“Can they solve the problem of the nagging unanswerable question of justification and vocation? Their principle is the traditional one of classical mysticism: by “experiences” (“kicks”) to transcend the nagged and nagging self altogether and get out of one’s skin, to where no questions are asked—nor is there any articulate speech to ask them in.”

Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), p. 156.

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Paul Goodman47

American novelist, playwright, poet and psychotherapist 1911–1972

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

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“The “brightness” of the 15 percent might or might not indicate a profound feeling for the causes of things; it is largely verbal and symbol-manipulating, and is almost certainly partly an obsessional device not to know and touch risky matter, just as Freud long ago pointed out that the nagging questions of small children are a substitute for asking the forbidden questions.”

Paul Goodman book Growing Up Absurd

Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), p. 85.

“I am at heart a propagandist, a tremendous hater, a tiresome nag, complacently positive that there is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"Writing Plays for Television" in New World Writing, #10 (1956)
1970s, Homage to Daniel Shays : Collected Essays (1972)

“The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race.”

Gough Whitlam (1916–2014) Australian politician, 21st Prime Minister of Australia

Written by Gough Whitlam for the London Daily Telegraph, (19 October 1989). (Andrews, 1993, p. 824)

“Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.”

Clive Staples Lewis book A Grief Observed

A Grief Observed (1961)
Context: Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask — half our great theological and metaphysical problems — are like that.