Quotes About Meaning

'What is the purpose of the universe?' is a silly question.

Some very silly songs can have an almost melancholy feeling when you put it in a different perspective.

When I started the band, the name 'Silver Jews' had no literal meaning - it was just an abstraction.

If I believed in fate I'd be very curious why I picked the name Silver Jews.

For me writing and acting all comes out of the same place, a compulsion to review and connect to something. For me they are more similar than different.

There are many reasons our prayers may lack power. Sometimes they become routine. Our prayers become hollow when we say similar words in similar ways over and over so often that the words become more of a recitation than a communication.

Vladimir Nabokov liked to examine cruelty and the human condition. That didn't mean he was cruel; there's no evidence he kicked puppies just for the fun of it. Similarly, 'Black Mirror' likes to examine possible dystopias, but that doesn't mean the show is cynical enough to endorse them.

You can trust a Neil Simon script. Every dot. Every dash; that pause means something. He takes all the jokes out, practically.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

No company is hiring anyone to search for messages from aliens. Most people don't seem to think there's much benefit to it. The lack of interest is, I think, because most people don't realize what even a simple detection would really mean.

It couldn't be a simpler answer. Marriage doesn't really mean anything to me. I feel like in many ways marriage is more for the families of the couple than for the people involved, so I don't gravitate to it.

The simpler the message, the broader the meaning, in many respects. I think about a song like Free's 'All Right Now,' which I'm often asked about. It's that sort of song.

Sometimes I feel people try to be too complex. Some of the greatest songs are so simple. The simplest phrases.

I believe that things can be expressed very powerfully through simplicity.

A short story can be packed with meaning and impact, with the concentrated density of a collapsed star, but should preferably also have a kind of elegant simplicity.

I let Brel into my world. What I like about him is the simplicity of his language. It's not so simple to be simple.

Reason is just a means to an end, and the end depends on the reasoner's passions.

The drawing is also a reminder that there's an artist within each of us, and we must encourage that artist to do the work, to make something that matters, regardless of anything else that is going on.

Writers think in metaphors. Editors work in metaphors. A great reader reads in metaphors. All are continually asking, What does this represent? What does it stand for? They are trying to take everything one level deeper. When they get to that level, they will try to go deeper again.

Subject is deeper than topic. It's not what it's about, it's what it's really about.

Give the act to me. Purged of hope and ego, Fix your attention on the soul. Act and do for me.

The word amateur comes from the Latin root meaning to love.

The moment a person learns he's got terminal cancer, a profound shift takes place in his psyche. At one stroke in the doctor's office he becomes aware of what really matters to him. Things that sixty seconds earlier had seemed all- important suddenly appear meaningless, while people and concerns that he had till then dismissed at once take on supreme importance.

The artist and the fundamentalist both confront the same issue, the mystery of their existence as individuals. Each asks the same questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life?