That Is The Question

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas

In reading and writing, you may either be, without doubt, attached to what you are saying, or you may not. Attached in the sense of being connected to it. Supposing you know exactly what you say and you continue to say it. Supposing instead you have decided not to continue to say what you say and you neither do nor do not continue to say it. Does it or does it not make any difference to you whether you do continue to say it. That is what you have to know in order to know which way you may or may not do it, might or might not do it, can or cannot do it. In short which way you come or do not come to say what you say. Certainly in some way you say what you say. But how. And what does it do, not to you, but what does it do. That is the question. Shakespeare's plays were written. The sonnets too were written. Anything anybody writes has been written. Anything anybody reads has been written. But if anything that anybody writes is written why is it that anybody writing writes and if anybody writing writes, in whom is the writing that is written written. That is the question. This brings me to the question of audience of an audience. What is an audience. Everybody listen. That is not an audience because will everybody listen. Is it an audience because will anybody listen. When you are writing who hears what you are writing. That is the question.

Gertrude Stein, Writings and Lectures 1909 - 1945