There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life.
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (2006 [1959], p. 104)
The human brain arrives at birth hardwired to seek meaning in everything. And the way people respond to storytelling originates right here, in our common need to find the significance of all experience.
Eric Edson, The Story Solution (2011, p. 5)
My first responsibility is to my craft, but if what I write may affect other people, obviously I have a responsibility to them too. Even if I don’t have a clear idea of what the meaning of my story is and only begin to glimpse it as I write—still, I can’t pretend it isn’t there.
Ursula K. Le Guin, “Teasing Myself Out of Thought” (2008) in Words Are My Matter (2019, p. 49)
[On being imprisoned in a concentration camp during the Holocaust]We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (2006 [1959], p. 77)
…we perform a locutionary act, which is roughly equivalent to uttering a certain sentence with a certain sense and reference, which again is roughly equivalent to ‘meaning’ in the traditional sense. Second, we said that we also perform illocutionary acts such as informing, ordering, waring, undertaking, etc. i.e. utterances which have a certain (conventional) force. Thirdly, we may also perform perlocutionary acts: what we bring about or achieve by saying something, such as convincing, persuading, deterring, and even say, surprising or misleading.
J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (1962, p. 109)
Since, like most artists, I long to share with others what my art has taught me, I need my Inner Teacher; but I can never fully trust her either. After all, she’s the one who taught the kids to expect a message. Her instinct is to ‘be clear,’ be explicit. Mine is to try to go past explication into a larger clarity. My job is to keep the meaning completely embodied in the work itself, and therefore alive and capable of change.
Ursula K. Le Guin, “Teasing Myself Out of Thought” (2008) in Words Are My Matter (2019, p. 50)
…the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (2006 [1959], p. 108)