For me, the only thing that mattered was getting married in the presence of my family and very close friends. We did not want a big fat wedding.

If you ask an economist what's driven economic growth, it's been major advances in things that mattered - the mechanization of farming, mass manufacturing, things like that. The problem is, our society is not organized around doing that.

When I had a mental breakdown I was 26 and the most important thing before that was my work. And I still adore it. But it was all that mattered and everything else was secondary: my relationship, my family, my own health.

Take information technology. We have winners implementing CRM (customer relationship management systems) and losers implementing CRM. What mattered in technology is that the technology actually drives either cost reduction or superior strategy execution.

Earlier, looking lighter or slimmer never mattered to me. Frankly, I didn't care. I had more important things to do. But when I figured that it's not that hard, and I have the time, passion and patience to take it up, I jumped onto the health-wagon. I started working out.

The only thing that mattered was what you were to do in life, and it wasn't about money. It was about teaching, or learning.

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.

After graduation, I discovered that I'd hit the limit of what I could learn from the women in my family. On top of that, in the workforce, all of the things that mattered in college suddenly weren't enough.

I made my first white women friends in college; they loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered.

Fame is really strange. One day you're not famous, and then the next day you are, and the odd thing is that you know intellectually that nothing in the world is different. What mattered to you yesterday are the same things that matter today, and the rules all still apply - yet everyone looks at you differently.

I felt a failure because I couldn't sustain myself from what I earned from my writing. My day jobs were what mattered, and it was hard to even get those because universities wouldn't hire me as a real writer.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

Puma was all about function and not at all about design. The founder of the company always believed functionality and performance were the only ingredients that could make Puma successful and design never mattered.

I'm not traditional at all. It's not that I'm against marriage; it just never mattered that much to me. If I was dating someone who getting married was very important to them, then absolutely. I'd have no problem. I love the idea of finding someone to be a great father figure to Jasper and to share my life with.

The form of computers has never been important, with speed and performance being the only things that mattered.

Maybe the answers weren't important. Maybe it was the asking which mattered. Not taking anything for granted. Maybe that's what stopped you growing old.

If your absence doesn't bother them, then your presence never mattered in the first place. I felt that!

It was being a runner that mattered, not how fast or how far I could run. The joy was in the act of running and in the journey, not in the destination. We have a better chance of seeing where we are when we stop trying to get somewhere else. We can enjoy every moment of movement, as long as where we are is as good as where we'd like to be. That's not to say that you need to be satisfied forever with where you are today. But you need to honor what you've accomplished, rather than thinking of what's left to be done (p. 159).

Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands. Take time with them, teach them to have faith in God. Be a person in whom they can have faith. When you are old, nothing else you've done will have mattered as much.

I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

After that day, I discovered one indelible truth. I discovered that love wasn't everything that mattered in life. It was an emotion that not many had the luxury of feeling without any pain attached to it. Many say that love will set you free, but I disagree. Love is a cage, a very painful one; its gilded bars made with yearning, heartache, and unfulfilled dreams. And the moment I realized that love wasn't necessary to one's survival I became free. No one would have the power to hurt me again.

I could recognise his soul in mine as much as he could find me in his. Our sole existences seemed to have been for this very moment when nothing else mattered.

But somehow, standing in the clear night air, under a sky that glowed like a shower of sparks, none of that stuff mattered. It slipped off me. It was like shedding your clothes before you step in the shower. I felt I was down to essentials again. In fact I felt very close to God at that moment. I guess if you're ever going to feel close to God it'll be while you're looking at the heavens.

I have never felt that anything really mattered but knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could.