Quotes about nothing
page 23

“Try to say nothing negative about anybody.
a) for three days
b) for forty-five days
c) for three months

See what happens to your life.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

Life

“I'm not the hero, Mac. Never have been. Never will be. Let us be perfectly clear: I'm not the antihero, either, so quit waiting to discover my hidden potential. There's nothing to redeem me.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

Waiting

“Is it enough to be a princess, when being a princess means nothing?”

Alex Flinn (1966) American children's writer

Source: A Kiss in Time

Princess

“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Variant: To love or have loved is all-sufficing. We must not ask for more. No other pearl is to be found in the shadowfolds of life. To love is an accomplishment.
Source: Les Misérables

Love, Life, Heart Touching, Romantic

“Hope is a critical thing. Whithout it, we are nothing. Hope shapes will. The will shapes the world.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

World, Hope

“I had nothing to offer anybody, except my own confusion”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Variant: I have nothing to offer anybody, except my own confusion.
Source: On the Road

“Wild honey smells of freedom
The dust - of sunlight
The mouth of a young girl, like a violet
But gold - smells of nothing.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Girl, Freedom

“But remember this if nothing else: I love you more than there are words or stars. I love you more than there are thoughts and feelings. I love you more than there are seconds or moments gone or to come. I love you.”

Malorie Blackman book Checkmate

Source: Checkmate

Love, Feeling, Star

“Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult--at least I have found it so--than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Source: The Origin of Species

Life, Truth, Universe

“In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

Source: Selected Essays, 1778-1830

Question

“You hate change. I hate it too. But things can't stay the same- and that's well, for when nothing changes in your life, it's as good as being dead”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Hero of Ages

Life, Hate, Change, Dead

“But there's food if you know how to find it. My father knew and he taught me some before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion. There was nothing even to bury. I was eleven then. Five years later, I still wake up screaming for him to run.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Food

“Sadie, I can't intervene." He turned up his palms in frustration. "I told you when we first met, this isn't an actual physical body."
"Shame," I mumbled.
"What?"
"Nothing. Go on.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

““You can prove anything you want by coldly logical reason—if you pick the proper postulates. We have ours and Cutie has his.”
“Then let’s get at those postulates in a hurry. The storm’s due tomorrow.”
Powell sighed wearily. “That’s where everything falls down. Postulates are based on assumptions and adhered to by faith. Nothing in the Universe can shake them. I’m going to bed.””

Isaac Asimov book I, Robot

Source: I, Robot (1950), “Reason”, p. 63

Faith, Universe

“If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and safe, we die there… When nothing new can get in, that's death.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

Death

“He smelled the garden, the yellow shield of light smote his eyes, and he whispered, "Life is so beautiful."
…
Yes, he thought, if I can die saying, "Life is so beautiful," then nothing else is important.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Life, Beauty, Light

“Constellations shine with light that was emitted aeons ago, and I wait for something to come to me, words that a poet might use to illuminate life's mysteries. But there is nothing.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Wedding

Source: The Wedding

Life, Light, Waiting

“I close my eyes, thinking that there is nothing like an embrace after an absence, nothing like fitting my face into the curve of his shoulder and filling my lungs with the scent of him.”

Jodi Picoult book Keeping Faith

Variant: simply-quotes Follow

I close my eyes, thinking that there is nothing like an embrace after an absence, nothing like fitting my face into the curve of his shoulder and filling my lungs with the scent of him.
Source: Keeping Faith

Thinking

“There's nothing to read into. I'm just here to collect my beloved Damon and Stefan is just helping me.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Shadow Souls

Reading, Help

“If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

"The Beauty of Life," a lecture before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 February 1880), later published in Hopes and Fears for Art: Five Lectures Delivered in Birmingham, London, and Nottingham, 1878 - 1881 (1882).

Beauty, Housing

“They claim their labours are to build a heaven yet their heaven is populated with horrors. Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. A clock without a craftsman. It's too late. Always has been, always will be…too late.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

World

“… though nothing is damaged, everything is changed.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View

Change

“There is nothing quite like the moral absolutism of the young." -Hodge”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“Better to love and fear than feel nothing”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Love, Fear, Feeling

“When we grow up, we find ways to hide our anxieties, our loneliness, our fear and sorrow. But children hide nothing, putting everything into their tears, which they spread liberally about for the whole world to see.”

Yōko Ogawa book The Diving Pool: Three Novellas

Source: The Diving Pool: Three Novellas

Children, World, Fear, Way

“There's nothing wrong with being a large mammal.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

“I think hope is the worst thing in the world. I really do. It makes a fool of you while it lasts. And then when it's gone, it's like there's nothing left of you at all… except what you can't be rid of.”

Marilynne Robinson Home

Source: Home

World, Hope, Fools, Thinking

“It made perfect sense, and at the same time nothing seemed to.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Variant: It all made perfect sense, and at the same time, nothing seemed to make sense at all.
Source: A Walk to Remember

Sense, Time, Perfection

“The English play hockey in any weather. Thunder, lightening, plague of locusts… nothing can stop the hockey. Do not fight the hockey, for the hockey will win.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Fight, Weather, Hockey

“I am air and thought and can do nothing.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“If you are the type of person who thinks too much about stuff then there is nothing lonelier in the world than being surrounded by a load of people on a different wavelength.”

Matt Haig book Reasons to Stay Alive

Source: Reasons to Stay Alive

People, World, Thinking, Personality

“.. nothing in your past can change how I feel about you. And God knows I’m no saint.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

God, Feeling, Change, Past

“Shh,” he whispered. “You asked me if I loved you. I do. I love you more than life itself. Nothing matters in this world but that you live. Can you do that for me? Can you live?”

Elizabeth Hoyt (1970) American writer

Source: To Desire a Devil

Love, Life, World

“People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

People, Understanding

“He and the girl had almost nothing to say to each other. One thing he did say was, 'I ain't got any tattoo on my back.'

'What you got on it?' the girl said.

'My shirt,' Parker said. 'Haw.'

'Haw, haw,' the girl said politely.”

Flannery O’Connor book The Complete Stories

Source: The Complete Stories

Girl, Tattoo

“Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Faith, Understanding

“I loved this woman the way you love… well, nothing," he said, a note of suprise in his voice. "You can’t compare that kind of love to anything, can you? It’s its own unique gift.”

Dennis Lehane book Shutter Island

Source: Shutter Island

Love, Way

“Why do we argue? Life's so fragile, a successful virus clinging to a speck of mud, suspended in endless nothing.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

Life, Success

“One possibility is: God is nothing but the power of the universe to organize itself.”

Lee Smolin (1955) American cosmologist

God, Universe

“You'll often hear the phrase "science doesn't know everything." Well, of course it doesn't know everything. But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean that it knows nothing.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

Science

“So we do nothing?” Claire asked.
“We do the best nothing you’ve ever seen.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Variant: Claire: So we do nothing?
Michael: We do the best nothing you've ever seen.
Source: The Dead Girls' Dance

“I know it's important to do more than just complain when there's something you don't like. You need to try to do something about it, or you're nothing but a whiner.”

Jean Ferris (1939–2015) American children's writer

Source: Twice Upon a Marigold

“[A]lways get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a big slab of prose at the start."

(Interview,, Issue 64, Winter 1975)”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Feeling, Winter, Speed

“I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.”

Joseph Heller (1923–1999) American author

Dreams, Night

“You don't understand,' she said, and there was a puzzling trace of resentment in her voice. 'Children never do. The love a parent has for a child, there's nothing else like it. No other love so consuming.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Love, Children, Understanding, Parent

“It’s against the rules of humanity to believe there is nothing we can do.”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

“Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy. Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him who has all things safely in His hands.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Peace, Change, Waiting, Heart

“There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it.”

H. Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British physician, writer, and social reformer

War

“The hour grows late."

"Late? So? Do you have to be on Ash Campus early tomorrow? At the University of Nothing Matters?”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Endless Knight

Universe

“Not even waste/is inviolate./The day misspent,/the love misplaced,/has inside it/the seed of redemption./Nothing is exempt from resurrection.”

Kay Ryan (1945) American poet

Variant: The day misspent,
the love misplaced,
has inside it
the seed of redemption.
Nothing is exempt
from resurrection.
Source: Say Uncle

Love

“Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.”

Stephen Leacock (1869–1944) writer and economist

"Gertrude the Governess", Nonsense Novels (1911)

Horse

“A writer can do nothing for men more necessary, satisfying, than just simply to reveal to them the infinite possibility of their own souls.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Men, Soul

“There’s nothing worse than falling in love with a person over and over every time you lay eyes on them, especially when you hate their goddamn guts”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Love, Hate, Time, Personality

“There are a thousand ways to hurt someone you love that have nothing to do with physical violence.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Cerulean Sins

Source: Cerulean Sins

Love, Way, Hurt

“One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

"Du Rêve" in La Difficulté d’Etre [The Difficulty of Being] (1947)

Dreams

“Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

Art

“We live in a culture where everything tastes good but nothing satisfies.”

Daniel Pinchbeck (1966) American author and journalist

“Good people are good people; religion has nothing to do with it.”

Jodi Picoult book The Storyteller

Source: The Storyteller

People, Religion

“You know, he told me once, completely exasperated, you've got one glass of water inside your head, with all the tears for a lifetime. If you waste them over nothing, then you won't be able to cry for real when you need to.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

Tear, Water, Cry

“If fate is a millstone, we are the grist. There is nothing we can do. So I wish for strength. If I cannot protect them from the wheel, then give me a strong blade, and enough strength, to shatter fate”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Fate, Strong

“Nothing’s more fun than being carried away.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

“It wasn’t was easy as picking one over the other. Nothing ever was. It wasn’t as though I’d even had a choice, not really.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

“My survival was up to me. I had nothing and I had no one. What I did have, I told myself, was my mind, my imagination, my memory, my feelings, my spirit. These were important and powerful things.”

John Marsden (1950) author

Source: A Killing Frost

Feeling, Imagination, Memory

“Power concedes nothing without a demand.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Variant: Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

“Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt. Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be touched gently, because the time is short. Civilization is another word for respect for life…”

Elizabeth Goudge book Green Dolphin Street

Source: Green Dolphin Street

Life, Bird, Tree, Time

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me want to dream.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Variant: I don't know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream.
Source: Van Gogh's Starry Night Notebook

Dreams, Star, Parting

“Take it from me, there's nothing like a job well done. Except the quiet enveloping darkness at the bottom of a bottle of Jim Beam after a job done any way at all.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Way

“If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there's nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

“There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Books, Imagination, Housing

“… people with nothing to declare carry the most.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

People

“somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence.
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you always open petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously)her first rose or if it be your wish to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly
as the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries
rendering death and forever with each breathing”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

W [ViVa] (1931) LVII

Life, Death, World, Travel

“There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

As quoted in The Truth in Words (2005) by Neal Zero

“i find nothing more depressing than optimism.”

Paul Fussell (1924–2012) Recipient of the Purple Heart medal

Optimism

“Nothing important, or meaningful, or beautiful, or interesting, or great ever came out of imitations. The thing that is really hard and really amazing is to give up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Beauty, Perfection

“Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realizes himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.”

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

Life

“Nothing's a joke with me. It just all comes out like one.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

“Meet me in Cognito, baby. In Cognito, we'll have nothing to hide.”

Tom Robbins book Jitterbug Perfume

Source: Jitterbug Perfume

Baby

“I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Mood, Waiting

“It's okay, girl, we'll make it till the sun goes down forever. And until then what you got to lose but the losing? We're fallen angels who didn't believe that nothing means nothing.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Source: Book of Blues

Angels, Girl, Sun

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. To be in the window and watch people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and do nothing, that's being dead.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

US News & World Report (27 October 1986)

Love, Life, Death, Hate

“Aren't you afraid of dying?
Not really. I've watched lots of good-for-nothing, worthless people die, and if people like that can do it, then I should be able to handle it.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

People

“Matter is composed chiefly of nothing.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 218

“He could say nothing. He had no right to be there, he had already been profoundly changed, he was no good at small talk, she was half naked, it was dawn and he loved her.”

Mark Helprin book Winter's Tale

Source: Winter's Tale

Love, Change

“Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Way, Personality

“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

Health, Wealth

“Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Guardian Camwar, in Ch. 4 : the cooper
Source: The Visitor (2002)
Context: You asked for wisdom? Hear these words. Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.

Intelligence, Reality