We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.

Not every question was answered.

He had a suspicion of plausible answers; they were so often wrong.

It was that his words, his telling, just did not synchronize with what his hearers believed would (and must) be the scope of a single individual.

Being able to read and write did not provide answers to all questions. It led to other questions, and then to others.

Not having answers, much less a vision, made me nervous at first, to the point of despair and occasional panic. After a while, however, I grew tired of pretending I knew the answers, so I started to ask questions, even in response to questions. As in: “That’s a good question. What do you think?

We are often unable to tell people what they need to know because they want to know something else.

don't ask me a lot of questions if you don't like the answers

Eventually you’ve got to understand that an answer isn’t the same thing as a solution, and a story is sometimes only an excuse.

The minute you supply a person with the answers, by that very action you block them, once and for all, from the opportunity of inventing those same answers for themselves. If you want to go on an ego trip, to show how smart you are, give the answers. But if what you want is action to be taken, then you must refrain from giving the answers.

if we're starting with the wrong questions, if we don't understand the cause, then even the right answers will always steer us wrong . . . eventually. The truth, you see, is always revealed . . . eventually.

Sometimes, thinking just didn’t do any good, didn’t provide any answers. Because for some questions—such as the arbitrariness of life and death during wartime—there weren’t any answers.

They had cliche answers but only to their self-created straw-men. To exaggerate only slightly, they had never talked to anyone who really believed, and had thought deeply about, views drastically different from their own. As a result, when they heard real arguments instead of caricatures, they had no answers, only amazement that such views could be expressed by someone who had the external characteristics of being a member of the intellectual community, and that such views could be defended with apparent cogency. Never have I been more impressed with the advice I once received: "You cannot be sure that you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do."

Some things were secret even after you told them.