Quotes About Meaning

It is the black poet who bridges the gap in tradition, who modifies tradition when experience demands it, who translates experience into meaning and meaning into belief.

...I will continue to underscore that I don't think authorial intent is all that important to a reading experience, and I certainly don't think the job of reading is to divine authorial intent.

Things gain meaning by being used in a shared experience or joint action.

When I feel very loved, when I nurture and support people, my experience is deepened. I feel connected to a larger purpose and meaning.

The meaning of experience is typically one generation behind the experience. The content of new situations, both private and corporate, is typically the preceding situation.

I guess my poems feel to me a bit like they are doing something in relation to experience, i.e. time.

I, at the age of 17 or 18 as a medical student, suddenly came up against a problem: 'What am I? What is the meaning of my existence as I experience it?'

Prose cannot compete with the economy of poetry, the ability to have a full artistic experience in a short period of time.

I'm not afraid of failure; I'm afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter.

The art has to make it on its own, without explanations, and it's the same for poetry. If the poem or the painting has to be explained, then it's a failure in communication.

The critical image... must not only fail to capture its referent, but show its failure.

That a viewer does not see what the artist intended does not make the composition a failure... In reality all artists speak first to themselves and then to an audience.

In my opinion, the greatest single failure of American education is that students come away unable to distinguish between a symbol and the thing the symbol stands for.

Success without fulfillment is failure

Dear George, remember no man is a failure who has friends.

My story of success and failure is not just about music and being famous. It's about living and loving and trying to find purpose in this crazy world.

I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?

An unexamined faith is not worth having, for it can be true only by accident.

The 'Always Keep the Faith' tattoo I have on the front represents my desire to protect my beliefs.

What if everything that happened here, happened for a reason?

The external forces conceal from the eyes the deep meaning of existence; True faith resides in the heart.

We are only syllables of the perfect Word.

Faith is not a thing which one loses, we merely cease to shape our lives by it.

I guess I have a faith. I have an overriding feeling that all of this can't be for nothing. But then I also fully understand that it might be.