“Nothing. Jail is about nothing. Completely blank.”

“… I am with fire between my teeth and still nothing but my blank page.”

“Nothing that is complete breathes.”

“I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.”

“Nothing important is completely explicable.”

“Most people are blind to magic. They move through a blank and empty world. They’re bored with their lives, and there’s nothing they can do about it. They’re eaten alive by longing, and they’re dead before they die.”

“Maybe nothing is completely true, and not even that.”

“She knew that her feelings toward Bean were completely different. No such dreams and fantasies. Just a sense of complete acceptance. She belonged with Bean, not the way that a wife belonged with a husband or, God forbid, a girlfriend with a boyfriend, but rather way the left hand belonged to the right. They simply fit. Nothing exciting about it, nothing to write home about. But it could be counted on.”

“Nothing falls entirely! Nothing dies away completely! Nothing can totally deprive another of its rights! On the contrary, the deeper the fall, the higher the reactive upswing!”

“From what I know about alcoholism, I'd say there's nothing romantic, nothing grand, nothing heroic, nothing brave — nothing like that about drinking. It's a real coward's death.”