Quotes About Meaning

Realization is… in itself the attainment of value

The trouble with most photographers, and for that matter also with painters, and other people, is, that they are always trying to do something which is outside of themselves. In consequence they produce nothing that means anything to those who have the gift or intuition for truth: all else is really not worth a tinker's damn.

Ordinary sounds remain ordinary only so long as one is not listening to them; under the influence of intense listening they become unusual, portentous, and therefore extraordinary.

It is, of course, extremely interesting to look back across the years questioningly, wonderingly, objectively, without detachments, though seeing "objectively" does not necessarily imply seeing truthfully.

Change in a triceThe lilies and languors of virtueFor the raptures and roses of vice.

And a bird overhead sang Follow, And a bird to the right sang Here; And the arch of the leaves was hollow, And the meaning of May was clear.

A story that needs to have words said about it, is a story that does not contain all its own right words. -- Introduction to Varley's "Persistence Of Vision" collection

Recitation of the Qur'an without contemplation and thought is futile.

The pauses are a precise language, more a language than actual language is, Elisabeth thinks.

Words words words. Words Words words. Words words Words .

A man interested in the meaning of words, not one whose interests leave words meaningless.

Words were stories in themselves.

All short stories long.

What's the answer, according to you, to life's mysteries? she says. The answer is a question, the man says still sitting uninvited to her table. And the question is, Into whose myth do we choose to buy?

No art has ever really changed anything.

Want is quite a complicated word there, because there's volo, which means I want, but it's not usually used with people. Desidero? I feel the want of, I desire. Amabo? I will love. But what if I will never love? What if I will never desire? What if I will never want? Numquam amabo?

But love was terribly important. She didn't mean romantic love. Generalized sort of love.

Maybe coincidence never means the way you want it to. Because if it did it wouldn't be coincidence, would it?

Believe me. Everything is meant.

She knew it was supposed to happen like that, that although these photographs were a signal to the eyes about something really happening, the more she looked at them the less she felt or thought. The more pictures she saw, the less they meant something that had happened to real people and the more it became possible to pile real people up like that again anywhere you wanted and have your picture taken standing smiling behind them.

It was just that the literal meaning itself wasn´t immediately comprehensible. That doesn´t mean it didn´t mean.

None of these things is happening here. They are all happening far away, elsewhere. But they may as well be, Iris says. What does here mean anyway, I'd like to know. Everywhere's a here, isn't it?

The world, she said and smiled. Bounteous. But that's what it's all about, isn't it? What? he said. The world being bounteous? No, she said. What we believe is happening.

It's quite like the songwriter actually couldn't be bothered to think of words...It will be precisely why the song sold so many copies and was such a big deal at the time. People like things not to be too meaningful.