“A correct answer is like an affectionate kiss, Goethe said; a correct answer, Gertrude would have said, is like a slap in the face.”

— Randall Jarrell, book Pictures from an Institution

Source: Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel], Chapter 2, p. 68

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Randall Jarrell215

poet, critic, novelist, essayist 1914–1965

Ari Marmell (1974) D&D game writer

Source: Thief's Covenant

“There is no unique, correct answer in most cases. It is a matter of taste”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability, and Statistics (1985)
Context: There is no unique, correct answer in most cases. It is a matter of taste, depending on the circumstances... and the particular age you live in.... Gradually, you will develop your own taste, and along the way you may occasionally recognize that your taste may be the best one! It is the same as an art course.

“Edward, Edward," he said with a patronising smile, "there are no unanswered questions of any relevance. Every question that we need to ask has been answered fully. If you can't find the correct answer then you are obviously asking the wrong question.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Shades of Grey (2010), p206

“When I was at the World Bank, it would often be said in the face of obvious failure that our strategy was correct, it just wasn't implemented well.”

Joseph E. Stiglitz book Making Globalization Work

§2, p. 52
Making globalization work (2006)

“The correct answer to speech you abhor is bearing witness to what you believe.”

Alan Charles Kors (1943) American academic

2010s, Who's too Weak to Live with Freedom? (2013)

“These creators, makers of the new, can never become obsolete, for in the arts there is no correct answer.”

Daniel J. Boorstin book The Creators

The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination (1992) (Vintage edition, 1993, ), Preface, p. XV.
Context: These creators, makers of the new, can never become obsolete, for in the arts there is no correct answer. The story of discoverers could be told in simple chronological order, since the latest science replaces what went before. But the arts are another story — a story of infinite addition. We must find order in the random flexings of the imagination.

““Then it is impossible to get an honest answer from you.”
“If by ‘honest answer’ you mean for me to say what you want me to say, whether or not it is true, then I would say that you are correct.””

Roger Zelazny book Jack of Shadows

Source: Jack of Shadows (1971), Chapter 1 (p. 11)