What makes a quote meaningful?

It’s not uncommon to have a favourite quote, a paragraph or maybe just a sentence which resonates with you, which feels, in some strange way, like it’s yours – like it was written for you alone.

There have been a number of quotes that have had a profound impact on me over the years. While many of them are treasured words from beloved novels and films, or statements once declared by historical icons, the quotes which have stayed me with the longest are simpler than that. They are symbolic instruction manuals; guideposts that I refer to from time to time to ground myself and bring clarity to a moment or experience.  

As an example, for years, I’d often return to a quote from Elizabeth Taylor which I think I probably saw on Tumblr. “Pour yourself a drink,” she says, “put on some lipstick and pull yourself together.” For some reason, whenever I was feeling anxious, or had to do a shift at work that I really didn’t want to do, I’d think of it, and suddenly feel at least a bit better. It’s not like I’d even do any of the things she’s speaking of; I don’t really wear lipstick, and I certainly wasn’t going to have a drink at 8:30am before work. It’s more the no-fuss simplicity of the message: whatever it is you need to do, just go out and get it done. Even now, it helps.

Then there are the longform quotes, the complex paragraphs of wisdom which you might read in passing, only to find that the words just about know you over. For me, this exists in a quote by Boris Pasternak which I read in a book or a magazine when I was about sixteen. I remember circling the quote with a messy sharpie, taking a photo, and uploading it to Instagram in the early, pre-influencer days of that platform, when it was more a personal diary of pictures. It reads as follows: “The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant, systematic duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune. Our nervous system isn’t just a fiction, it’s a part of our physical body and our soul exists in space and is inside us, like the teeth in our mouth. It can’t be forever violated with impunity.”

I’m not sure what about the twentieth century Russian poet’s words struck me so significantly as a teenager. Then again, years later, I read those words and still feel a lingering astoundment at their accuracy, still perceive them as a method for living a balanced and full existence.

Truthfully, there is no right answer. We all see and feel words differently. As Pasternak wrote, “our soul exists in a space and is inside us” – it’s a part of our physicality, something capable of perception. Perhaps, then, any emotional response to a particular quote that we experience is really the soul leaping out from within, unable to be restrained at the sight of something which resonates so truly, which cuts right through to the core. Then again, maybe we just like how the words sound.