The Stupidity of Having an Answer

A novel does not assert anything; a novel searches and poses questions. I invent stories, confront one with another, and by this means i ask questions. The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.  
The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. in a world built on sacrosanct certainties, the novel is dead. The totalitarian world is a world of answers rather than questions. There, the novel has no place.  In any case, it seems to me that all over the world people nowadays prefer to judge rather than to understand, to answer rather than ask, so that the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noisy foolishness of human certainties.

Milan Kundera, novelist and activist, Czech Republic


haggadah Section: -- Four Questions