“People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don't sit looking at it - walk.”

Vol. I, p. 157
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Source: The New Moon's Arms (2007), Chapter 2 (p. 72)

Source: Natural Born Charmer

Variant: It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

City Aphorisms, Ninth Selection (1992)

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 7
Context: When you look directly at an insane man all you see is a reflection of your own knowledge that he's insane, which is not to see him at all. To see him you must see what he saw and when you are trying to see the vision of an insane man, an oblique route is the only way to come at it.

As quoted in an interview in Vanity Fair (August 2000).

Source: Bone Gap