Answer

An answer is a response or reply; something said or done in reaction to a statement or question.

Quotes

• Mysteries abound where most we seek for answers.
  • Ray Bradbury, in "All flesh is one: what matter scores?" in When Elephants Last In The Dooryard Bloomed : Celebrations For Almost Any Day In The Year (1975).

• There are these four ways of answering questions. Which four? There are questions that should be answered categorically [straightforwardly yes, no, this, that]. There are questions that should be answered with an analytical (qualified) answer [defining or redefining the terms]. There are questions that should be answered with a counter-question. There are questions that should be put aside. These are the four ways of answering questions.
  • Gautama Buddha, in Sutta Pitaka, as quoted in: Ṭhānissaro (Bhikkhu.) (2004) Handful of leaves. Vol. 3, p. 80

• If I had a group under me, they would try and figure out what I wanted the answer to be, and they would tell me what I wanted to hear ... I've watched that approach at 20 public companies ... The main thing is: Are you reasonably sure that you know what you're doing?
  • Warren Buffett, (November 9, 2020)"2019 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting (Full Version)". Investor Archive, YouTube. (quote at 4:40:39 of 5:15:35)

• It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.
  • Eugene Ionesco, in: Chris Clarke-Epstein 78 Important Questions Every Leader Should Ask and Answer, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn, 1 January 2002, p. 14

• 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.
  • Eugène Ionesco, as quoted in The Writer's Quotation Book : A Literary Companion (1980) by James Charlton, p. 44

• Philosophy means to be on the way. Its questions are more essential than its answers, and every answer becomes a new question.
  • Karl Jaspers, Way to Wisdom, R. Mannheim, trans. (New Haven: 1951), p. 12

• Our questions and answers are in part determined by the historical tradition in which we find ourselves.
  • Karl Jaspers, On My Philosopy (1941), as published in Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre (1956) edited by Walter Kaufmann. [1]

• I'm for mystery, not interpretive answers.
  • Ken Kesey in "The Art of Fiction" - interview by Robert Faggen, The Paris Review No. 130 (Spring 1994), p. 92.

• The answer is never the answer.
  • Ken Kesey in "The Art of Fiction" - interview by Robert Faggen, The Paris Review No. 130 (Spring 1994), p. 92.

• If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer, but they think they have.
  • Ken Kesey in "The Art of Fiction" - interview by Robert Faggen, The Paris Review No. 130 (Spring 1994), p. 92.

• The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.
  • Ken Kesey in "The Art of Fiction" - interview by Robert Faggen, The Paris Review No. 130 (Spring 1994), p. 92.

• Philosophical questions are not by their nature insoluble. ... Their answers are interpretations instead of factual reports.
  • Susanne Langer, Feeling and Form, ch. 1, Scribner (1953)

• Have you ever considered that too many answers are the same as no answer at all?
  • Tyrion Lannister in A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, Chapter VIII.

• Which eyes should I look for
  to find the ultimate
  unreasoned answer?
  • Suman Pokhrel, Before Making Decision

• “Questions don't have to make sense, Vincent,” said Miss Susan. “But answers do.”
  • Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time (2001), ISBN 0-06-103132-1 page 25

• If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.
  • Thomas Pynchon (1973) Gravity's Rainbow, Viking Press, p. 251; in relation to Hitler's appointment as Chancellor, the Reichstag Fire, and subsequent March elections.

• Cognition is autonomous; it refuses to have any answers foisted on it from the outside.
  • Franz Rosenzweig, in Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (1961/1998), p. 97

• There is a man in each scholar, a man who inquires and stands in need of answers. I am anxious to answer the scholar qua man but not the representative of a certain discipline, that insatiable, ever inquisitive phantom which like a vampire drains whom it possesses of his humanity.
  • Franz Rosenzweig, in Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (1961/1998), p. 97

• Teachers who offer you the ultimate answers do not possess the ultimate answers, for if they did, they would know that the ultimate answers cannot be given, they can only be received.
  • Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume (1984)

• The question begs the answer, can you forgive me somehow?
  • Tom Waits, All the World is Green, Blood Money (2002).