“Personally I think the only meaning your life will ever have is whatever your involvement means to someone else. The best strategy I think, if you want your life to mean something, try making someone else’s life meaningful. But if you want your life to mean something five billion years from now, it won’t –no matter what. Sorry. But what matters now still matters now.”

“You and you alone are the sole arbiter of the meaning in your life. The second you turn to someone and say, “What does life mean?” or, “What should my life mean?” you have slipped into a mind-set that courts inauthenticity and depression. The second you agree with someone simply because of her position or reputation, whether that someone is a guru, author, cleric, parent, politician, general, or elder, you fall from the path of personal meaning-maker.”

“Nobody has a perfect life and it's entirely possible that if you want someone else's life they are busy wanting someone else's too–maybe even yours.”

“No matter how good somebody's life looks from the outside, you can be sure there's something about it you wouldn't want to have in your life.”

“If something or someone makes you happy and brings joy to your life, it does not have to make sense to anyone else.”

“There are moments in your life when you see yourself through someone else’s eyes, when your only hope of believing you’re capable of doing something is because someone else believes it for you.”

“But I have learned that you make your own happiness, that part of going for what you want means losing something else. And when the stakes are high, the losses can be that much greater.”

“I want words at my funeral. But I guess that means you need life in your life.”

“MARIE    I’m saying that the right man for you might be out there right now and if you don’t grab him, someone else will, and you’ll have to spend the rest of your life knowing that someone else is married to your husband.”

“no matter how big you think your problems are, someone else's problems could always be bigger, which makes yours relatively small!”