Nothing Quotes (page 248)
A Paradox, the doughnut hole. Empty space, once, but now they've learned to market even that. A minus quantity; nothing, rendered edible. I wondered if they might be used-metaphorically, of course-to demonstrate the existence of God. Does naming a sphere of nothingness transmute it into being?
Margaret Atwood
At last I understood that the way over, or through this dilemma, the unease at writing about 'petty personal problems' was to recognize that nothing is personal, in the sense that it is uniquely one's own. Writing about oneself, one is writing about others, since your problems, pains, pleasures, emotions—and your extraordinary and remarkable ideas—can't be yours alone. [...] Growing up is after all only the understanding that one's unique and incredible experience is what everyone shares.
Doris Lessing
It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical will live the relation to another as something alive.
Rainer Maria Rilke
An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut. He can say nothing to the purpose. Outside the Tao there is no ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else.
C. S. Lewis
Vaguely she knew herself that she was going to pieces in some way. Vaguely she knew she was out of connection: she had lost touch with the substantial and vital world. Only Clifford and his books, which did not exist... which had nothing in them. Void to void. Vaguely she knew. But it was like beating her head against a stone.
David Herbert Lawrence
It was the first time in a half century that they had been so close and had enough time to look at each other with some serenity and they had seen each other for what they were: two old people, ambushed by death, who had nothing in common except the mercy of an ephemeral past that was no longer theirs but belonged to two young people who had vanished and who could have been their grandchildren.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
It is this country that is dangerous, with her idealistic conception of legality. The social spirit of this people is wrapped up in scrupulous prejudices and that is fatal to our work.. You talk of England being our only refuge! So much the worse. What do we want with refuges ? Here you talk, print, plot, and do nothing.
Joseph Conrad