“Those who are concerned with the arts are often asked questions, not always sympathetic ones, about the use or value of what they are doing. It is probably impossible to answer such questions directly, or at any rate to answer the people who ask them.”

"Quotes", Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957), Polemical Introduction

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Those who are concerned with the arts are often asked questions, not always sympathetic ones, about the use or value of…" by Northrop Frye?
Northrop Frye photo
Northrop Frye 137
Canadian literary critic and literary theorist 1912–1991

Related quotes

Tom Regan photo
E.E. Cummings photo

“I stood asking news of the ruins concerning their lovely habitants;
but what avail my questions to dreary rocks, who answer them only by their echo?”

Labīd (560–661) Sahabah and poet

Translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, p. 42 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up
Couplets

Matthew Stover photo
Aurelius Augustinus photo

“How, then, shall I respond to him who asks, “What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?” I do not answer, as a certain one is reported to have done facetiously (shrugging off the force of the question). “He was preparing hell,” he said, “for those who pry too deep.” It is one thing to see the answer; it is another to laugh at the questioner--and for myself I do not answer these things thus. More willingly would I have answered, “I do not know what I do not know,” than cause one who asked a deep question to be ridiculed--and by such tactics gain praise for a worthless answer.”
Ecce respondeo dicenti, 'quid faciebat deus antequam faceret caelum et terram?' respondeo non illud quod quidam respondisse perhibetur, ioculariter eludens quaestionis violentiam: 'alta,' inquit, 'scrutantibus gehennas parabat.' aliud est videre, aliud ridere: haec non respondeo. libentius enim responderim, 'nescio quod nescio' quam illud unde inridetur qui alta interrogavit et laudatur qui falsa respondit.

Ecce respondeo dicenti, 'quid faciebat deus antequam faceret caelum et terram?' respondeo non illud quod quidam respondisse perhibetur, ioculariter eludens quaestionis violentiam: 'alta,' inquit, 'scrutantibus gehennas parabat.'
aliud est videre, aliud ridere: haec non respondeo. libentius enim responderim, 'nescio quod nescio' quam illud unde inridetur qui alta interrogavit et laudatur qui falsa respondit.
Book XI, Chapter XII; translation by E.B. Pusey
Confessions (c. 397)

Claude Lévi-Strauss photo
Eugéne Ionesco photo

“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.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

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

Gertrude Stein photo

“Suppose no one asked a question, what would be the answer.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

"Near East or Chicago A Description"
Useful Knowledge (1928)

Meher Baba photo

Related topics