Quotes about nothing
page 24

“Nothing," she said softly. "A queen must possess nothing to rule because she has to give everything she has to her people. Even her life.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Life, People

“Most non-readers are nothing but an agglomeration of third-hand opinion and blindly received wisdom.”

Tom Bissell (1974) American journalist

Wisdom

“Jem is nothing but goodness. That he struck you last night only shows how capable you are of driving even saints to madness.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Madness, Night

“What you have to decide… is how you want your life to be. If your forever was ending tomorrow, would this be how you'd want to have spent it? Listen, the truth is, nothing is guaranteed. You know that more than anybody. So dont be afraid. Be alive.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Life, Truth

“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

To Carl Stumpf (1 January 1886)
1920s, The Letters of William James (1920)
Variant: Procrastination is attitude's natural assassin. There's nothing so fatiguing as an uncompleted task

“Reacher said Nothing”

Lee Child (1954) British thriller writer

“There are no absolutes in relationships. You can't take anything for granted. You can count on absolutely nothing but the unexpected. You only get in trouble when you start thinking that you're some kind of exception to the rule.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Baby Proof

Thinking

“I wish that there was nothing to hold me here, that gravity was a suggestion I could ignore.”

China Miéville book Perdido Street Station

Source: Perdido Street Station

“Have faith have faith. When you have nothing else have faith.”

Francine Rivers book A Voice in the Wind

Source: A Voice in the Wind

Faith

“Try, reach, want, and you may fall. But even if you do, you might be okay anyway.
If you don't try, you save nothing, because you might as well be dead.”

Ann Brashares book Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Dead

“There is absolutely no substitute for the best. Good food cannot be made of inferior ingredients masked with high flavor. It is true thrift to use the best ingredients available and to waste nothing.”

James Beard (1903–1985) American chef

Food

“There was nothing humane about humanity. At the end of the day, they were all
animals with only survival instincts.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Night Play

Animals

“But what Freud showed us… was that nothing can be grasped, destroyed, or burnt, except in a symbolic way, as one says, in effigie, in absentia.”

Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist

Source: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis

Way

“It is terrible to have to ask for anything ever. We wish we were something that needed nothing, like paint. But even paint needs repainting.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

Painting

“You can’t judge a man solely on his actions. Sometimes actions are nothing more than re actions.” - Loring Blackman”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

“Nothing comes unannounced, but many can miss the announcement. So it's very important to actually listen to your own intuition rather than driving through it.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

“She spoke of evenings in the country making popcorn on the porch. Once this would have gladdened my heart but because her heart was not glad when she said it I knew there was nothing in it but the idea of what one should do.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Idea, Heart, Country

“There was nothing I wanted to do more than be unconscious again, wrapped in black, gone away. I was raw. I felt swollen with potential tears, like a water balloon filled to burst. Begging for a pin prick.”

Gillian Flynn book Sharp Objects

Source: Sharp Objects

Tear, Water

“Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can't reduce me to a set of influences.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change. The sun might shine, or the clouds might lour: but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer

Pain, Appearance, Change, Sun

“ahhh the beauty of annihilation. There's nothing like it.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Beauty

“Nothing marks a man's character better than his attraction to intelligence.”

Terry Goodkind (1948) American novelist

Intelligence

“By his monstrous way of life he seemed to have put himself beyond the limits of reality. Nothing moved him or spoke to him from the real world unless he heard it in an echo of the infuriated cries within him.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Life, World, Way, Reality

“The deeds of men, as footprints in the desert.
Nothing under the circling moons is fated to last.
Even the sun goes down.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book The Lions of Al-Rassan

Source: The Lions of Al-Rassan

Men, Fate, Sun

“To other people, it sometimes seems like nothing at all. You are walking around with your head on fire and no one can see the flames.”

Matt Haig book Reasons to Stay Alive

Source: Reasons to Stay Alive

People

“Fiona has the same glacial beauty of an iceburg, but unlike the iceburg she has absolutely nothing below the surface.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

Beauty

“Nothing's that simple, not even things that are simply awful.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

“There's an awful lot of inactive kindness which is nothing but laziness, not wanting any trouble, confusion, or effort.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent

Effort

“Gone.
Vanished.
Nothing left.
Nothing said.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

“To the untrue man, the whole universe is false- it is impalpable- it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself is in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

Light, Universe, Falseness

“Grief is when you feel so helpless and stupid that you think nothing will ever be right again, and your macaroni and cheese tastes like sawdust, and you can't even jerk off because it seems like too much trouble.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Stupidity, Jerk, Feeling, Thinking

“And I guess I realized at that moment that I really did love her. Because there was nothing to gain, and that didn't matter.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Love

“Over the years they both reached the same wise conclusion by different paths: it was not possible to live together in any other way, or love in any other way, and nothing in this world was more difficult than love.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Love, World, Way

“When things get unbearable, I wrap myself into a tight ball and shut my eyes. Every muscle in my body is tense. I open my eyes and I'm still where I was when I closed them to escape. Nothing's changed.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) American author and journalist

Change

“A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.”

Agatha Christie book The Hound of Death

Source: The Hound of Death

Love, World, Law, Mother's Day

“Give me 100 preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God; such alone will shake the gates of hell.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

God, Fear, Hell

“Despair dragged at me like an anchor, pulling me down. I closed my eyes and retreated to some dim place within, where there was nothing but an aching grey blankness…”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Despair

“Nothing can be repaired or advanced but only accepted”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Love In A Blue Time

“There is nothing inhuman, evil, or irrational which does not give some comfort, provided it is shared by a group.”

Erich Fromm book Psychoanalysis and Religion

Source: Psychoanalysis and Religion

Evil

“I killed her once and died for her many times and I still have nothing to show for it. I always search for her; I always remember her. I carry the hope that someday she will remember me.”

Ann Brashares book My Name is Memory

Source: My Name Is Memory

Hope, Search, Time

“Everybody is nothing until you love them.”

Tennessee Williams The Rose Tattoo

Source: The Rose Tattoo

Love

“The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return …”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Source: 1970s, Homage to Daniel Shays : Collected Essays (1972), Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973 - 1976 (1978), p. 280

People, Question

“Men don’t often know those times when a girl could be had for nothing.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Love of the Last Tycoon

Source: The Last Tycoon

Men, Girl, Time

“All that that I learn just teaches me that I know nothing.”

Philippa Gregory book The Lady of the Rivers

Source: The Lady of the Rivers

Learning

“Without Obsession, Life Is Nothing”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Life

“You're going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

“Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Question, Learning, Deep

“Internet porn makes everything more reasonable -- once you've realized there is a massive subculture of upwardly mobile people who think it's erotic to see an Asian woman giving a hand job to a javelina, nothing else in the world seems crazy.”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

People, World, Thinking

“There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious.”

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author

Appearance

“You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

“There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes

Time

“I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.”

Yann Martel (1963) Canadian author best known for the book Life of Pi

Life

“It seems to me, Golan, that the advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy.”

Isaac Asimov book Foundation’s Edge

Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation’s Edge (1982), Chapter 6 “Earth” section 1, p. 100
Source: Foundation's Edge

Exercises

“Weave the circle, tightly sewn,
Let nothing evil or unknown
Enter within. Stay without
On pain of death, we cast you out.”

Yasmine Galenorn (1961) American writer

Source: Blood Wyne

Death, Pain, Evil

“When I die, don't come, I wouldn't want a leaf
to turn away from the sun -- it loves it there.
There's nothing so spiritual about being happy
but you can't miss a day of it, because it doesn't last.”

Frank O'Hara (1926–1966) American poet, art critic and writer

Love, Happiness, Sun

“Nothing exists in this world but me and my bed…” (p. 141).”

Banana Yoshimoto book Asleep

Source: Asleep

World

“I am tired of knowing nothing and being reminded of it all the time.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night

Source: Tender Is the Night

Time

“Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Source: The Ghosts and Other Lectures

“What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.”

Woody Allen Without Feathers

"Selections from the Allen Notebooks".
Without Feathers (1975)

“Nothing ever fatigues me, but doing what I do not like.”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Variant: I am very strong. Nothing ever fatigues me, but doing what I do not like.
Source: Mansfield Park

“Friendship is love as much as any romance. And like any love, it’s difficult and treacherous and confusing. But in the moment when your knees touch, there’s nothing else you could ever want.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Love, Friendship

“If everything is important, then nothing is.”

Patrick Lencioni (1965) American writer

Faith, For Father

“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Spring, Grass

“I know what they said even if they would not say it to my face. People love to talk. They love to slander you if you have any substance. They say I love nothing but money and the Presbyterian Church and that is why I never married.”

Charles Portis book True Grit

Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 7, pp. 214-215 : thoughts of 'Mattie Ross'

Love, Money, People

“I'm never overwhelmed or under it either; just nicely whelmed. I'm OK. Nothing spectacular but sometimes special. I look in the mirror and see this medium average person. A little tired, a little sad, but not falling apart.”

Cecelia Ahern book Thanks for the Memories

Source: Thanks for the Memories

Sadness, Personality

“But the adjectives change,” said Jimmy. “Nothing’s worse than last year’s adjectives.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

Change

“As far as I was concerned men were something you had around the place, not particularly interesting, but quite harmless. I had never shown the slightest feeling for them, and apart from my never wearing a skirt, saw nothing else in common between us.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Men, Feeling

“We have nothing now between us, save - respect, perhaps. And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Secret, Thinking

“No, really," I said. "Now that we know that Flores is really this nasty, fiery, superpowerful nothing-can-kill-me demon from hell, maybe we should consider just giving Christy to him?”

Patricia Briggs book Night Broken

Source: Night Broken

Hell

“And die of nothing but a rage to live”

Alexander Pope Moral Essays

Variant: You purchase pain with all that joy can give and die of nothing but a rage to live.
Source: Moral Essays

Rage

“To be, in a word, unborable…. It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish”

David Foster Wallace book The Pale King

Source: The Pale King

Life

“In the morning, when the nothing vase casts a something shadow, like the memory of someone you've lost, what can you say about that?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Memory

“Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle —
Why not I with thine?”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Love's Philosophy http://www.readprint.com/work-1365/Percy-Bysshe-Shelley (1819), st. 1

World, Law

“How'd you like to gaze at a beer can throughout eternity? It might not be so bad. There'd be nothing to fear.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly

Fear, Beer

“What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Variant: Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be...
Source: Ode: Intimations Of Immortality From Recollections Of Early Childhood

Flowers, Grass