“This world's no blot for us,Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good:To find its meaning is my meat and drink.”

“The world is full of abandoned meanings. In the commonplace I find unexpected themes and intensities.”

“The doctrine of the mean (the epithet 'golden' is un-Aristotelian) regularly occurs in later writers as a piece of moral advice -- a recipe or rule reminding us to 'observe the mean', to be moderate in all things and to avoid excess and deciciency. (If the doctrine urges us not to drink too much wine, it equally urges us not to drink too little -- but that is something which the moralizers usually find it prudent to ignore.)”

“While self-interest arising from the enjoyment of meat eating is obviously one reason for its entrenchment, and inertia another, a process of language usage engulfs discussions about meat by constructing the discourse in such a way that these issues need never be addressed. Language distances us from the reality of meat eating, thus reinforcing the symbolic meaning of meat eating, a symbolic meaning that is intrinsically patriarchal and male-oriented. Meat becomes a symbol for what is not seen but is always there--patriarchal control of animals and of language.”

“What do I know about God and the purpose of life? I know that this world exists. That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field. That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning. This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it. That life is the world. That my will penetrates the world. That my will is good or evil. Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world.The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God. And connect with this the comparison of God to a father.”

“How is it possible to find meaning in a finite world, given my waist and shirt size?”