Quotes About Meaning

“If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“When you can live forever what do you live for?”
― Stephenie Meyer

“He was the crazy one who had painted himself black and defeated the world.

She was the book thief without the words.

Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like rain.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“Good Morning!" said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.

"What do you mean?" he said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"

"All of them at once," said Bilbo. "And a very fine morning for a pipe of tobacco out of doors, into the bargain.

...

"Good morning!" he said at last. "We don't want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water." By this he meant that the conversation was at an end.
"What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!" said Gandalf. "Now you mean that you want to get rid of me, and that it won't be good till I move off.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.”
― Italo Calvino, The Uses of Literature

“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Friends are the family you choose (~ Nin/Ithilnin, Elven rogue).”
― Jess C. Scott, The Other Side of Life

“With my last breath, I’ll exhale my love for you. I hope it’s a cold day, so you can see what you meant to me.
”
― Jarod Kintz, This is the best book I've ever written, and it still sucks

“Tut, tut, child!" said the Duchess. "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

“All any of us wanted, really, was to know that we counted. That someone else's life would not have been as rich without us here.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle With Care

“The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.

- Neil deGrasse Tyson's response on Reddit when asked "What can you tell a young man looking for motivation in life itself?"

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments...”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn”
― Orson Welles

“That’s sad. How plastic and artificial life has become. It gets harder and harder to find something…real.” Nin interlocked his fingers, and stretched out his arms. “Real love, real friends, real body parts…”
― Jess C. Scott, The Other Side of Life

“The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.”
― W. Somerset Maugham

“Life is filled with unanswered questions, but it is the courage to seek those answers that continues to give meaning to life. You can spend your life wallowing in despair, wondering why you were the one who was led towards the road strewn with pain, or you can be grateful that you are strong enough to survive it.”
― J.D. Stroube, Caged by Damnation

“I feel myself dissolving, vanishing into nothingness, for if there is no one in the world who cares for you, do you really exist at all?”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“but it's not safe and I can feel him slipping away, so I just get out one more sentence. "Stay with me."
As the tendrils of sleep syrup pull me down, I hear him whisper a word back but I don't catch it.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“Sometimes we have thoughts that even we don’t understand. Thoughts that aren’t even true—that aren’t really how we feel—but they’re running through our heads anyway because they’re interesting to think about.

If you could hear other people’s thoughts, you’d overhear things that are true as well as things that are completely random. And you wouldn’t know one from the other. It’d drive you insane. What’s true? What’s not? A million ideas, but what do they mean?”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“Exactly!" said Deep Thought. "So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Crap.
It's all crap.
Living is crap.
Life has no meaning.
None. Nowhere to be found.
Crap.
Why doesn't anybody realize this?”
― K-Ske Hasegawa, Ballad of a Shinigami, Vol. 1

“To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.”
― Bill Watterson

“I think of you as a friend. I used to think "friend" was just another word... Nothing more, nothing less. But when I met you, I realized what was important was the word's meaning.”
― Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Band 11

“I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”
― Richard P. Feynman

“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“Words, he decided, were inadequate at best, impossible at worst. They meant too many things. Or they meant nothing at all.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, In The Forests of Serre

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.”
― Albert Einstein

“Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Why should I even bother? What's the point, really?"
He thought for a moment. "Who says there has to be a point?" he asked. "Or a reason. Maybe it's just something you have to do.”
― Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride