If we want to do things that haven’t been done or learn things that have never been learned — in short, be more creative — we must learn to ask the right questions, ones so good that they’re half-answered in the asking. And to do that, it might help to understand the process.

Reading a book other than for entertainment is to ask the book questions.

There are four key questions you should ask about any book:

1. What is the book about as a whole? Find the leading theme and how the author develops this theme by subdividi...

• Answers come from questions, and the quality of any answer is directly determined by the quality of the question. Ask the wrong question, get the wrong answer. Ask the right question, get the right answer. Ask the most powerful question possible, and the answer can be life-a...