The Meaning of Life: A Teenager's View

Matty Collier, age 17:

I couldn't help feeling that I should have accomplished something by now.
It didn't need to be big. But it needed to be something that I did with no
help from anyone else, some idea that was totally my own. I knew I was
headed for anonymity the year after I graduated. I would find a job
somewhere and ease into a quiet life, maybe get married and have a few
kids. I was headed that way, but something inside me wanted to stop the
motion I needed to have my moment of glory, and after that maybe the
whole business of life would start to make sense. As it stood now, it
seemed like stupid little traditions that everyone went through without
ever asking why. I wanted to ask why. I wanted some answers. 

--Barbara Hall, Skeeball and the Secret of the Universe (1987), page 24.

The Meaning of Faith

It's odd to find a definition of faith in a gritty, glitzy crime novel, but here it is:

Oh, baby, everybody thinks that faith is this big rush of something that goes
through you like a big orgasm. It ain't that, honey! Naw! Faith is when you
don't feel anything inside, just emptiness and hollowness, but you go on and
whisper up a little something to the Lord. Talking to God when you don't feel
anything at all, that's faith. Believing when you don't even feel like you
believe in anything. That's when God knows that you love and believe in Him
the most, for sure.

--Jane Holleman, Killer Gorgeous (1997), page 191.