Quotes about meaning
page 28

“Between a man and a woman there was always one person who was stronger than the other one. That doesn’t mean the weaker one doesn’t love the stronger.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Love, Personality

“Say it," she said.
"Say it sober."
"I love you," he said.
"I don't want you to say it back unless you mean it, but I love you."
She leaned back over him, and pressed the pads of her fingertips against his.
"I mean it.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Love

“God save us from people who mean well.”

Vikram Seth A Suitable Boy

Source: A Suitable Boy

God, People

“Pieces. Isn't that what all of life is anyway? Shards. Bits. Moments. Am I less because I have fewer, or do the few I have mean more?”

Mary E. Pearson book The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Life

“In my view, I am often immensely rich, not in money, but (although just now perhaps not all the time) rich because I have found my metier, something I can devote myself to heart and soul and that gives inspiration and meaning to my life.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Life, Money, Soul, Time

“I'll ride my bike all the stinkin' way to school for the rest of eternity if it means being with her.

-Bryce”

Wendelin Van Draanen Flipped

Source: Flipped

School, Way

“I’m not unsympathetic. But do you like me? Because this being gay business doesn’t mean you can just throw yourself at any guy and it’ll be fine because he’s not a girl. There are still people you like and people you don’t.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

People, Guy, Girl, Business

“Giving generously in romantic relationships, and in all other bonds, means recognizing when the other person needs our attention. Attention is an important resource.”

Bell Hooks book All About Love: New Visions

Source: All About Love: New Visions

Personality

“… most Substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

People, Thinking

“"

"What does it mean?"

"It means that you are beautiful.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Beauty

“I never had intimate friends, and the few who came close are in New York. By which I mean they're dead, because that's where I suppose condemned souls go in order not to endure the truth of their past lives.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Source: Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Truth, Soul, Past, Dead

“I am a lover and have not found my thing to love. That is a big point if you know enough to realize what I mean. It makes my destruction inevitable, you see. There are few who understand that.”

Sherwood Anderson book Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

Love, Lovers, Understanding

“To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology (1968)

Hope, Hope, Birth

“Philosophers can debate the meaning of life, but you need a Lord who can declare the meaning of life.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear

Life

“You have no idea about presents or what they mean. The last
present you gave me was a stick.”
“You wanted a weapon.”
“It was a stick.”
“It had a bow on it.”
“It was a stick.”
“I thought you liked the stick. You laughed.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Kingdom of the Wicked

Idea

“We are all mistaken sometimes; sometimes we do wrong things, things that have bad consequences. But it does not mean we are evil, or that we cannot be trusted ever afterward.”

Alison Croggon (1962) contemporary Australian poet, playwright and fantasy novelist

Evil

“Rose: "Wow. You beat up your dad. I mean, that's really horrible… what happened. But, wow. You really are a god."…
Dimitri: "What?"
Rose: "Uh, nothing.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Variant: Wow." I hadn't thought Dimitri could be any cooler, but I was wrong. "You beat up your dad. I mean, that's really horrible... what happened. But, wow. You really are a god."
He blinked. "What?"
"Uh, nothing.
Source: Vampire Academy

God

“Someone, I was beginning to suspect, had a bit of a gangster complex.
It wasn't really very hard to figure out who. I mean, I was guessing it wasn't Christopher's aunt Jackie.”

Meg Cabot book Being Nikki

Source: Being Nikki

“I want to feel what I feel. What's mine. Even if it's not happiness, whatever that means. Because you're all you've got.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Feeling, Happiness

“One pretty woman means fun at the dance. Two pretty women mean trouble in the house. Three pretty women mean run for the hills.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Matrim Cauthon
(15 October 1991)

Women, Dance, Housing

“Kissing - and I mean like, yummy, smacking kissing - is the most delicious, most beautiful and passionate thing that two people can do, bar none. Better than sex, hands down.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

People, Beauty, Sex, Kiss

“Life gives you lots of chances to screw up which means you have just as many chances to get it right.”

Candace Bushnell book Sex and the City

Source: Sex and the City

Life, Chance

“I argued that physical discomfort is important only when the mood is wrong. Then you fasten on to whatever thing is uncomfortable and call that the cause. But if the mood is right, then physical discomfort doesn't mean much.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Mood

“It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum

Life, Laughter, Sun

“You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Section 222
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

Fear

“A character is what he does, yes - but even more, a character is what he means to do.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

“When you're attracted to someone, it just means that your subconscious is attracted to their subconscious, subconsciously. So what we think of as fate is just two neuroses knowing that they are a perfect match.
- Sleepless in Seattle”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Fate, Thinking, Perfection

“Just because I'm not forever by your side doesn't mean that's not precisely where I want to be.”

Stephanie Laurens (1943) Australian writer

Source: A Rogue's Proposal

“The thing I want to know is, if you tell your brain not to do stuff… and it keeps doing it anyway, does that mean your mind has a mind of its own? And if it does, then who's in charge here, anyway?”

Jane Yolen book Armageddon Summer

Source: Armageddon Summer

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Business

“You remember our talk about purpose and meaning?" he asked me, the smile disappearing. "Well, I think this might be mine. I think this is what I was meant to do, Georgina.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Revealed

Smile, Thinking

“Feel no guilt. Getting married and giving birth does not mean that you have sold your life away to perfectly healthy people who can get their own damn socks.”

Jennifer Crusie (1949) American writer

Life, People, Feeling, Birth

“There's no such thing as civilization. The word just means the art of living in cities.”

Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) American speculative fiction writer

Source: The Great Book of Amber

Art

“…. it is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have meaning, but because the resurrection of Jesus has robbed them of their meaning.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Death, Suffering

“The bastard form of mass culture is humiliated repetition: content, ideological schema, the blurring of contradictions—these are repeated, but the superficial forms are varied: always new books, new programs, new films, news items, but always the same meaning.”

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) French philosopher, critic and literary theorist

La forme bâtarde de la culture de masse est la répétition honteuse: on répète les contenus, les schèmes idéologiques, le gommage des contradictions, mais on varie les formes superficielles: toujours des livres, des émissions, des films nouveaux, des faits divers, mais toujours le même sens.
"Modern," in The Pleasure of the Text (1975)

Books

“People are only mean when they're threatened, and that's what our culture does… And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Money, God, People, Parting

“All the best,
Sydney

P. S. "The Red Hurricane" is what I named the car.
P. P. S. Just because I like you, it doesn't mean I still don't think you're an evil creature of the night. You are.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Cars, Thinking, Evil, Night

“Her heart was heavy because it was open, and so things filled it, and so things rushed out of it, but still the heart kept beating, tough and frighteningly powerful and meaning to shrug off the rest of her and continue on its own.”

Helen Oyeyemi (1984) British author

Source: Mr. Fox

Heart

“Atlantis?' Jason asked.
'That's a myth,' Percy said.
'Uh… don't we deal in myths?'
'No, I mean it's a MADE-UP myth. Not like, an actual true myth.'

'So this is why Annabeth is the brains of the operation, huh?”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“Better never means better for everyone… It always means worse, for some.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Variant: Better never means better for everyone.
Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 32 (p. 211)
Source: The Handmaid's Tale
Context: You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, is what he says. We thought we could do better.
Better? I say, in a small voice. How can he think this is better?
Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some.

“When Rydstrom shut the door, Cade stared at it for long moments.
At length, he turned for the steps. "Fuckall," he said on a stunned breath. "Does this mean I'm no longer the bad brother…?”

Kresley Cole American writer

“Idleness, we are accustomed to say, is the root of all evil. To prevent this evil, work is recommended…. Idleness as such is by no means a root of evil; on the contrary, it is truly a divine life, if one is not bored….”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

Life, Evil

“Detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

“words are like nets - we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

Hope, Joy

“I have always been accused of taking the things I love - football, of course, but also books and records - much too seriously, and I do feel a kind of anger when I hear a bad record, or when someone is lukewarm about a book that means a lot to me.”

Nick Hornby Fever Pitch

Source: Fever Pitch

Love, Books, Feeling, Football

“It's first owner… well, things didn't turn out too well for her. Her name was Helena.'
Piper let that sink in. "Wait, you mean the Helena? Helena of Troy?'
Annabeth nodded.
"And it's just sitting in your toolshed?”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Waiting

“We'll never be ready. So I guess that means we're as ready as we'll ever be.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnWholly

“Some choices are forever…. Just because people aren't in our lives anymore, doesn't mean they stop thinking about us and vice versa.”

Wendy Mass Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

Source: Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

People, Thinking

“We have two American flags always: one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it means danger, revolution, anarchy.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Flying

“There's something about seeing a guy's feelings written down, something about him taking that risk and committing that heart to paper, that means so much more than anything he could just say.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Treasure Map of Boys: Noel, Jackson, Finn, Hutch, Gideon—and me, Ruby Oliver

Guy, Feeling, Heart

“I have lost all sense of home, having moved about so much. It means to me now--only that place where the books are kept.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Books, Home, Sense

“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Speech, Constitutional Convention (29 June 1787), from Max Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Vol. I http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=001/llfr001.db&recNum=494&itemLink=D?hlaw:5:./temp/~ammem_kmli::%230010495&linkText=1 (1911), p. 465 <br class="br">1780s <br class="br">Context: In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

Home

“You are bad and mean and I'm going to spit on your cupcakes.”

Sarra Manning (1950) British writer

Source: Adorkable

“It’s not a lie,” Shallan said, “if everyone understands and knows what it means.”
“Mm. Those are some of the best lies.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Lie, Understanding

“Just because it's a bad job doesn't mean I need to do it badly.”

Hugh Laurie book The Gun Seller

Source: The Gun Seller

“Falling into Place:
deciding everything is falling into place perfectly as long as you don't get too picky about what you mean by place. Or perfectly.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire--
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.”

Edgar Lee Masters book Spoon River Anthology

Source: Spoon River Anthology

Life, Sea, Madness

“Justified means just as if you've never sinned.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

“Beauty and love pass, I know… Oh, there's sadness, too. I suppose all great happiness is a little sad. Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

Love, Death, Sadness, Beauty

“Go and get your things,' he said. 'Dreams mean work.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Back To Work, Dreams

“I remember you saying that growing up happens when you start having things you look back on and wish you could change. I guess that means I've grown up now…”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Variant: I've screwed everything up royally. I remember you saying that growing up happens when you start having things you look back on and wish you could change.
Source: City of Ashes

Change

“There was a single blue line of crayon drawn across every wall in the house. What does it mean? I asked. A pirate needs the sight of the sea, he said and then he pulled his eye patch down and turned and sailed away.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas

Housing, Sea

“Death did not play favorites—He loved all equally.
What you cannot escape, you must fight; what you cannot fight, you must endure.
The god's voice—not quite words, just a thread of meaning laid in my receptive mind”

Lilith Saintcrow (1976) American writer

Source: Dead Man Rising

Love, Death, God, Fight

“Like letting spiders live because they eat mosquitoes,
Clary thought. "So they're good enough to let live, good enough to make your food for you, good enough to flirt with-but not really good enough? I mean, not as good as people.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones