Quotes About Meaning

If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water

It's all nonsense. It's only nonsense. I'm not afraid of the rain. I am not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn't.

Not the why but the what.

Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada.

I did not understand them but they did not have any mystery, and when I understood them they meant nothing to me. I was sorry about this but there was nothing I could do about it.

Everything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could have any consequences.

There is seven-eights of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn't show. If a writer omits something because he does not know it then there is a hole in the story. (Interview with Paris Review , 1958)

All our words from loose using have lost their edge.

I told the boy I was a strange old man," he said. "Now is when I must prove it." The thousand times that he had proved it meant nothing. Now he was proving it again.

For this, that now was coming, he had very little curiosity. For years it had obseessed him; but now it meant nothing in itself. It was strange how easy being tired enough made it. Now he would never write the things he had saved to write, until he knew enough to write them well

The cynical ones are the best companions. But the best of all are the cynical ones when they are still devout; or after; when having been devout, then cynical, they become devout again by cynicism.

I'm full of poetry now. Rot and poetry. Rotten poetry.

Yo no quería darte un beso de despedida ese era el problema . Quería darte un beso de buenas noches. Hay una gran diferencia

The ultimate value of our lives is decided not by how we win but by how we lose

Poor goddamned rummies,' Marie said. 'I pity a rummy.' 'He's a lucky rummy.' 'There ain't any lucky rummies,' Marie said. 'You know that, Harry.' 'No,' I said. 'I guess there aren't.

I told the boy I was a strange old man," he said. "Now is when I must prove it.

I want nothing. I just want the emptiness to mean something.

Az ember végigmegy az életén, s mindenféle helyzetrÅ'l azt hiszi, jelent valamit, s végül kiderül, hogy nem.

And what did last? I last, she thought. Yes, i have lasted. But for what?

Os nomes penetram-nos até aos ossos.

What simplicity," the scarred-faced brother, who was called Andrés, said. "And how do you explode them?

That has nothing to do with the story.

You go along your whole life and they seem as though they mean something and they always end up not meaning anything.

He must find things he cannot lose