Quotes About Significance

There's something about having limited horizons that makes everything right around you appear to be monumental and important, even if in reality it is relatively insignificant.

your father and I were in the trenches together, in the Great War. That was a war all right. Oh I know there have been other wars since, better-publicized ones, more expensive ones perhaps, but our war is the one I'll always remember. Our war is the one that means war to me.

Chipmunks jump, and greensnakes slither. Rather burst than not be with her. Bluebirds fight, but bears are stronger. We've got fifty years or longer. Hoptoads hop, but hogs are fatter. Nothing else but Us can matter.

To infuse a novel with a significance that speaks to many requires, paradoxically, that you ignore what the public wants and focus instead on what matters to you.

A story is based on what people think is important, so when we live a story, we are telling people around us what we think is important.

if I do not introduce people to Jesus, then I don't believe Jesus is an important person. It doesn't matter what I say.

When I was in love there was somebody in the world who was more important than me, and that, given all that happened at the fall of man, is a miracle, like something God forgot to curse.

Relationships matter. They matter as much as exercise and nutrition. And not all relationships help us reach our goals. God doesn't give us crying, pooping children because he wants to advance our careers. He gives them to us for the same reason he confused language at the Tower of Babel, to create chaos and deter us from investing too much energy in the gluttonous idols of self-absorption.

The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won't make a story meaningful, it won't make a life meaningful either.

Life no longer felt meaningless. It felt stressful and terrifying, but it definitely didn't feel meaningless.

if there's nothing at stake in whether or not I buy your product, I'm not going to buy your product. After all, why should I?

For clarity and brevity's sake, you'll have to choose the one most significant way your client's lives will improve, and trust that choosing one will be remembered while listing many would be forgotten.

Story is similar to music. A good story takes a series of random events and distills them into the essence of what really matters.

A good story takes a series of random events and distills them into the essence of what really matters.

ONLY A FEW TIMES IN OUR LIVES DO WE GET TO know, in the moment, the impact of the moment itself.

If there is nothing at stake in a story, there is no story. Likewise, if there's nothing at stake in whether or not I buy your product, I'm not going to buy your product. After all, why should I?

If I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you.

what our stories are about matters, not just for us but for the world.

The philosophical problem in a story is about something even larger than the story itself. It's about the question why. Why does this story matter in the overall epic of humanity?

I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you.

What if part of God's message to the world was you? The true and real you?

misery, though seemingly ridiculous, indicates life itself has the potential of meaning, and therefore pain itself must also have meaning.

Angels' assignments may be "very grand and have significance for the whole world," but more often, their assignments are private and personal

He looked at his wedding ring, twirled it around once or twice with his thumb. What pleasure it gave him to touch it, as though it were some sort of cult object, invested with magic powers, always near at hand, like a friendly spirit.