Jonathan Franzen Quotes

Life's meaning has always eluded me and I guess always will. But I love it just the same.

I think life doesn't necessarily have an endgame.

My search not only failed, but I convinced myself that all those who had searched like myself had failed also, and come like me to the despairing conviction that the only absolute knowledge man can possess is this—that life is without a meaning.

I don't know if I was put on this Earth for a purpose or not. But I'm fairly confident that I'll be taken off of it for one.

Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there in life any purpose which the inevitable death that awaits me does not undo and destroy?

I think life's an irrational obsession.

Life would be so wonderful if we only knew what to do with it.

Everything has to have some kind of a point for people to breathe easy. What's the point of life? I have no clue, but sometimes there are things that just attract us and pull us in a certain way.

The meaning of life is life.

As a child, I wondered often, 'Why are we? What is the meaning of life?' These questions made me realize that life is what has meaning - not just individual lives, but all of our lives.

What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.

Is death that which gives meaning to life?

it seems a silly kind o' business to bring us into the world at all for no special reason 'cept to take us out of it again just as folks 'ave learned to know us a bit and find us useful.

I think the world is an interesting place and I don't think anybody has the firm and final answer to what it is but I kind of assume there's a purpose.

life's not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis

It was the ghost of rationality itself ... This is the ghost of normal everyday assumptions which declares that the ultimate purpose of life, which is to keep alive, is impossible, but that this is the ultimate purpose of life anyway, so that great minds struggle to cure diseases so that people may live longer, but only madmen ask why. One lives longer in order that he may live longer. There is no other purpose. That is what the ghost says.

Without zest, what is life? Just waiting for death?

Does life have any meaningful purpose?

Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation

I don't think any of us really knows why we're here. But I think we're supposed to believe we're here for a purpose.

You'll never know why you exist, but you'll always allow yourselves to be easily persuaded to take life seriously.

The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.

People who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point.

We can tell the world that there is life after death, but the world really seems to be wondering if there is life before death.

Every kid goes to school full of questions about meaning. You know, 'What's my place in the universe? What does it mean to be a human being? What are human beings?' Existing courses cannot help you answer those questions. They can't even help you ask them.