A Quote by Peter Elbow

Meaning is not what you start with, but what you end up with. — © Peter Elbow
Meaning is not what you start with, but what you end up with.

Quote Topics

When clients are involved in a crisis, we often start at the end. When this is over, where do you want to end up? What's your endgame? We try to start from that and work ourselves back.
If a character is going to end up one way, you start them a certain way. If they're gonna end up the polar opposite of that, you might start them differently to have dramatic integrity to their journey.
When people start writing songs for award shows, there's a very limited palette you can use. You end up not sounding like you. You end up sounding like somebody else. You end up getting what the record company thinks they can market.
Your destination might not end up being exactly what you envisioned to start with, but if you stick it out and work through the challenges, what you end up with will be far better than you could have ever imagined.
I have a very clear perception what the Internet is in my mind. I'm free. I'm not defined by what they say is the Internet is. Meaning Goldman Sachs, meaning who they invest in for the latest start-up, meaning the latest Buzzfeed, or Salon, or Gawker. Well, Gawker's more independent. But, there's a lot of corporate makeover of the Internet that I have not adapted to, simply put. I'm friends with some of them. When I go to New York I make the 6th Avenue rounds, but I am not a part of that system.
I want everybody to find meaning in whatever they do. That's the only purpose to life, actually. Let that meaning be so strong that you can't not wake up every day and be like, "Yep, this is what I gotta do, let's keep it moving" and not be disgruntled about it, and start using other people as excuses for why you're not creating a better life for yourself.
Meaning is man-created. And because you constantly look for meaning, you start to feel meaninglessness.
And people get all fouled up because they want the world to have meaning as if it were words... As if you had a meaning, as if you were a mere word, as if you were something that could be looked up in a dictionary. You are meaning.
When you're following people after their eviction, they often start out kind of optimistic, in a way - it's a really tough time, but it's also like a new start. Who knows where they might end up?
You're younger, you might want to go to clubs and kick it, but as you get older, you start seeing that life has more meaning to it. The people that you love are the people you want to start trusting and start wanting them to trust you and start respecting them.
But it doesn't have to be this way. We can do things better. We need to stop doing business as usual and start focusing on end-to-end quality. Security needs to be built in from the start - not slapped on after the fact.
My favorite nights out are the most random ones - when they start at a bowling alley and end up someplace you don't even know where. Those are my favorite - the most random ones that you don't plan, when you meet up with friends, and you're supposed to do something and end up doing something else.
I draw things on the paper very freely but believing there is meaning to them already. There is already meaning in the colors, I don't need to be guided by words. I draw them and the meaning comes after. Every time we would start a new sequence we would change everything.
When I start writing, my unconscious, my conflicts, my thoughts all start to come up. So for me, writing is an exploration. I never know how my stories will end.
There's a time and place for everything. You're younger, you might want to go to clubs and kick it, but as you get older, you start seeing that life has more meaning to it. The people that you love are the people you want to start trusting and start wanting them to trust you and start respecting them.
In the end I realize that whatever meaning that picture has is the accumulated meaning of ten thousand brushstrokes, each one being decided as it was painted.
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