Adam Gopnik Quotes

In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.

I believe that we are all, openly or secretly, struggling against one or another kind of nihilism.

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.

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

Everything in the world is gloriously meaningless.

Philosophy seems to me on the whole a rather hopeless business.

If life is so meaningless, then why are we always bringing it up?

I'm a Nietzschean scholar. I've read an immense amount about nihilism and existentialism.

I searched all areas of knowledge, and not only did I fail to find anything, but I was convinced that all those who had explored as I did had also come up with nothing. Not only had they found nothing, but they had clearly acknowledged the same thing that had brought me to despair: the only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.

Existence is not a mystery unless you think it has a meaning.

The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning.

Even if things are as bad as they could possible be, and as meaningless, then matters of truth are themselves indifferent; we may as well please our sensibilities and, with as much spirit as we can muster, go out with a buck and a wing.

One of the only coherent philosophical positions is thus revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity.

Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm. There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay? Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.

It’s an incredibly exciting thing, this one, meaningless life of yours.

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.

The philosophers Camus and Sartre raise the question whether or not a man can condemn himself.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

The concept of absurdity is something I'm attracted to.

Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead.

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.

I think you can get to a point where nihilism, if that's the right word, is overwhelming, and the basic laws that society has set up - either religious or social laws - become meaningless.

In so far as I have any beliefs, I suppose I'm like that old Peggy Lee song, 'Is That All There Is?' I want to believe there's something else going on, but what that something else is I don't pretend to know.

Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.