Quotes About Meaning

I am very happy that the kind of work that I have done has touched people's lives.

In other words the pictures are in a kind of relationship with each other which is touching only at points rather than pictures being illustrations of poems or poems extrapolations of the pictures.

Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. They don't do any good, but they don't necessarily do any harm. It's touching to be thought of in that way. It makes up for those who tell me that I've got my just desserts.

I really think that's what music and art is about. It's another way to connect to the divine. It's a real pure way of touching that deeper reality beneath our life.

I hope that I am, in a way, helping and touching other people with my music, and being a musician and having this as a job gives me a sense of purpose beyond my own selfish needs.

Humans are nervous, touchy creatures and can be easily offended. Many are deeply insecure. They become focused and energized by taking offence; it makes them feel meaningful and alive.

The thing about having true fans, it seems, is that they remain loyal to their idea of what the work meant to them. And that might make them more exacting than the toughest studio executive or publishing boss.

I wouldn't be out here touring constantly if I didn't hope that my music was going to do something to somebody.

The name Jack was given by an American tourist.

I cannot escape the feeling that I was, at best, a cancer tourist, that my survival means I dabbled.

I've been to so many deals with so many of my peers. I hate to say it, but you go, and it's some tournament or big party or dinner, and you don't even know what you're raising money for. It's like, 'Oh, it's for the kids.' Thanks. But what are you doing?

If you win the conference tournament, it doesn't mean anything.

I can't think of anything in my profession that would mean as much. You can talk about Emmys or Super Bowls. Fifty Masters Tournaments, that would be the ultimate.

I'm interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that appears to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom.

I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos-especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom... Rather than starting inside, I start outside and reach the mental through the physical.

Once, Pee-wee Herman tweeted a photo of this guitar I made that's shaped like a slice of pizza, and it meant a lot to me. People downplay it, but there's power there, people reaching toward each other and toward truth. Any mechanism, any resource that we can use to further that reach, is part of the human destiny.

I was constantly being pushed toward a European ideal of what it means to be a classical or opera singer, let's say in the Renata Tebaldi mode. I reject that.

It's not surprising to see in my own work, looking back, and in the work of some of my peers, an attention to family. It's nice to write a book that does tend toward significance and meaning, and where else are you sure of finding it?

The idea of a poem as a message in a bottle means that it's sent out towards some future reader, and the reader who opens that bottle becomes the addressee of the literary text.

Happiness comes when we test our skills towards some meaningful purpose.

I think at the end of a show, you have to walk out with a message. That's my hardest struggle right now; that's what I'm working towards.

There is something about the way that Greek poets, say Aeschylus, use metaphor that really attracts me. I don't think I can imitate it, but there's a density to it that I think I'm always trying to push towards in English.

I got myself into hot water with the press in 2014 by suggesting that the art installation of poppies in the Tower of London moat should be completed by being malevolently mown down by a tank, in the way that the service men and women whom the poppies represented had been.

You don't have to spend much time in Shanghai before you start to get all existential about the meaning of authenticity. Did you know that Shanghai is building nine satellite towns, each designed to mimic the architecture and culture of a different country?