“I suppose I should wish you success, but that is too easy. I would like to wish you something that is harder to come by. So I am going to wish you meaning in life. And meaning is not something you stumble across like the answer to a riddle or prize in a treasure hunt.Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you; out of your own talent and understanding, out of things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something, the ingredients are there.You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account. ”

“And I think that the ultimate way you and I get lucky is if you have some success early in life, you get to find out early it doesn't mean anything. Which means you get to start early the work of figuring out what does mean something -- David Foster Wallace”

“I cannot help to see how life is a play of opposites. For all you get, you miss out on something, to go means not to come, to buy means to sell, to choose one, means to not choose another. You should enjoy your decision for the adventure that it is. It is all an adventure.”

“The secret to life is to have no fear. When you can let go of what others think about you, how something is going to turn out, or how your past will affect your future, then you are finally living life free.”

“Your life is your own. You mold it. You make it. All anyone can do is to point out ways and means which have been helpful to others. Perhaps they will serve as suggestions to stimulate your own thinking until you know what it is that will fulfill you, will help you to find out what you want to do with your life.”

“Danny smiles. Really smiles--like it means a lot that I'm not mad at him anymore. And then I figure out something weird: that you can be important to someone who doesn't mean much to you. But that once you find that out--that you mean something to them--it's hard not to feel that they mean something to you.”