Quotes About Meaning

To live is shared by all, but not to be worthy of living.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

I cannot think that we are useless or God would not have created us. There is one God looking down on us all. We are all the children of one God. The sun, the darkness, the winds are all listening to what we have to say.

What would be left of our tragedies if an insect were to present us his?

In an ideal world, nobody's work would be just about the money. People could pursue excellence in what they do, take pride in achievement, and derive meaning from knowing that their work improved the lives of others.

Art's everything we hope life would be, a lot of times.

I live for my sons. I would be lost without them.

The word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

When it comes to idiots, America's got more than its fair share. If idiots were energy, it would be a source that would never run out.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

There is a certain sense in which I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there by chance.

I have retired, but if there's anything that would kill me it is to wake up in the morning not knowing what to do.

I said, 'I'm a rock star. I can't preach in nobody's church. Are you crazy?' Let alone buy one. Oh, I wound up buying one.

There was a big drive when I was at art school to make you aware of the economy of meaning - after all, this was still during the tail end of minimalism. Being responsible for everything you put in your picture, and being able to defend it. Keeping everything clear around you so you know what is operating. To open the wound and keep it clean.

The true treasure lies within. It is the underlying theme of the songs we sing, the shows we watch and the books we read. It is woven into the Psalms of the Bible, the ballads of the Beatles and practically every Bollywood film ever made. What is that treasure? Love. Love is the nature of the Divine.

For a song cycle to work, you have to feel these things when you hear them and you either have an emotional reaction to it or you don't. The plotline is something that gets woven together in the back-story.

Books have this function that help me to understand the work I've done, to wrap it up. Once it's done, fortunately, it doesn't mean there's closure.

It's hard to wrap your mind around what the Challenge Cup was and I think once we did that it was incredible and I think everyone was bought in.

People give one another things that can't be gift wrapped.

Work is really wrapped up with identity. Work is not just money for most people.

When you look at 'Grapes of Wrath,' the weakest moments are those in which Steinbeck is spouting a political idea directly at the reader. The book's real power comes from its slower, broader movement.

At the heart of life lies a mystery that everybody has to wrestle with. What the heck are we doing here? How does this world work, and how do I fit?

One of the core ideas of the Bible is that meaning can be found in history. The sheer act of telling and retelling stories helps us to understand God's role in the world as well as our own position in a long line of ancestors who have wrestled with similar issues to the ones we wrestle with every day.

I read Claire Messud's 'The Emperor's Children,' I read Joseph O'Neill's 'Netherland' - but to me, they're not 9/11 novels. In 'The Emperor's Children,' 9/11 felt to me like a piece of the plot; the novel wasn't wrestling with what 9/11 meant. And 'Netherland' felt the same way. I liked both books a lot but I don't see them as 9/11 novels.