In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time.
—Edward P. Tryon
Everyone has a purpose in life. Perhaps yours is watching television.
—David Letterman
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
—Bertrand Russell
I welcome each new day with a hopeful expectancy that I, too, will rise above the ordinary. For I am not content to live a merely “normal” life or settle for an average existence. No, I am destined for more—much, much more.
—Melody Carlson in Finding Alice
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
—Malcolm Forbes
My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?
—Charles M. Schulz
Deep down, all of us are probably aware that some kind of mystical evolution is our true task. Yet we suppress the notion with considerable force because to admit it is to admit that most of our political gyrations, religious dogmas, social ambitions, and financial ploys are not merely counterproductive but trivial.
—Tom Robbins
We see achievement as purposeful and monolithic, like the sculpting of a massive tree trunk that has first to be brought from the forest and then shaped by long labor to assert the artist's vision, rather than something crafted from odds and ends, like a patchwork quilt, and lovingly used to warm different nights and bodies.
—Mary Catherine Bateson
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
—Helen Keller
Sometimes the best way to find out what you're supposed to do is by doing the thing you're not supposed to do.
—Gayle Forman in Just One Day
Although many things may still need to happen before you identify what your exact work will be, I know that every single person whom you're meeting and every experience that you're having is necessary to you discovering your purpose. They are points on a map leading you to the moment where a match will finally be lit and you will be able to see through the darkness.
—Jennifer Elisabeth
Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.
—Robert Quillen
Some relationships just don't work out, no matter how bad both parties might want them to. Sometimes time, distance, and circumstances get in the way. And sometimes we have a purpose for our lives that couldn't be fulfilled inside the bounds of that relationship.
—Mandy Hale in but My Luggage Has
If you look good and dress well, you don't need a purpose in life.
—Robert Pante
The skepticism of youth signals the beginning of a search for something actually worth trusting, both within one's own psyche and in the world. That's why teens, supposedly stuck in life's lost years, are often so unequivocal about what they love and what they hate, and so frustrated when they feel misunderstood. The adolescent spirit is not the spirit of the lost. It is the conviction that you are not lost—that wandering has a purpose, and that what you deserve more than anything is the freedom to walk awhile on your own path.
—Ann Powers