Quotes about nothing
page 22

“No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.”

Mario Vargas Llosa (1936) Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, and essayist

“Sometimes life is very mean: a person can spend days, weeks, months and years without feeling new. Then, when a door opens - a positive avalanche pours in. One moment, you have nothing, the next, you have more than you can cope with.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

Life, Feeling, Personality

“That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Parting

“There is nothing so good as a burial at sea. It is simple, tidy, and not very incriminating.”

Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British filmmaker

Sea

“Know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change. But pretty soon, everything's different.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Variant: You know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon... everything's different.

Change

“Nothing is more frightening than a fear you cannot name.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Variant: Nothing is more terrifying than fearlessness.
Source: Inkheart

Fear

“Nothing is as it seems. Black can appear white when the light is blinding but white loses all luster at the faintest sign of darkness.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: Evil Thirst

Light, Appearance

“I can receive nothing more from these tragic solitudes than a little empty purity.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Solitude

“They say there is no light without dark, no good without evil, no male without female, no right without wrong. That nothing can exist if it's direct opposite does not also exist.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Incubus Dreams

Source: Incubus Dreams

Light, Evil

“Authors and actors and artists and such - Never know nothing, and never know much.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

“Most people talk when they have nothing to say. I’m not talking because I have too much to say. None of which I’d want you to hear.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Charmed Thirds

People

“Nothing, nothing felt better than the way sand felt beneath my feet. It was both solid and shifting. Constant and ever-changing. It was summer.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Way, Change, Summer

“She walked about with the rather fated expression you see in photographs of girls who have subsequently been murdered, but nothing had so far happened to her.”

Elizabeth Bowen book The Death of the Heart

Source: The Death of the Heart

Fate, Girl

“For them, it was nothing but an ordinary day on an ordinary day on an ordinary weekend, but for her, there was something revelatory about the notion that wonderful moments like these existed.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

“Remember everything is right until it's wrong. You'll know when it's wrong.'
'You think so?'
'I'm quite sure. If you don't it doesn't matter. Nothing will matter then.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Garden of Eden

Colonel John Boyle and David in Ch. 7
Source: The Garden of Eden (1986)

Thinking

“You can bind my body, tie my hands, govern my actions: you are the strongest, and society adds to your power; but with my will, sir, you can do nothing.”

George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin

“These memories, which are my life--for we possess nothing certainly except the past--were always with me.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Source: Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder

Life, Memory, Past

“Nothing happens by chance.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Variant: Nothing in this world happens by chance
Source: Brida

Chance

“Nothing good ever came easy.” (Garreth)”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Pleasure of a Dark Prince

“It is only when we have renounced our preoccupation with "I," "me," "mine," that we can truly possess the world in which we live. Everything, provided that we regard nothing as property. And not only is everything ours; it is also everybody else's.”

Aldous Huxley book The Perennial Philosophy

Source: The Perennial Philosophy

World

“A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Books, Appearance, Help, Hurt

“All children mythologise their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won’t be the truth: it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

Children, Truth, Soul, Birth

“Mike, however, heard nothing at all. Lost in her breathlike touch, he knew only one thing for sure: In the instant their lips first met, there was a flicker of something almost electrical that made him believe the feeling would last forever.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Guardian

Source: The Guardian

Feeling

“His judgement demonstrates that one can be a genius and understand nothing of an art that is not one's own.”

Victor Hugo book The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Art, Understanding

“Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Appearance

“You think they are kind, that the Nephilim are kind, because they are good, but goodness is not kindness, and there is nothing crueler than virtue.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Thinking

“Alone, i am nothing. i have nothing. we have power. but we will never know it, we will never see it work. unless we come together to make it work.”

Ayi Kwei Armah book The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

Source: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

“Chiron probably wanted me to say, Heck it wa nothing. I eat hellhounds for breakfast. But I didn't feel like lying.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Feeling, Lying

“I want you too much. I want you with me, in my life, in my bed. If i can have that, nothing else matters.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

Life

“… nothing could eclipse the stain of his dirty, mortal mediocrity.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“A sociable smile is nothing but teeth.”

Jack Kerouac book Desolation Angels

Sometimes misquoted as "A sociable smile is nothing but a mouth full of teeth."
Desolation Angels (1965)

Smile

“There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Beauty

“I am a recluse at present & do nothing but write & read & read & write”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

Source: The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume 1: 1903-1917

Reading

“Nothing is fun until you're good at it.”

Amy Chua book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Source: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

“It was easy enough to kill yourself in a fit of despair. It was easy enough to play the martyr. It was harder to do nothing. To endure your life. To wait.”

Erica Jong book Fear of Flying

Source: Fear of Flying

Life, Waiting, Despair

“What is it with you and girls, Adrian, dear? Why do they either mean nothing to you or everything? It's always an extreme."
"Because I don't do things in halves, mom. Especially when it comes to love.”

Richelle Mead book Silver Shadows

Source: Silver Shadows

Love, Girl, Moms

“When you have your health, you have everything. When you do not have your health, nothing else matters at all.”

Augusten Burroughs book Dry

Source: Dry

Health

“Nothing wrong with shooting… as long as the right people get shot.”

Clint Eastwood (1930) actor and director from the United States

People

“The final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else. The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Source: Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose

Truth

“Almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

“My grief was cold. It was nothing to share. It was nothing to speak about, nothing to feel.”

Alice Hoffman book Green Angel

Source: Green Angel

Feeling

“Most people would have found it grotesque, but when you're in love nothing is so abstract or horrible that it can't be thought of as cute.”

David Sedaris When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Love, People

“Imagining and fantasizing did nothing but break her heart.”

Cecelia Ahern book If You Could See Me Now

Source: If You Could See Me Now

Imagination, Heart

“For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part One: Lightness and Weight
Variant: For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.
Source: Identity

Pain, Feeling, Imagination

“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Women, Intelligence

“In all human sorrow nothing gives comfort but love and faith, and that in the sight of Christ's compassion for us no sorrow is trifling.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Love, Faith, Christ

“He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity--suggesting that a certain type of intelligence may be at heart nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), p. 284.
Context: It appeared that the one area in which Sir Bob excelled was anxiety. He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others’ mediocrity—suggesting that a certain kind of intelligence may at heart be nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction.

Intelligence, Heart

“Losing the possibility of something is the exact same thing as losing hope and without hope nothing can survive.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

Hope

“Toil on, son, and do not lose heart or hope. Let nothing you dismay. You are not utterly forsaken. I, too, am here--here in the darkness waiting, here attentive, here approving of your labor and your dream.”

Thomas Wolfe book You Can't Go Home Again

Source: You Can't Go Home Again

Dreams, Hope, Waiting, Heart

“Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand - …”

George Eliot book Silas Marner

Source: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861), Chapter 18 (at page 163)

“They waited for life to happen to them. They waited for someone to save them. Or heal them. They did nothing for themselves.”

Louise Penny book Still Life

Source: Still Life

Life, Waiting

“Meaning what? We're going to pretend nothing's going on? That's stupid. The only way to deal with any of this is to get it out in the open."

Have you been watching Oprah again?”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

Stupidity, Way

“I know what "nothing" means, and keep on playing.”

Joan Didion book Play It as It Lays

Source: Play It as It Lays

“Roses are red
Violets are blue
Everything's possible
Nothing is true.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

Source: V for Vendetta, Vol. VIII of X

“When stalking one’s prey, it is best to take one’s time. Say nothing, and as sure as eggs he will become curious and emerge.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Time

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Not found in Burke's writings. Appears to be a paraphrase of "It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little." sourced to Sydney Smith (1771 - 1845).

Life

“A man may be so much of every thing, that he is nothing of any thing.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1783, p. 500
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
Source: The Life of Johnson, Vol 4

“Belief means nothing without actions”

Randa Abdel-Fattah (1979) contemporary Australian writer of novels for young adults

Source: Does My Head Look Big In This?

“You know what's funny about death? I mean other than absolutely nothing at all? You'd think we could remember finding out we weren't immortal. Sometimes I see children sobbing airports and I think, "Aww. They've just been told.”

Carrie Fisher book Wishful Drinking

Source: Wishful Drinking

Death, Children, Thinking

“When everything is immediately available and infinitely reproducible, nothing is valuable.”

Charles Frazier (1950) American writer

“She said I was interested in everything and committed to nothing.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

“I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun warmed, flower bordered path.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Smile, Flowers, Sun

“The willingness to be and to have just what God wants us to be and have, nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else, would set our hearts at rest, and we would discover the simpler life,
the greater peace.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Life, God, Peace, Heart

“When we're all alone, it might be to frightening to bear… but we're all right beside each other. We've got our friends close by! Now, there's nothing to fear! Because we're not alone!!!”

Hiro Mashima (1977) Japanese manga artist

Fear

“There is nothing that is quite so reassuring in an awkward situation as knowing that one is well turned-out, and while I hope I am not so fainthearted as to require such stratagems, I am not so foolish as to overlook their value.”

Patricia C. Wrede (1953) author

Source: Sorcery & Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot

Hope

“There's nothing wrong with being a genius who can fascinate the young. Rather, there's something wrong with the young who can't be fascinated by a genius.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“What happened between those two beings? Nothing. They were adoring one another.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“You mean to say he became mad deliberately?'
… Nothing is more likely,' said the duke.”

Susanna Clarke book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Source: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Madness

“Loosen up. Relax. Except for rare life-and-death matters, nothing is as important as it first seems.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Source: Life's Little Instruction Book: 511 Suggestions, Observations, and Reminders on How to Live a Happy and Rewarding Life

Life, Death

“Nothing made me happen. I happened.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

“But our wounds are part of who we are… and there is nothing left to chance…. And pain's the pen that writes the songs…. That call us forth to dance”

Michael Card (1957) singer, songwriter, author, composer, Radio Host

Pain, Chance, Dance, Parting

“And when her lips met mine, I knew that I could live to be a hundred and visit every country in the world, but nothing would ever compare to that single moment when I first kissed the girl of my dreams and knew that my love would last forever.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Love, World, Dreams, Girl

“Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

“For nothing is more fulfilling than love itself”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Love

“I’ve got your back. Nothing alive will ever hurt you if I have breath in me. And nothing dead will hurt you if I don’t.” (Kisten)”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: For a Few Demons More

Hurt, Dead

“Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction. Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else, but go to the extent of living single thought by single thought.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

“Between grief and nothing, I will take grief.”

William Faulkner book If I Forget Thee

Variant: Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief
Source: The Wild Palms

“Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.”

Paul Tournier (1898–1986) Swiss physician and author, pastoral counsellor

Secret

“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Draft of a German reply to a letter sent to him in 1954 or 1955, p. 39
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
Context: I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of "humility." This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

Feeling, Nature, Thinking, Personality

“I know nothing, because I know too much, and understand not nearly enough and never will.”

Anne Rice book The Vampire Armand

Source: The Vampire Armand

Understanding

“One day,' Orest said, looking at him comically, 'you will say something that is less than practical and sensible, something that is driven by no forethought and nothing but passion, and I will probably collapse with shock.”

Mercedes Lackey book Alta

Source: Alta

Passion

“The stars were only sparks of the fire which devoured us. Should that fire die out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night

Star, Dead

“Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.”

Barbara W. Tuchman book The Guns of August

Source: The Guns of August

Dead

“Nothing soothes an upset Punjabi like dairy products.”

Chetan Bhagat book 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Source: 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

“Such a small, pure object a poem could be, made of nothing but air a tiny string of letters, maybe small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. But it could blow everybody's head off.”

Mary Karr (1955) American writer

Source: Lit

“It’s easy to plant a seed and sprinkle it with water, but once the sun scorches the ground, and the earth soaks up all the moisture, you’re left with nothing but a thirsty little flower trying desperately to make it out of the dirt.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: God-Shaped Hole

Flowers, Water, Sun

“There's release in knowing the truth no matter how anguishing it is. You come finally to the irreducible thing, and there's nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it. Then, at last, you can enter the severe mercy of acceptance.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Mermaid Chair

Source: The Mermaid Chair

Truth

“Nothing gives you confidence like being a member of a small, weirdly specific, hard-to-find demographic.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Confidence

“You know," I told him,"if you don't know how to eat a cupcake, that's nothing to be ashamed of."
Now he did smile. "I know how to eat a cupcake."
"Sure you do."
"I do," he said. "I just don't want one of those."
"Yeah? Prove it.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Smile

“If I don't shut down my brain soon, my imagination will take off so far about what could be with this guy, that nothing will ever just be.-- Norah, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Guy, Imagination

“There's nothing like a head-strong woman to make you happy to be alive.”

Wendelin Van Draanen Flipped

Source: Flipped (2001)

Happiness, Strong

“There is nothing more to be said or to be done tonight, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellowmen.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Five Orange Pips

Source: The Five Orange Pips

Way, Weather, Forgetting

“Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Dreams, History, Science

“Nothing cuts deeper than when another person says exactly what you're afraid to say out loud.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Bullet

Source: Bullet

Personality

“Everyone loves something for nothing… even if it costs everything.”

Stephen King book Needful Things

Source: Needful Things

Love

“The Feast of Fortuna had nothing to do with tuna, which was fine with Percy.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

“So long as you write it away regularly nothing can really hurt you.”

Shirley Jackson (1916–1965) novelist, short story writer

Hurt

“Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase

Thinking, Memory

“If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

Tim Minear, in Epiphany", episode 16 of season 2 of Angel; also mentioned in the DVD commentary for the Firefly episode, "Objects in Space".
Misattributed

“Nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean wouldn't cure.”

Ross Macdonald book The Drowning Pool

The Moving Target (1949)
Source: The Drowning Pool

Quotes about nothing page 22

Quotes about nothing
page 22