Quotes about nothing
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“It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive. It has come to a standstill; nothing withers, and fall is not ready to begin. There are no stars yet, just darkness.”

Tove Jansson book The Summer Book

Source: The Summer Book

“When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

“A man is involved in life, leaves his impress on it, and outside of that there is nothing.”

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

“Those who stand for nothing fall for everything.”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

The earliest known occurance of a similar adage dates back to 1926, then apparently regarded as a common one of unknown origin. Its connection to Alexander Hamilton arose from confusion with its use in 1978 by a UK radio broadcaster also named Alex Hamilton.
Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/18/stand-fall/#return-note-8222-15 Per QI

“His love for her was a gift he gave her daily, expecting nothing in return. He walked at her side, his love for her a torch to guide her footsteps along the dark path she walked.”

Margaret Weis book Dragons of a Fallen Sun

Source: Dragons of a Fallen Sun

“In her way, she was a hard one. Faith in any sort of natural justice was nothing but a night light; she knew of that. Whatever she did, she would end the same way with everyone does: flat on her back with a tube in her nose, wondering, "Is this all?”

Thomas Harris Red Dragon

Source: Red Dragon

Faith, Justice, Way, Nature

“Sometimes people think you’re smart if you question the status quo, if nothing else.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

People, Question, Thinking

“Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Love, Suffering

“I’m not running away from my responsibilities. I’m running to them. There’s nothing negative about running away to save my life.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

“Fear is an instinct, like hunger or anger. We need it to help us survive, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. It lets us know whether we should fight or flee.”

David Clement-Davies book The Sight

Source: The Sight

Hunger, Fear, Help, Fight

“It was as if when I looked into his eyes I was standing alone on the edge of the world… on a windswept ocean beach. There was nothing but the soft roar of the waves.”

Anne Rice book Interview with the Vampire

Source: Interview with the Vampire

“Doroga thumped a finger against his skull. Head got nothing to do with the heart. Your heart wants what it wants. Head got to learn that it can only kill the heart or else get out of the way”

Jim Butcher book Academ's Fury

Source: Academ's Fury

Way, Learning, Heart

“Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift.”

Maya Angelou book Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

Source: Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

Love, Life, Pleasure, World

“Life is nothing to be very serious about. Life is a ball in your hands to play with. Don’t hold on to the ball.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

“A belief system is nothing more than a thought you've thought over and over again.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

“We fall from womb to tomb, from one blackness and toward another, remembering little of the one and knowing nothing of the other… except through faith.”

Stephen King book Danse Macabre

Source: Danse Macabre

“There is nothing to make you like other human beings so much as doing things for them.”

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American folklorist, novelist, short story writer

“That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened-good, bad, or anywhere in between-it was always, if nothing else, all your own.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.”

Jane Austen book Emma

Source: Emma

“This is our big chance to see what people think of us. The real us. We have to show em there's nothing to be afraid of. If we don't get over our fears, they never will.”

Lisi Harrison Monster High

Source: Monster High

People, Fear, Thinking, Chance

“Every now and then she looked around for tangible evidence of his having ever been there. Where were the butterflies? the blueberries? the whistling reed? She could find nothing, for he had left nothing but his stunning absence.”

Toni Morrison book Sula

Source: Sula

“For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

God, Friendship, Faith

“Where to start is the problem, because nothing begins when it begins and nothing's over when it's over, and everything needs a preface: a preface, a postscript, a chart of simultaneous events.”

Margaret Atwood book The Robber Bride

Source: The Robber Bride

“If something takes too long, something happens to you. You become all and only the thing you want and nothing else, for you have paid too much for it, too much in wanting and too much in waiting and too much in getting.”

Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) American poet, novelist, and literary critic

“Perhaps my life is nothing but an image of this kind; perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I simply should recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

“Love is worth the sum of itself, and nothing more.”

Alice Hoffman book Practical Magic

Source: Practical Magic

“Old love, middle love, the kind of love that knows itself and knows that nothing lasts, is a desperate shared wildness.”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

Source: The Plague of Doves

“Please nothing, she’s a vicious piranha. She looks all cute and cuddly, then she opens that mouth and lets loose so much venom she could double as a nest of scorpions. (Leo)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dark Side of the Moon

“Nothing optional -- from homosexuality to adultery -- is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishment) have a repressed desire to participate.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

“You have to make an effort to always look at the good side, always think about the good things. Then you've got nothing to be afraid of. If something bad comes up, you do more thinking at that point.”

Haruki Murakami book The Elephant Vanishes

Source: The Elephant Vanishes

Thinking, Effort

“Can you say something about nothing?”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

“… nothing momentous comes in this world unless it comes on the shoulders of kindness.”

Barbara Kingsolver book The Lacuna

Source: The Lacuna

“Love hurts. There is nothing as painful as heartbreak. But in order to learn to love again you must learn to trust again.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Love, Pain, Learning, Hurt

“Why do I and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we're nothing"; - "We accept the love we think we deserve”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Love, People, Thinking

“Time was a face on the water, and like the great river before them, it did nothing but flow.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: The Wind Through the Keyhole

“Never," said Gregor. "I'll never get rid of you, no matter how hard I try." It was no longer an effort to say the words. "I love you."
"I love you, too," said Luxa.
After that there was nothing left to say.”

Suzanne Collins book Gregor and the Code of Claw

Source: Gregor and the Code of Claw

“Always leave a way out, unless you really want to find out how hard a man can fight when he’s nothing to lose.”

Robert Jordan The Fires of Heaven

Source: The Fires of Heaven

“Being here alone with nothing to do, I've been thinking about myself too. Trying to understand why I hate myself so badly.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Hate, Understanding, Thinking

“Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Courageous, Graduation, For Team

“Searching for nothing
Wondering if I’ll change
I’m trying everything
But everything still stays the same
I thought if I showed you I could fly
Wouldn’t need anyone by my side
I'm running backwards
With broken wings I know I’ll die”

Sully Erna (1968) American musician

Search, Change, Flying

“Do you fall in love often?"

Yes often. With a view, with a book, with a dog, a cat, with numbers, with friends, with complete strangers, with nothing at all.”

Jeanette Winterson book Gut Symmetries

Source: Gut Symmetries

Love, Books, Dogs, Cats

“For the sake of one soul. For one loved one. For one life." I called power into my blasting rod, and its tip glowed incandescent white. "The way I see it, there's nothing else worth fighting a war for.”

Jim Butcher book Grave Peril

Source: Grave Peril

Love, Life, War, Way

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening

“Most reckless things are beautiful in some way, and recklessness is what makes experimental art beautiful, just as religions are beautiful because of the strong possibilities that they are founded on nothing.”

John Ashbery (1927–2017) poet from the United States

Religion, Beauty, Art, Way

“The best thing about the bedroom was the bed. I liked to stay in bed for hours, even during the day with covers pulled up to my chin. It was good in there, nothing ever occurred in there, no people, nothing.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“Friends, there is nothing like your own family to make you appreciate strangers!”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

“Theres nothing sexy about skin and Bone, Urgh, you gotta have some junk in the trunk”

Amy Lee (1981) American singer-songwriter and pianist

“A mouse slid out from under his hat and scrambled down his sleeve, across his lap, and down to the floor.
Nothing,' said Fenworth, 'should distract from a wizard's dignity.”

Donita K. Paul (1950) American writer

Source: DragonQuest

“Nothing is ever quite right, is it, after a parent dies? No matter how well things go, something always feels slightly off…”

Jenna Blum book Het familieportret

Source: Those Who Save Us

Feeling, Parent

“You're still alive. And that means you'll love and be loved… and in the end, nothing else really matters.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Best of Me

Source: The Best of Me

“Great restaurants are, of course, nothing but mouth-brothels. There is no point in going to them if one intends to keep one's belt buckled.”

Frederic Raphael (1931) British writer

“Cold and silence. Nothing quieter than snow. The sky screams to deliver it, a hundred banshees flying on the edge of
the blizzard. But once the snow covers the ground, it hushes as still as my heart.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Silence, Heart, Flying

“I said nothing for a time, just ran my fingertips along the edge of the human-shaped emptiness that had been left inside me.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

“Greg made us see, after an enormous amount of effort, that if a (sane) guy really likes you, there ain’t nothing that’s going to get in his way. And if he’s not sane, why would you want him?”

Liz Tuccillo book He's Just Not That into You

Source: He's Just Not That Into You

Way, Guy, Effort

“Jordan followed, buttoning his jeans and muttering about how there was nothing strange about having a pattern of dancing penguins on your underwear.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“A piece of writing is like a piece of magic. You create something out of nothing.”

Susanna Clarke (1959) British author

“What were you two talking about?" she whispered as Wes pulls the door shut.
Nothing," I said. "Running."
You should have seen your face," she said, her breath hot in my ear. "Sa-woooon.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

“To deal with things knowledge of things is needed. To deal with
people, you need insight, sympathy. To deal with yourself, you need
nothing. Be what you are--conscious being--and don't stray away from
yourself.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Source: I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

People, Knowledge

“Nothing brings people together more than mutual hatred.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

“Being or nothing, that is the question. Ascending, descending, coming, going, a man does so much that in the end he disappears.”

Raymond Queneau book Zazie in the Metro

Source: Zazie in the Metro

“An open sack hides nothing, And an open door hides little, but an open man is surely hiding something.
lini is quoted by Nynaeve.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

“Except. What is normal at any given time? We change just as the seasons change, and each spring brings new growth. So nothing is ever quite the same.”

Sherwood Smith book Crown Duel

Source: Crown Duel

Spring, Change, Time, Season

“Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.”

Walt Whitman Starting from Paumanok

Starting from Paumanok. 12
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“I don’t know nothing about birthing puppies, Miss Scarlett, but I can cleave the head off a Daimon without breaking a sweat. (Valerius)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Bad Moon Rising

“Are we fallen angels who didn't want to believe that nothing is nothing and so were born to lose our loved ones and dear friends one by one and finally our own life, to see it proved?”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

Love, Life, Angels

“Euripedes. Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everything.”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

Source: A Wrinkle in Time

“Joy to hearts which have suffered long is like the dew on the ground after a long drought; both the heart and the ground absorb that beneficent moisture falling on them, and nothing is outwardly apparant.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Suffering, Heart, Joy

“There was something so primal and hungry about the way he stared down at her.. the way their bodies unconsciously strained toward one another as if nothing - not even time, not distance, not even death- could ever keep them apart.”

Amanda Stevens (1977)

Source: The Restorer

Death, Way, Time

“The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

“Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness.”

Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything

Source: A Short History of Nearly Everything

“Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Source: Leaving Home‎ (1987), p. 20

“Nothing exists without its opposite.”

Chris Crutcher book Whale Talk

Source: Whale Talk

“If nothing matters, there's nothing to save.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

“Most problems look worse than they are. nothing is unfixable.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

“Nothing in Christianity is original.”

Dan Brown book The Da Vinci Code

Source: The Da Vinci Code

“Me with nothing left to lose, plotting my big revenge in the spotlight. Give me violent revenge fantasies as a coping mechanism.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

“Nothing's the same for anyone. That's why life's this Hell, if you do a thing you're damned, and if you don't you're damned….”

E.M. Forster book Maurice

Source: Maurice

“Holding a tear back makes them drain upward, higher and higher, until one day your head just explodes and you're left with a stub of a neck and nothing more.”

Alice Hoffman book Practical Magic

Source: Practical Magic

“Nothing can work damage to me except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me and never am a real sufferer except by my own fault.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

To My People (July 4, 1973)
Source: Assata: An Autobiography

Love, Support, Freedom, Fight

“You have ordinary moments and ordinary moments and more ordinary moments, and then, suddenly, there is something monumental right there. You have past and future colliding in the present, your own personal Big Bang, and nothing will ever be the same.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: Stay

Past, Future, Personality

“You, what are you? The brat of lucky parents who were related to a childless king. There is no such thing as royal blood. I believe we are what we make ourselves, and as such, you, Crown Princess, are nothing.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

Parent, Princess

“Just do something. You might make a mistake, then you can fix it. But if you do nothing, you can't fix anything. And your life might turn out full of regrets.”

Jenny Colgan (1972) British writer

Source: The Little Shop of Happy Ever After

“It was so much easier to be angry. Being angry made him feel strong, even though-- and this contradiction did nothing to diminish his anger-- he was angry only because his position was so weak.”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

Feeling, Strong, Anger

“In the end, we all lose it. Remember that. In the end, we own nothing.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: Miles to Go

“One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

War, Feeling, Peaceful

“An artist is like a woman who can do nothing but love, and who succumbs to every stray male jackass.”

Heinrich Böll book The Clown

Source: The Clown

“There's this saying: in an all-blue world, colour doesn't exist… If something seems strange, you question it; but if the outside world is too distant to use as a comparison then nothing seems strange.”

Alex Garland book The Beach

Source: The Beach

World, Question, Distant

“That's what living in their world is-a big lie. An illusion where everyone looks the other way and pretends that nothing unpleasant exists at all, no goblins of the dark, no ghosts of the soul.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Lie, World, Way, Soul

“She held up her calloused, grimy fingers. Leo couldn't help thinking there was nothing hotter than a girl who didn't mind getting her hands dirty. But of course, that was just a general comment. Didn't apply to Calypso. Obviously.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Girl, Thinking, Help

“nothing says 'I love you' like reducing yourself to a smoldering pile of ashes”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

“I see only reminders that nothing lasts forever, not even greatness.”
“Some things last.”
I faced him. “Really? And just what would that be?”
“The things that matter.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Kiss of Deception

Source: The Kiss of Deception

“Once you realise there's nothing to be afraid of when you die, there's nothing else to worry about.”

Michael Thomas Ford (1968) American writer

Source: Suicide Notes

“Nothing will stop you being creative more effectively as the fear of making a
mistake.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

“My own ambition, my deepest and truest ambition, is to find within myself someday, somehow, the ability to do likewise, to do NOTHING - and find it enough.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

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

Monique Wittig (1935–2003) French writer

“Life is a memory, and then it is nothing.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Crossing

Source: The Crossing

Life, Memory, Sad, Deep

“To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness. Beneath your world of skies and faces and buildings exists a rawer and older world, a place where surface planes disintegrate and sounds ribbon in shoals through the air.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

“Nothing more exhilarating… than saving yourself by the simple act of waking.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao