Quotes About Meaning

My aim is for every song to have a purpose - for you to be able to say, 'This song is about this.' But love and heartbreak are some of the most abstract subjects.

One man's holy is another woman's sublime.

In my songs, the sex is all subliminal. It's subliminal, spiritual.

Somebody referred to what I do as subliminal activism, which I like.

I wanted to write a novel where the meaning is in the story and characters and the subliminal, in the shades and nuances. It's exciting to develop that as a writer.

Poisons and medicine are oftentimes the same substance given with different intents.

When you're working and making money, that's all good, but there has to be something that provides a substance, I think.

If I could sew comedy and philosophy together, then I've done a good job. The primary goal is always going to be laughs and the secondary goal is always going to be saying something without it being a lecture. I think it's important to have substance for what you're saying.

Let's hope brands recognize that the true power of this technology is not its reach but its ability to communicate substance that adds meaning to our lives. Otherwise, brands will be investing in technology that consumers simply won't buy.

We can't put up a movie that looks beautiful but doesn't have substance.

I always enjoy conversation more if there is some substance to it - which is a just incredibly hilarious thing for me to say because for many, many years I was the guy whose only contribution to any conversation was, 'There was a funny 'Simpson's' joke about that.'

When it's between the covers of a book, content is perceived to have literary substance - or more so that it might otherwise.

Everybody talking about being afraid of being boring is boring. You have to go for the real substance of life after awhile.

I don't look at the length of the role, but yes I'm looking for substance.

There's a lot of music out there that's like, 'I'm so mad! I'm sad! I'm into skulls and crossbones and the color black,' and that's just meaningless and shallow. So much of metal is about that and it's hard to find metal that is substantial and meaningful in terms of its content.

I will focus on being substantive and I will focus on Barack Obama.

Literally' - I'm not having it; people can't go around saying 'literally.' Otherwise, what's literal? There's not another word for literally: if it isn't figurative or metaphorical, what is it? It's literal: there's no substitute.

The pop musicians often leave meaning in the dust and substitute it for cartoons. The deeper artists - the grunge artists in the world and the emoticon people - tend to leave all of the happiness out of life like it just doesn't exist.

I think the benefit of being a writer is that I'm looking for the subtext on the page, because all good writing has subtext. And as a writer, you look at the big scope of things, the big story, rather than just your individual story line, because I think it's important to know what you're in and how you fit into it.

Peter Morgan's writing is so much about what you don't say: you're saying one thing but there's 10 other things going on, and those are the best writers like Chekhov... they're masters at a sort of naturalism, and yet there is all the subtext.

Poetry is of so subtle a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another it will evaporate.

There are really so many subtleties of meaning and observation that very often are not expressed by writers.

You subtract Christianity from Huston Smith, and there is no Huston Smith left.

The notion that Congress can change the meaning given a constitutional provision by the Court is subversive of the function of judicial review; and it is not the less so because the Court promises to allow it only when the Constitution is moved to the left.