compares it to the light of childhood. Even the nights were blue.
Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again.
Suffering is the substance of life and the root of personality, for it is only suffering that makes us persons.
All God's creatures are His family; and he is the most beloved of God who tries to do most good to God's creatures.
My father was a man of great charity towards the poor, and compassion for the sick, and also for servants; so much so, that he never could be persuaded to keep slaves, for he pitied them so much: and a slave belonging to one of his brothers being once in his house, was treated by him with as much tenderness as his own children.
I am Envy...I cannot read and therefore wish all books burned.
I have never thought that a Christian would be free of suffering, umfundisi. For our Lord suffered. And I come to believe that he suffered, not to save us from suffering, but to teach us how to bear suffering. For he knew that there is no life without suffering.
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