Quotes About Meaning

Songwriting has always been a means to an end for me. That end being a tool to try to understand myself in the world and, through observation, make sense of the world.

Whenever you're talking about meaning, basically... I think a lot of the human experience has to do with trying to understand what things mean, and there's not really any tools to do that unless you're thinking about it in a more spiritual or philosophical realm.

I believe that art is a tool and that, like all tools, it has functions. I also think it is important to know what the tool is for so that we can better know how and when to use it.

Books are our umbilical cord to life. They connect us deeply, and with more meaning, to the world. They aren't about escaping from ourselves but expanding ourselves and finding within us the tools we need to survive.

The idea of what's acceptable and what's shocking, that's where I investigate. I mean, you can't be on 'Top Gear,' where your only argument is that it's all just a joke and anyone who takes offence is an example of political correctness gone mad, and then not accept the counterbalance to that.

I love that topic, the whole relationship thing, and I think that's why I love all this stuff, the Jane Austen stuff.

The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning.

When I'm struck by things, I want to hear more and find out more. I remember when Lana Del Rey was on 'SNL,' this supposedly disastrous performance. She's doing this pretentious torch song, and I thought, 'I don't know what she's doing, but it's really moving me.'

What are you? What am I? Those are the questions that constantly persecute and torment me and perhaps also play some part in my art.

Now begins a torrent of words and a trickling of sense.

Me and Tory Lanez got good chemistry together. We could make a song so easy, but we always like to figure out what we're really doing. We can make a good song, but it gotta make sense.

To exercise ignorance, racist prejudice, a love of power and total disregard for factual accuracy, one has to inhabit a world where everything can mean anything and nothing is certain.

As an artist, when you make something, you want the world to see it in its totality, especially when the intention is not to titillate.

In almost every interview someone asks what does HIM stand for. I can't even remember our latest lie about that. When Hanson was hot, we said it means Hanson Is Murder. The name doesn't have a particular history. His Infernal Majesty was a totally different band. I think HIM derives from some death metal joke.

Purpose and meaning in life arise through fundamentally human acts of creation, rather than being derived from anything outside ourselves. Naturalism is a philosophy of unity and patterns, describing all of reality as a seamless web.

No encontraremos propósito ni significado en las leyes de la naturaleza, o en los planes de ningún agente externo que hizo que las cosas sean como son; nos corresponde a nosotros generarlos.

Si nuestras vidas son breves y carecen de dirección, al menos podemos sentirnos orgullosos de nuestro coraje colectivo en nuestra lucha por comprender cosas mucho más grandes que nosotros.

NIETZSCHE IS DEAD—GOD.

We are not the reason for the existence of the universe, but our ability for self-awareness and reflection makes us special within it.

The meaning we find in life is not transacendent, but it's no less meaningful for that.

All that human energy, wasted, in response to the simple fact that we know we are going to die, and we don't know what happens after, and we're afraid that this life is all there is.

If who I am is what I have and what I have is lost, then who am I?

If we are what we have, and we have nothinh, thenwho are we? Are we nothing?

Life is a mission, not a career. A career is a profession, a mission is a cause. A career asks, What's in it for me? A mission asks, How can I make a difference?