Quotes About Meaning

We want to think that there's an inviolable continuity among old friends, a bond that cannot be fissured despite years of lassitude and neglect. We want to believe that there's truth and solace in our memories, that there's meaning and purpose to the things that have happened to us.

Semantics is the study of meaning. Semantic constraints are those that rely upon the meaning of the situation to control the set of possible actions. In the case of the motorcycle, there is only one meaningful location for the rider, who must sit facing forward. The

The study of slips is the study of the psychology of everyday errors—what Freud called "the psychopathology of everyday life." Freud believed that slips have hidden, dark meanings, but most are accounted for by rather simple mental mechanisms.

Semantics is the study of meaning. Semantic constraints are those that rely upon the meaning of the situation to control the set of possible actions.

Affordances determine what actions are possible. Signifiers communicate where the action should take place. We

everything you do has both a cognitive and an affective component—cognitive to assign meaning, affective to assign value.

You may not be interested in absurdity, she said firmly, but absurdity is interested in you.

There was a certain amount of initial argumentation about the meaning of the balloon; this subsided, because we have learned not to insist on meanings, and they are rarely even looked for now, except in cases involving the simplest, safest phenomena.

I spoke to Sylvia. Do you think this is a good life?

Words have halos, patinas, overhangs, echoes.

The combinatory agility of words," he wrote in "Not-Knowing," "the exponential generation of meaning once they're allowed to go to bed together, allows the writer to surprise himself, makes art possible, reveals how much of Being we haven't yet encountered.

And eloquence, Henry Mackie says, is really all any of us can hope for.

97. I approached the symbol, with its layers of meaning, but when I touched it, it changed into only a beautiful princess. 98. I threw the beautiful princess headfirst down the mountain to my acquaintances. 99. Who could be relied upon to deal with her.

The aim of interpretation is not agreement but understanding

The pleasure we feel, reading a poem, is our assurance of its integrity.

Beautiful writing may sparkle like a diamond necklace, but sparkling isn't a feeling.

Symbols are not only objects; they can be gestures, places, and words. Story can be symbolic all on its own, as in allegory. Considering the power of this oldest of literary devices

I asked God to help me understand the story of the forest and what it means to be a tree in that story.

Job found contentment and even joy, outside the context of comfort, health or stability. He understood the story was not about him, and he cared more about the story then he did about himself.

If I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you.

He] said he didn't think we should be afraid to embrace whimsy. I asked him what he meant by whimsy, and he struggled to define it. He said it's that nagging idea that life could be magical; it could be special if we were only willing to take a few risks.

Life has a peculiar feel when you look back on it that it doesn't have when you're actually living it. It's as though the whole thing were designed to be understood in hindsight, as though you'll never know the meaning of your experiences until you've had enough of them to provide reference.

The same principles that make up a good story also make up a good life.

I was starting to believe I was a character in a greater story, which is why the elements of story made sense in the first place.