Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

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500 Questions answered by Daniel Quinn

http://www.ishmael.org/interaction/qanda/browse.cfm

 
No one had finished the book and we didn’t get passed the first question.  Since the questions are merely “food for thought” and help guide us when the conversation might slow down, it doesn’t matter how many questions we do or don’t get to!  Sometimes, when we have an eclectic conversation, I later fit the comments I remember into the question format just for organizational purposes, but this time, I just left thoughts under question #1 (below).

What we DID do, which was kind of fun, was go to the website with the 500 (more like 700) questions asked of Daniel Quinn. We randomly chose a number and read his answers.  That got us talking and laughing for quite a while.  Some of his answers are blunt and irreverent.

If you were given the chance to leave “Taker” civilization and become a “Leaver,” would you do it? Why, or why not?

• “Takers” are humans, and everyone else is a “Leaver.” 
• Civilized vs. Primitive
• I have the map, you don’t need to memorize it, it’s the journey that matters, the journey will change you
• Mother culture has given you an explanation of how things came to be this way – assembled from a million bits of information (not as a chronology)
• A story is a scenario interrelating man, the world, and the gods
• To enact a story is to live so as to make the story a reality (to make a story come true)
• A culture is a people enacting a story