Quotes About Meaning

A short story can be really interesting and enriching and powerful, but a novel just contains so much more information and richness and depth. That's what I strive for in my music. I want to create something that's like a longform statement.

We strive to do stuff that connects with people.

We're constantly striving for success, fame and comfort when all we really need to be happy is someone or some thing to be enthusiastic about.

Take 'The Stroke,' for instance. Plenty of people saw sexual connotations in that song but to me it was about what goes on in the business world.

For me, collages manage to - it satisfies all of my madness, like I'm able to make these obsessive things, but then I'm also able to make these very strong statements. I don't know what they mean to other people, but in my mind, they have a very strong particular resonance; there's sort of a power.

There are some images that I will only use once, and not use again because they don't seem to really hit the nail right on the head, but there are some which are so strong they have to be reduced; sometimes just reusing them makes them stronger.

If a motive affects me, and I am compelled to act on it because it proves to be the 'strongest' of its kind, then the thought of freedom ceases to have any meaning. How should it matter to me whether I can do a thing or not, if I am forced by the motive to do it?

Fiction works when it makes a reader feel something strongly.

I strongly believe that literature can do something that nothing else can do, and that is embody the human spirit.

'Do I have a purpose.' Right. And of course you do. Otherwise, you wouldn't be on Earth. I really strongly believe that if we're here, it's for a reason.

I am not the only scientist to be struck by the power and meaning of Lamium album in bloom.

I think structure is so deep in us. We put it in stories we tell our friends or in emails we write. We want it. It's how we create meaning.

I'm a big believer that the structure of stories should reflect the content of the story.

I'm not after a closed system, I mean I'm after a complicated system in structure, but as far as watching it, I don't think that everything should be decided.

It's possible to get through life without a religious structure, but I don't think that's a very fruitful way to live.

Early on, I had to structure my ideas of success around things like, 'Can I go back and listen to the record months or years after I made it and still get some enjoyment out of it?' Or 'Have I said what I wanted to say on this album? Did it connect with people on a personal level, even if it's a small number of people?'

What I realized is that my interest in literature has more deeply structured my practice than I thought.

I think most people struggle over a matter of years to find a satisfying way to live.

I shall always be grateful for this curious love of history, allowing me to spend a lifetime looking back into the past, allowing me to learn from these large figures about the struggle for meaning for life.

You have to struggle to stay alive and be of use as long as you can.

I relate to what Gov. Romney brings. I know what it means to balance a budget. I know what it means to write a paycheck and not only cash one. I know what it means to create a job, and I know what it means to struggle with my business every day in terms of keeping our doors open any day but definitely in a difficult economy.

All my life, I struggled to stretch my mind to the breaking point, until it began to creak, in order to create a great thought which might be able to give a new meaning to life, a new meaning to death, and to console mankind.

Our political system has been bankrupted by the failures of Congress to act in ways that give meaning to the struggles our constituents endure.

I believe that we are all, openly or secretly, struggling against one or another kind of nihilism.