Quotes About Meaning

We were made to be distracted by life, by story.

God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me specifically into the story, and He put us in specifically with the sunsets in the rainstorms as though to say, Enjoy your place in My story, the very beauty of it means it's not about you, and in time that will give you comfort.

And once you know what it takes to live a better story, you don't have a choice. Not living a better story would be like deciding to die, deciding to walk around numb until you die, and it's not natural to want to die.

You're right," he finally said. "You aren't living a good story." "That's what I was saying." "I see," he said. "What do I do about that?" "You're a writer. You know what to do." "No, I don't." Jordan looked at me with his furrowed brow again. "You put something on the page," he said. "Your life is a blank page. You write on it.

And once you know what it takes to live a better story, you don't have a choice. Not living a better story would be like deciding to die, deciding to walk around numb until you die, and it's not natural to want to die.

We don't know how much we are capable of loving until the people we love are being taken away, until a beautiful story is ending.

You'd think God would come right out and tell us what to do in the Bible, but He doesn't. He mostly tells stories, and He rarely stops the story to say what the point is. He just lets the characters and conflict hang in the air like smoke.

My uncle told a great story with his life, but I think there was such a sadness at his funeral because his story wasn't finished. If you aren't telling a good story, nobody thinks you died too soon; they just think you died. But my uncle died too soon.

You can't memorize poetry and stay a fake. Sooner or later, you start to understand what these poets are saying, and it makes you feel life has something quite special, with certain layers of meaning to it.

The great tragedy of our lives seems to be that we are smart enough to ask the questions of meaning but too dumb to really figure it out.

The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won't make a story meaningful, it won't make a life meaningful either.

This means that when we ramble on and on about how we have the biggest manufacturing plant on the West Coast, our customers don't care. Why? Because that information isn't helping them eat, drink, find a mate, fall in love, build a tribe, experience a deeper sense of meaning, or stockpile weapons in case barbarians start coming over the hill behind our cul-de-sac. So what do customers do when we blast a bunch of noise

finished. If you aren't telling a good story, nobody thinks you died too soon; they just think you died. But my uncle died too soon. The next day, when I was walking with

I guess what I am saying is, I believe God wants us to create beautiful stories, and whatever it is that isn't God wants us to create meaningless stories, teaching the people around us that life just isn't worth living.

I don't believe we are accidents in the world, and I don't believe we were supposed to be actors either. I think we were supposed to be ourselves and we were meant as a miracle.

Life isn't memorable enough to remember everything. It's not like there are explosions all the time, or dog smoking cigarettes.

I know what life is about, but what if I don't like it?

Victor Frankl whispered in my ear all the same. He said to me I was a tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any differently. And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree.

Pain then, if one could have faith in something greater than himself, might be a path to experiencing a meaning beyond the false gratification of personal comfort.

Life no longer felt meaningless. It felt stressful and terrifying, but it definitely didn't feel meaningless.

people can't live without a story, without a role to play.

I think it is easier to do bad things than to do good things. And there is something in that basic fact, some little clue to the meaning of the universe.

Suddenly my life wasn't boring or meaningless. There was something I had to do in order to keep a bad thing from happening.

Meaning is not an idea to be agreed with. It is a feeling you get when you live as a hero on a mission. And it cannot be experienced without taking action and living into a story.