Nothing Else To Say Quotes & Sayings

If I have one vice and I can call it nothing else it is not able to say 'no'. — Abraham Lincoln

When they say the heart wants what it wants, they're talking about the poetic heart - the heart of love songs and soliloquies, the one that can break as if it were just-formed glass. They're not talking about the real heart, the one that only needs healthy foods and aerobic exercise. But the poetic heart is not to be trusted. It is fickle and will lead you astray. It will tell you that all you need is love and dreams. It will say nothing about food and water and shelter and money. It will tell you that this person, the one in front of you, the one who caught your eye for whatever reason, is the One. And he is. And she is. The One - for right now, until his heart or her heart decides on someone else or something else. The poetic heart is not to be trusted with long-term decision-making. — Nicola Yoon

Listen, Elena, after high school I left and I had a lot of
relationships and nothing seemed right to me. But I remembered
you often. You can say that we were kids back then and that that
was kids' stuff ... and maybe it was. But now, when I am not a child
anymore, there isn't a doubt in me that it simply has to be you or no
one else. I don't want you to be the one that got away, at least not
without a fight. — Danka V.

Do I believe a thing has limits!? Of course! Nothing exists that doesn't have limits. Existence means there's always something else, and so everything has limits. Why is it so hard to conceive that a thing is a thing, and that it isn't always being some other thing that's beyond it?"

At that moment I felt in my bones not that I was talking to a man, but to another universe. I tried one last time, from another angle, which I felt compelled to consider legitimate.

"Look, Caeiro... think about numbers... Where do they end? Take any number - say 34. Past it we have 35, 36, 37, 38 - there can be no end to it. There is no number so big that there is no number larger..."

"But that's just numbers," protested my master Caeiro.

And then, looking at me out of his formidable, childlike eyes:

"What is 34 in Reality, anyway? — Alvaro De Campos

One ought not to judge her: all children are Heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb high trees and say shocking things and leap so very high grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one. But, as in their reading and arithmetic and drawing, different children proceed at different speeds. (It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.) Some small ones are terrible and fey, Utterly Heartless. Some are dear and sweet and Hardly Heartless At All. September stood very generally in the middle on the day the Green Wind took her, Somewhat Heartless, and Somewhat Grown. — Catherynne M Valente

I never thought people actually woke up the way I did that morning. I always figured it was hyperbole and massive overcompensation to say that you woke up grinning, woke up in a state of contentment and excitement for the smallest things. Even while I was in love formerly, it seemed more like a comfortable thing rather than a giddy, overwhelming happiness. Realize, then, that I had never been joined in a mutual state of infatuation with someone else. My infatuations tended to be unrequited, accompanied by a sense of muted sadness. I sat up at 7:00a.m. without even waiting for the alarm, and kept still there, smiling, looking at nothing and going over yesterday's conversations, the fevered symphony of emotion ringing forever in my ears.
I fell back and actually laughed to myself, reaching for my glasses to slide them on as I stretched out my back comfortably in a lazy, half-waking state.
You are in love. — Vee Hoffman

'Perfection' to me is, I walk away from a situation and say, 'I did everything I could do right there. There was nothing more that I could do.' I was a hundred percent, like the meter was at the top. There was nothing else I could have done. You know? Like, I worked as hard as I possibly could have. That's perfection. — Drake

You're an asshole," she grumbles, lying down beside me, close enough to touch but we're not touching. She feels miles away right now, coldness settling in that space between us.
"Yeah, well, at least you know..."
"Yeah, and it's a pity, really, because I found myself starting to give a fuck about you."
She says nothing else.
I don't say anything, either.
We lay there in silence.
For once, I don't prefer it.
I want her to say something else, anything else, just to erase those words now assaulting my mind.
I found myself starting to give a fuck about you.
I don't like it, not at all, because as she says those words, I come to realize, in the moment, that feeling might be mutual. — J.M. Darhower

You may not be the first to say it, write it, create it, or believe it - but you saying it may be the first time someone finally hears. Yes, someone else can say it better, but that doesn't mean you can't say it too. Throw out your inhibitions and spin around in this crazy world of recycled ideas. There is nothing new to say. Say it anyway. — Emily P. Freeman

Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether, the trick they miss is that being called this thing, with the weight of tradition behind it, and with the association of the Royal family, does allow you to have conversations and to open doors, and wallets, for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow. — Andrew Motion

It is not so important that it should be correct - that can only come later - , but unless one's thinking is all-of-a-piece there is, properly speaking, no thinking at all. A person who simply makes a collection - however vast - of ideas, and does not perceive that they are at variance with one another, has actually no ideas of his own; and if one attempts to instruct him (which is to say, to alter him) one merely finds that one is adding to the junk-heap of assorted notions without having any other effect whatsoever. As Kierkegaard has said, 'Only the truth that edifies is truth for you.' (CUP, p. 226) Nothing that one can say to these collectors of ideas is truth for them. What is wanted is a man who will argue a single point, and go on arguing it until the matter is clear to him, because he sees that everything else depends upon it. With such a person communication (i.e., of truth that edifies) can take place. — Nanavira Thera

And the way I loved her was like nothing else. This, I decided, was the love all other loves were measured against. They say girls look to marry their fathers, but I decided after having Maxie that we all, every one of us, were looking to marry our mothers. Sitting on the sofa with her wrapped in a soft blanket in my arms, I'd think, 'This baby has it so good.'
It just seemed that the love I'd been searching and hoping for all my life was what Maxie already had right now: two big arms and a lap, a warm blanket, the background music of a heartbeat and a pair of lungs, food at a moment's notice, sleep at every urge, and a person totally obsessed with her, whose every moment - waking or otherwise - was totally devoted to her comfort and care. Was that so much to ask for? — Katherine Center

I suspect that both astronomers were, yet again, bending over backwards to be polite: theologians have nothing worthwhile to say about anything else; let's throw them a sop and let them worry away at a couple of questions that nobody can answer and maybe never will. — Richard Dawkins

Apropos of nothing at all except that it has been on my mind and I think I had better say it because it accounts for a good deal of my behaviour. There is a strong streak in me that wishes not to exist and really does not believe that I do, so that I tend to become unnerved when these curious ideas are proved to be not really true because someone (in this case you) has responded to something I have said or done just as if I were an actual person the same as you (especially) or anyone else. Some of it is, I guess, just the worst sorts of arrogance and irresponsibility , but not all of it, as I really don't think I exist a lot of the time, so I'm asking you to bear with it, me, whatever, for the sake of what? - friendship I suppose, which I want to be capable of, which is obviously not enough. More brains might help, but enough unseemly remarks for eight o'clock in the morning and the shivering in pyjama bottoms syndrome. — Edward Gorey

I never tried to ingratiate myself with great writers. When a great writer has nothing to say, he does something else, like chopping firewood. A great writer doesn't try to find something to write about, he only writes when he has to. I was no great writer. I've always had the need to unload my thoughts, and so had to live with a kind of mental incontinence, but I've never felt forced to write a novel. Nor, for that matter, have I ever chopped firewood. — Jostein Gaarder

I don't like to tell people what format they can get things in, or say, "I'm only going to release this on vinyl and nothing else. You have to come to my world." I don't like to say that to people either. But, I do think there's a loss of romance. — Jimmy Page

You never say what I wish you'd say, and you frequently say nothing at all when it's clear you should say something, so it's not entirely fantastical that you'd say a certain thing when you mean something else entirely." He opened his mouth, shut it, and considered the ground briefly before responding. "I remember studying Fleet Admiral Starcrest's Mathematical Probabilities Applied to Military Strategies as a young boy and finding that less confusing than what you just said." Now it was her turn for a stunned pause before answering. "Sicarius?" She laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. "Was that a joke?" "A statement of fact. — Lindsay Buroker

That law that created the native corporations was the idea of tanik American corporations to undermine tribal integrity." "What do you mean?" Bertie asks. "Everywhere else in the U.S., tribes have their own government, their own land, and their own money." "They have a monopoly on casinos, you mean," Bertie says cautiously. "Whatever it is. Our tribes in Alaska don't have nothing. It's the native corporations who have all the land and the money, and they're the ones making decisions." "But don't you think they're making decisions in the best interests of their shareholders, the native people?" "They're just making money for their shareholders like any other corporation," Mandy says. "And they hire taniks in Anchorage offices to carry out their business. They don't care about whether people up here are taking their dividends and drinking them away. I hate to say it, but I got to agree with Luther. It's a long, slow genocide, all done under the corporations' laws. — Elizaveta Ristrova

It isn't that I like it and I don't like it - that's too simple. Or, if you will, it isn't "both yes and no." It's "this but also that." I'd love to settle in on a strong feeling or reaction. But, having seen whatever I see, my mind keeps on going and I see something else. It's that I quickly see the limitations of whatever I say or whatever judgment I make about anything. There's a wonderful remark of Henry James: "Nothing is my last word on anything." There's always more to be said, more to be felt. — Susan Sontag

Every one of my novels could be entitled The Unbearable Lightness of Being or The Joke or Laughable Loves; the titles are interchangeable, they reflect the small number of themes that obsess me, define me, and unfortunately, restrict me. Beyond these themes, I have nothing else to say or write. — Milan Kundera

Nevertheless, this is where it begins. The first word appears only at a moment when nothing can be explained anymore, at some instant of experience that defies all sense. To be reduced to saying nothing. Or else, to say himself: this is what haunts me. And then to realize, almost in the same breath, that this is what he haunts. — Paul Auster

We deny more than we confess. We hide more than we reveal. We assume because it makes us feel exposed if we have to ask. It's easier to say "I feel nothing" than to admit "I feel something." It takes no courage to say, "I hate you" but it takes a great deal of moxie to declare its opposite. Masks are elaborate and everyone has one. It takes a while to get to know people. This doesn't make them special, it makes them like everyone else. Sometimes our hearts scream yes while our heads say run; and only one can be obeyed. — Donna Lynn Hope

I think Churchill is right, the only thing to be said for democracy is that there is nothing else that's any better, and therefore he used to say, Tyranny tempered by assassination, but lots of assassination. People say, If the Congress were more representative of the people it would be better. I say the Congress is too damn representative. It's just as stupid as the people are; just as uneducated, just as dumb, just as selfish. — Dean Acheson

I could think of nothing else to say to her. In fact I could never think of anything to say to her, and I sat thinking of past painful conversations between us: How are you, Jean Louise? Fine, thank you ma'am, how are you? Very well, thank you; what have you been doing with yourself? Nothin'. Don't you do anything? Nome. Certainly you have friends? Yessum. Well what do you all do? Nothin'. — Harper Lee

All my life, I ain't understand shit about what was going on. A thing just happen, then something else happen, then something else, an so on, and half the time nothing making any sense. But Dan say it is all part of a scheme of some sort, and the best way we can get along is figure out how we fit into the scheme, and then try to stick to our place. Somehow knowing this, things get a good bit clearer for me. — Winston Groom

Unfortunately, (the rumors) are going to be a part of it. But that's OK. I'm probably tested more than anybody else. I'm not hiding anything. That stuff didn't help me hit home runs. I don't care what people say, nothing is going to give you that gift of hitting a baseball. — Jason Giambi

Maybe Laura's real problem came in admitting this: there was nothing new under the sun. To write a story would be, somehow deep down, to embrace her limits, to admit that, indeed, she would someday die - if not of a worm or a ceiling, then of something else. The very nature of a story admitted this reality. To be a writer was to say, yes, I am just another Murasaki, and it is quite possible that no one will remember my name. — L.L. Barkat

I like to think that one day after I die, at least one small particle of me will float away to Neverland, and be apart of a flower or something like that. I like to think that nothing's final, and that everyone gets to be together even when it looks like they don't, that it all works out even when all the evidence seems to say something else ... — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Off with you" is a phrase used by people who lack the courtesy to say something more polite, such as "If there's nothing else you require, I must be going," or "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave, please," or even "Excuse me, but I believe you have mistaken my home for your own, and my valuable belongings for yours, and I must ask you to return the items in question to me, and leave my home, after untying me from this chair, as I am unable to do it myself, if it's not too much trouble. — Lemony Snicket

Wanting to kill myself is was an appropriate and reasonable response to a whole series of unfortunate events that had rendered life unlivable. Oh, yes, I know the shrinks would say that they could have helped, but that's half the trouble with this bloody country, isn't it? No one's willing to face their responsibilities. It's always someone else's fault. Boo hoo hoo. Well, I happen to be one of those rare individuals who believe that what went on with Mummy and Daddy had nothing to do with me screwing a fifteen-year-old. I happen to believe that I would have slept with her regardless of whether I'd been breast-fed or not, and it was time to face up to what I'd done. — Nick Hornby

We always underestimated our own participation in magic. That is, we thought of magic as something that existed with or without us. But that's not true. Things are not magical because they've been conjured for us by some outside force. They are magical because we create them, and then deem them so. Ryan and Avery will say the first moment they spoke, the first moment they danced, was magical. But they were the ones - no one else, nothing else - who gave it the magic. We know. We were there. Ryan opened himself to it. Avery opened himself to it. And the act of opening was all they needed. That is the magic. — David Levithan

People always say the greatest love story in the world is Romeo and Juliet. I don't know. At fourteen, at seventeen, I remember, it takes over your whole life." Alice was worked up now, her face flushed and alive, her hands cutting through the night-blooming air. "You think about nobody, nothing else, you don't eat or sleep, you just think about this ... it's overwhelming. I know, I remember. But is it love? Like how you have cheap brandy when you're young and you think it's marvelous, just so elegant, and you don't know, you don't know anything ... because, you've never tasted anything better. You're fourteen."
It was no time for lying. "I think it's love"
You do?"
I think maybe it's the only true love."
She was about to say something, and stopped herself. I'd surprised her, I suppose. "How sad if you're right," she said, closing her eyes for a moment. "Because we never end up with them. How sad and stupid if that's how it works. — Andrew Sean Greer

Victorian rigidities were such that ladies were not even allowed to blow out candles in mixed company, as that required them to pucker their lips suggestively. They could not say that they were going "to bed"
that planted too stimulating an image
but merely that they were "retiring." It became effectively impossible to discuss clothing in even a clinical sense without resort to euphemisms. Trousers became "nether integuments" or simply "inexpressibles" and underwear was "linen." Women could refer among themselves to petticoats or, in hushed tones, stockings, but could mention almost nothing else that brushed bare flesh. — Bill Bryson

I couldn't say the real reason for my call when he asked me, 'Anything else?' It was hard for me to end the call. There was nothing I could say to him directly, but there were tons of things I could say to him in my mind. I wanted to tell him how much I would like to talk with him. "Bye," was all I could say aloud. — D. Aswini

I believe in life. I believe it to be something that is eternal, powerful and spread throughout the universe -- something like gravity. There are many such energies. Once we are able to detect life it will boggle our minds for centuries to come. The shear magnitude will rapture many, and destroy others, but we're not there yet. We can say something is alive, or dead, but not if life is there or not. Perhaps because it is too quiet, maybe because it is so loud we can hear nothing else, but mainly -- I believe -- because we haven't bothered to listen yet. -- from the Black Dog — Glenn Hefley

The one object of fifty years of abstract art is to present art-as-art and as nothing else, to make it into the one thing it is only, separating and defining it more and more, making it purer and emptier, more absolute and more exclusive - non-objective, non-representational, non-figurative, non-imagist, non-expressionist, non-subjective. the only and one way to say what abstract art or art-as-art is, is to say what it is not. — Ad Reinhardt

I don't care what they say, we are only to love those who deserve our love and love them to the degree that they deserve it! You see, we are not God. Only God can love people undeserving without spoiling them. Us, on the other hand, can love someone so undeserving, and actually turn the person into someone so vile who is convinced that they were always entitled to every bit of it! Mamma mia! And what about giving? Yes, they all want us to give and expect nothing in return, they all have many scriptures to lay on our tables when it is they who are at the receiving end! But when the tables are turned and we are the ones at the receiving end, suddenly all the scriptures mean something else! And all the times they were on our end and we gave to them- suddenly are all forgotten! — C. JoyBell C.

Gansey took a drink of his healing tea. Maura's chin jutted as she observed the lump of it heading down his throat. His face remained precisely the same and he said absolutely nothing, but after a moment, he made a gentle fist of his hand and thumped his breastbone. "What did you say that was good for?" he asked politely. His voice was a little odd until he cleared his throat. "General wellness," Maura said. "Also, it's supposed to manage dreams." "My dreams?" he asked. Maura raised a very knowing eyebrow. "Who else's would you be managing?" "Mm." "Also, it helps with legal matters." Gansey had been swallowing as much of his fancy coffee as he could possibly manage without breathing, but he stopped and put the bottle on the table with a clink. "Do I need help with legal matters?" Maura shrugged. "Ask a psychic. — Maggie Stiefvater

I don't know what else to say."
"There is nothing else to say. A few minutes of words can't change years of absurdity. — Cameron Trost

Some foreigners with full bellies and nothing better to do engage in finger-pointing at us. First, China does not export revolution; second, it does not export famine and poverty; and third, it does not mess around with you. So what else is there to say? — Xi Jinping

You should do that sometime soon. Maybe you'll see what I see. Maybe you'll see what everyone else sees," he said quietly. "Because you're beautiful, Layla, and while I may say that one word to you a lot, I don't simply toss it around. And I've seen many, many beautiful things. People as beautiful as demons are atrocious. You, by far, shine brighter than any of them. It's more than what is on the outside. It comes from within you. I've seen a lot of things and nothing, nothing comes close to you." Oh gosh, as I lifted my gaze, I had my heart and all the stars in the sky in my eyes. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I despise this false lucidity that comes with age. The truth is that they are just like everyone else: nothing more than kids without a clue about what has happened to them, acting big and tough when in fact all they want is to burst into tears.
And yet there's nothing to understand. The problem is that children believe what adults say and, once they're adults themselves, they exact their revenge by deceiving their own children. 'Life has meaning and we grown-ups know what it is' is the universal lie that everyone is supposed to believe. Once you become an adult and you realize that's not true, it's too late. The mystery remains intact, but all your available energy has long been wasted on stupid things. All that's left is to anesthetize yourself by trying to hide the fact that you can't find any meaning in your life, and then, the better to convince yourself, you deceive your own children. — Muriel Barbery

Pulling my hand away, he rose, slanting his head to kiss me deeply as he pushed me onto my back, with his weight draped over me. "I've never had anything that was my own," he said against my mouth. "Nothing that was ever for just me and no one else. I've never been anyone's first." He kissed me and then lifted his head. I stared into his eyes. "I've never been anyone's only."
That made my heart ache for him as I raised my hand, pressing my palm against his cheek. "You're my first," I whispered. "You're ... you're my only."
His lips parted. "You can't say that and not mean it."
I held his gaze as my chest swelled. "I mean it."
He smoothed his thumb over my lip. "I really am a lucky son of a bitch. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

He didn't say a word and she didn't ask anything else, just ran her fingers through his hair until his breathing began to calm. Without letting go of her or even pulling away to face her he finally whispered against her ear, "Please don't leave me. I promise I'll try harder." Slowly he pulled away and their eyes met. "I'm nothing without you, Izzy. — Elizabeth Reyes

Life is a game in which the rules are constantly changing; nothing spoils a game more than those who take it seriously. Adultery? Phooey! You should never subjugate yourself to another nor seek the subjugation of someone else to yourself. If you follow that Crispian principle you will be able to say Phooey, too, instead of reaching for your gun when you fancy yourself betrayed. — Quentin Crisp

Then you and I should bid good-bye for a little while?"
I suppose so, sir."
And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach me; I'm not quite up to it."
They say, Farewell, or any other form they prefer."
Then say it."
Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present."
What must I say?"
The same, if you like, sir."
Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present; is that all?"
Yes."
It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly. I should like something else: a little addition to the rite. If one shook hands for instance; but no
that would not content me either. So you'll do nothing more than say Farwell, Jane?"
It is enough, sir; as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty word as in many."
Very likely; but it is blank and cool
'Farewell. — Charlotte Bronte

Most of the world is either asleep or dead. The religious people are, for the most part, asleep. The irreligious are dead. Those who are asleep are divided into two classes, like the Virgins in the parable, waiting for the Bridegroom's coming. The wise have oil in their lamps. That is to say they are detached from themselves and from the cares of the world, and they are full of charity. They are indeed waiting for the Bridegroom, and they desire nothing else but His coming, even though they may fall asleep while waiting for Him to appear. But the others are not only asleep: they are full of other dreams and other desires. Their lamps are empty because they have burned themselves out in the wisdom of the flesh and in their own vanity. When He comes, it is too late for them to buy oil. They light their lamps only after He has gone. So they fall asleep again, with useless lamps, and when they wake up they trim them to investigate, once again, the matters of a dying world. — Thomas Merton

I love my job. I love the pay!
~I love it more and more each day.
~I love my boss, he is the best!
~I love his boss and all the rest.

~I love my office and its location. I hate to have to go on vacation.
~I love my furniture, drab and grey, and piles of paper that grow each day!
~I think my job is swell, there's nothing else I love so well.
~I love to work among my peers, I love their leers, and jeers, and sneers.
~I love my computer and its software; I hug it often though it won't care.
~I love each program and every file, I'd love them more if they worked a while.

~I'm happy to be here. I am. I am.
~I'm the happiest slave of the Firm, I am.
~I love this work. I love these chores.
~I love the meetings with deadly bores.
~I love my job - I'll say it again - I even love those friendly men.
~Those friendly men who've come today, in clean white coats to take me away!!!!! — Dr. Seuss

When kids make gross face,
parents say, "One day
your face is going to stick like that."
I'm afraid that one day
my panic's going to stick
and it's going to be my entire life,
every second,
and there will be nothing else. — Samantha Schutz

I'd say art is with you. All around you. I'd say when there doesn't seem to be anyone else, there is art. I'd say you can love art how you wish to be loved. And I'd say art is a lifeline to the rest of us - we are out here. You are not alone. There is nothing about you that scares us. There is nothing unlovable about you, either. — Lidia Yuknavitch

Some days I'm sure I'll be unravelled,
That I'm just a piece of thread,
Woven from everything I've heard
And every book I've ever read.
That someone will find my ending
Or a spot where I've worn thin,
And they'll pull me right apart
Back to the place where I begin,
Until they've found that every fibre
Isn't one to call my own,
Its from the thoughts and works of others
Thats I've been so crudely sewn.
And there's nothing I can make
Or think or do or be or say,
That isn't someone else
Woven in just a different way.
Then once I come undone,
Once who I thought I was grows small,
What if I look at all that's left
And there is nothing there at all? — Emily Hanson

Sometimes I ain't sho who's got ere a right to say when a man is crazy and when he ain't. Sometimes I think it ain't none of us pure crazy and ain't none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It's like it ain't so much what a fellow does, but it's the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it. [ ... ] That's how I reckon a man is crazy. That's how he can't see eye to eye with other folks. And I reckon they ain't nothing else to do with him but what the most folks says is right. — William Faulkner

Impossible, I realize, to enter another's solitude. If it is true that we can ever come to know another human being, even to a small degree, it is only to the extent that he is willing to make himself known. A man will say: I am cold. Or else he will say nothing, and we will see him shivering. Either way, we will know that he is cold. But what of the man who says nothing and does not shiver? Where all is intractable, here all is hermetic and evasive, one can do no more than observe. But whether one can make sense of what he observes is another matter entirely — Paul Auster

I thought that, given the system of rewards central to our economic system, in which profit maximization is valued above all else and specifically above life, it is probably just as irresistible to the owners of capital (human or otherwise) to exploit workers (and the land): "Nothing personal," they say as they load their property onto the ship bound for the Middle Passage, "but a man's gotta turn a dime. — Derrick Jensen

Since every evil is found in sin, either as a consequence or as the sin itself, when we want to pray wholeheartedly to get rid of evil, we should say, think, or mean this little word - sin, nothing else. No other words are needed. On the other hand, if we pray intently to get anything good, we should cry out in word, thought, or longing nothing but this word - God, nothing else. No other words are needed; for God's very nature is goodness, and he's the source of everything good. Don't spend time wondering why I chose these two words over all of the others. I looked into it and found none better. If I had, or if God had taught me different ones, I would have chosen them over these, but I can think of no shorter words that so well represent everything good or everything evil. Follow my example. Don't analyze words at length because studying them isn't the same as doing the work of contemplative prayer. Only grace gives this gift. — Anonymous

All one wants to do is make a small, finished, polished, burnished, beautiful object ... I mean, that's all one wants to do. One has nothing to say about the world, or society, or morals or politics or anything else. One just wants to get the damn thing done, you know? Kafka had it right when he said that the artist is the man who has nothing to say. It's true. You get the thing done, but you don't actually have anything to communicate, apart from the object itself. — John Banville

She remained silent. There was nothing left to say. He'd said it all the night before. He had to end it. He could never leave his wife. And, in fact, she had known this. Although she loved him - and truly she did - he wasn't hers. He belonged to his wife. She'd earned him. It didn't matter that he was her first love or that she was his passion. It didn't matter that they had loved one another for more than half their lives. It didn't matter that he had married his wife on the rebound. It didn't matter that he didn't love the woman. It didn't even matter that they had turned into some soap-opera cliche. He was married to someone else and that meant that she was leftovers and destined to remain on the periphery in the shadow of another woman's marriage. But no more. She was well and truly sick of it. — Anna McPartlin

When the forces that seek to defy God whisper if in our ears - if God really loved me, I wouldn't feel like this ... If I really am beloved, then I should have everything I want ... if I really belong to God, things in my life wouldn't suck - to remember that God has named us and claimed us as God's own. When what seems to be depression or compulsive eating or narcissism or despair or discouragement or resentment or isolation takes over, try picturing it as a vulnerable and desperate force seeking to defy God's grace and mercy in your life. And then tell it to piss off and say defiantly to it, "I am baptized" or "I am God's," because nothing else gets to tell you who you are. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

I take none of that to heart. I don't feel like there's anything that I need to do for anybody else. I want to win bad enough for myself anyway, that nothing anybody can say can make me want to win any more. — Danica Patrick

Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit. It? I ask. Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It. But what do it look like? I ask. Don't look like nothing, she say. It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you cam feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found it. — Alice Walker

Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect. — Terry Pratchett

In my heart of hearts I knew I was wrong. The World Cup was about to begin in the United States. The planet was interested in nothing else. And in any case, whatever happened in Rwanda, it would always be the same old story of blacks beating up on each other. Even Africans would say, during half-time of every match, "They're embarrassing us, they should stop killing each other like that." Then they'll go on to something else. [9-10] — Boubacar Boris Diop

Vedanta is the teaching of the Upanishads, a collection of dialogues, stories, and poems, some of which go back to at least 800 B.C. Sophisticated Hindus do not think of God as a special and separate super-person who rules the world from above, like a monarch. Their God is "underneath" rather than "above" everything, and he (or it) plays the world from inside. One might say that if religion is the opium of the people, the Hindus have the inside dope. What is more, no Hindu can realize that he is God in disguise without seeing at the same time that this is true of everyone and everything else. In the Vedanta philosophy, nothing exists except God. There seem to be other things than God, but only because he is dreaming them up and making them his disguises to play hide-and-seek with himself. — Alan W. Watts

They say that faith can move mountains, so can bulldozers, so can nuclear weapons. I'm not really sure if that's what faith is intended for. I guess if there is a mountain that has to be moved, and you've got nothing else to do it with, you could probably do it with faith. — Frederick Lenz

What seems wrong to you is right for him
What is poison to one is honey to someone else.
Purity and impurity, sloth and diligence in worship,
These mean nothing to Me.
I am apart from all that.
Ways of worshipping are not to be ranked as better
or worse than one another.
Hindus do Hindu things.
The Dravidian Muslims in India do what they do.
It's all praise, and it's all right.
It's not I that's glorified in acts of worship.
It's the worshippers! I don't hear
the words they say. I look inside at the humility.
That broken-open lowliness is the Reality,
not the language! Forget phraseology.
I want burning, burning.
Be Friends
with your burning. Burn up your thinking
and your forms of expression! — Karen Armstrong

By the time we got to MGM, and Lions Gate the movie was done there was nothing else to say. It was done. Just as at Universal, it was art by committee. — Rob Zombie

You know what, Abigail? You're right - it is selfish. But there's nothing inherently immature about making a selfish choice. It is hard to put what you know is right for you first, when you know people you love don't respect your choices. It is hard to say 'what I want is worthy.' It is hard to say 'I know myself and what I need, even if everyone else thinks otherwise.' Don't tell me this is immature when it took me months of thinking about it every damn day to make this choice. — Dahlia Adler

Whatever we say and mean by life is just a journey toward death. If you can understand that your whole life is just a journey and nothing else, then you are less interested in life and more interested in death. And once someone becomes more interested in death, he can go deep into the very depths of life; otherwise, he is just going to remain on the surface. — Rajneesh

Cameras are a lifesaver for very shy people who have nowhere else to hide. Behind a lens they can disguise the fact that they have nothing to say to strangers. — Pat Conroy

I had a goal, I had a dream ... and at the end of the day no matter what people say to you as long as YOU know who you are as a person NOTHING else in the world
matters. — Andy Biersack

This guy is pretty slick, Atticus. What else do you think he has in his pockets? Maybe a thick salami for me?> I almost dropped the goblets. Gods, Oberon, it's a good thing no one can hear you. It's not polite to ask if a man has a big salami in his pants, okay? Especially this guy. Laughter bubbled forth from Jesus as he poured two generous shots for us. "I like your hound, Siodhachan." He turned his head a bit to address him. "Hello, Oberon. I can hear what you say as well, and I tell you truly, I have nothing against salami itself. It is best to know when to keep your salami in your pants and when to pull it out, however, and even my priests have had some difficulty with that issue. Fortunately for us, there is little doubt regarding the right course of action in this situation." He pulled a long soppressata from the same pocket that had produced the goblets. — Kevin Hearne

Quality ... you know what it is, yet you don't know what it is. But that's self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There's nothing to talk about. But if you can't say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn't exist at all. But for all practical purposes it really does exist. What else are the grades based on? Why else would people pay fortunes for some things and throw others in the trash pile? Obviously some things are better than others ... but what's the betterness? ... So round and round you go, spinning mental wheels and nowhere finding anyplace to get traction. What the hell is Quality? What is it? — Robert M. Pirsig

I have lived a long life, and I am proud that I spend the whole of my life in the service of my people. I am only proud of this and nothing else. I shall continue to serve until my last breath, and when I die, I can say, that every drop of my blood will invigorate India and strengthen it. — Indira Gandhi

Back in those days I was stoned almost twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The difference today is that there is nothing you or anyone else could say to persuade me to inhale enough even to fill a flea's lung with cannabis. It's actually impossible to measure how fantastic I feel. — Chris Sullivan

Oxthorpe stood. He could do nothing else.
Her hands stilled, and her smile faded away. She stood and dropped into a curtsy. What did one say in such situations, when one knew a lady disapproved? "Miss Clay," he said.
"Duke." She'd given the field laborer a happier smile than she gave him. Most everyone else had stopped smiling, too. This was the effect he had on others. He was the Duke of Oxthorpe, and though he did his duty by his title and his estate, he was not beloved. He did not know how to be beloved the way Miss Clay was. — Carolyn Jewel

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

Having to talk to people was the one thing, but soliciting conversation was something else. If I acted squirmy or didn't make eye contact, they would want to know what was wrong, and I would have to say, Nothing, since nothing really was wrong. Nothing is an easy thing to feel but a difficult thing to express — Hilary Thayer Hamann

[I] don't like to think like everybody else, don't like to try to think like everybody else, don't like to do nothing everybody else think I'm gone do, don't like to say nothing everybody else think I'm gone say. I'm a Martian. I like to be different. And what's more different than a Martian. — Lil' Wayne

But say he forgets about me or meets someone else or pretends I don't exist.
I look at her and then at Trini and Raffy.
"Teresa, Teresa. Have we taught you nothing?" Raffy says in an irritated voice. "It's war. You go in and you hunt him down until he realises that he's made a mistake"
Teresa looks hopeful.
"It's not as if men haven't gone to war for dumber reasons" Trini adds. — Melina Marchetta

I jumped up and "casually" strolled a bit closer. I blinked my eyes in the sun. It couldn't be, could it? But it was.
Gabe.
...
"You know, if you're going to stalk someone, you should be less obvious."
I wheeled around. It was Todd. He'd snuck up on me.
He said, "For starters, try not to standing in the middle of a field, gawking at your prey."
I kicked at a dusty clump of grass. "Gawking? I ... I'm ... not gawking. I was just watching your girlfired putting the moves on someone else. Jealous?"
"Oh Gabe Webber?" Todd laughed. "Uh ... no."
I shielded my eyes from the sun. "Why? What's wrong with Gabe Webber?"
"Nothing. As in, there's nothing there. He has the personality of dry toast."
How dare he insult my Gabe? "Oh yes. I forgot. You prefer the company of assholes and jerks. As they say, 'Birds of a feather ... '"
"That must be why you hang around. — Kristin Walker

My main interest ... is the love of truth, whether pleasant or not. Truth is self-sufficient, and there is nothing to which it can be subordinated without loss. When truth is made subservient to anything else, however great (say religion), it becomes impure and sordid. — George Sarton

Lacking strength beauty hates the understanding for asking of her what it cannot do but the life of spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself. It is this power, not as something positive, which closes its eyes to the negative as when we say of something that it is nothing or is false, and then having done with it, turn away and pass on to something else; on the contrary, spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Musicians do not have to be believed in. We do not have to be trusted. Our Music speaks for itself without the listener having to know anything about us. Music touches people's emotions in a way that nothing else can. When people find a musician they like, they are usually fans for Life. If they like the musician and his Music, they will open up their hearts to whatever that musician has to say. It matters not what country the musician or the fan comes from. Music is a language that all understand. It goes beyond and breaks down barriers. This makes the musician very powerful, and with power comes responsibility. — Victor L. Wooten

Fancy finding you here," he said jauntily.
Nothing about it was fanciful, and she suspected he might have followed her. Why else would he be there?
"You've taken up knitting, have you?" she countered as she walked to the yarn section of the shop.
"No,I've taken up finding you alone. Nice of you to accommodate me."
His answer pleased her more than she could say, but she warned him, "I'm not alone."
"For the moment you are. — Johanna Lindsey

Marriage is a pretty amazing thing when you think about it. For two people to live together for so long under the same roof is a big accomplishment. Fifty-year anniversaries are becoming extinct, yet again proving that long marriages deserve awards and praise. Sometimes I see old people in restaurants sitting together eating their meals and I watch them. Sometimes it makes me sad. They don't even talk. Is it because they have nothing else to say, or can they simply read each other's mind by now? — Jenny McCarthy

How could something so seemingly insignificant give someone comfort? A ribbon in a gutter. A pinecone on the street. A button leaning casually against a classroom wall. A flat stone from the river. If nothing else, it showed that she cared, and it might give them something to talk about when Max woke up. When she was alone, she would conduct those conversations.
'So what's all this?' Max would say. 'What's all this junk?'
'Junk?' In her mind,she was sitting on the side of the bed. 'This isn't junk, Max. These are what made you wake up. — Markus Zusak

I admire someone who in the literal sense can say, 'If it is broken, I can fix it. If it's lost I can find it. IF you fall, I can catch you.' because if you can say it in the literal sense, you can mean it in the figurative sense. The littlest things can change the world. A smile can save someone's life, and a hand freely given when you have nothing to give other than yourself, can mean the world to someone else — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

Animals are nothing else than the figures of our virtues and
our vices, straying before our eyes, the visible phantoms of our
souls. God shows them to us in order to induce us to reflect.
Only since animals are mere shadows, God has not made them
capable of education in the full sense of the word; what is the
use? On the contrary, our souls being realities and having a
210
goal which is appropriate to them, God has bestowed on them
intelligence; that is to say, the possibility of education. Social
education, when well done, can always draw from a soul, of
whatever sort it may be, the utility which it contains. — Victor Hugo

It was not only for Americans that he was concerned, or primarily the older generation of any land. The thought that disturbed him the most, and that made the prospect of war much more fearful than it would otherwise have been, was the specter of the death of the children of this country and all the world - the young people who had no role, who had no say, who knew nothing even of the confrontation, but whose lives would be snuffed out like everyone else's. They would never have a chance to make a decision, to vote in an election, to run for office, to lead a revolution, to determine their own destinies. Our generation had. But the great tragedy was that, if we erred, we erred not only for ourselves, our futures, our hopes, and our country, but for the lives, futures, hopes, and countries of those who had never been given an opportunity to play a role, to vote aye or nay, to make themselves felt. — Robert F. Kennedy

I stared blankly at Rhys for what felt like about three days.
"Me?" I finally sputtered.
He nodded.
"You're kidding, right?"
"Not kidding."
I laughed then, and it sounded slightly hysterical. "I'm not
going to marry you."
"I'm not asking you to."
"Good."
He eyed me. "And you can wipe that horrified look off your
face because it's obviously not true."
"Do I look horrified?"
"Yes, you do."
I grimaced. "Nothing personal, Rhys, but - "
He held up a hand. "Say nothing else. I shouldn't have even
mentioned it to you. I'll find another dragon to help me."
"Second opinions are really important," I said.
He just glowered at that.
We rode the rest of the way back to Erin Heights in silence.
Now I had even more information crowding my already full brain.
Maybe that Irena chick should go see a shrink, herself. She was
one crazy dragon lady. — Michelle Rowen

Termite, you're young, and I'm not sure if you're going to understand what I'm about to say, but here's the nugget: Without the heart, nothing else matters. She could be the Goddess of Love, you could have all the mind-blowing sex you could physically handle, but when the shooting is over, and you're starting to think about getting a bite to eat, smoking a cigarette, or what you do with her now, you're just lying in bed with a woman who means little more to you than the remote control for your TV. Love is not tool; neither is a woman's heart. What I'm talking about, you won't find in that magazine."
"How would you know? You just said you've only loved one woman. I think you need to test-drive a few cars before you buy one."
"You can buy that lie if you want, but if you're working for a bank, you don't study the counterfeit to know the real thing. You study the real thing to know the counterfeit."
Reese talking to Termite, pg. 109-110 — Charles Martin

Conservatives and those on the right are usually willing to settle for thinking themselves correct on political issues; those on the left have always needed to feel not so much that they are correct but that they are also good. Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, sentimental, foolish, a dope; disagree with someone one the left and he is more likely to think you selfish, cold-hearted, a sellout, evil-in league with the devil, he might say, if he didn't think religious terminology too coarse for our secular age. To this day one will hear of people who fell for Communism in a big way let off the hook because they were sincere; if one's heart is in the right place, nothing else matters, even if one's naive opinions made it easier for tyrants to murder millions. — Joseph Epstein

In reality that which draws is a single thing, but it appears to be many. We are possessed by a hundred different desires. "I want vermicelli," we say. "I want ravioli. I want halvah. I want fritters. I want fruit. I want dates." We name these one by one, but the root of the matter is a single thing: the root is hunger. Don't you see how, once we have our fill of but one thing, we say, "Nothing else is necessary?" Therefore, it was not ten or a hundred things, but one thing that drew us. The many things of this world are a trial appointed by God, for they hide the single reality. — Rumi

Patch? Whatever happens, I love you. I wanted to say more, those three words painfully inadequate for the way I felt about him. And at the same time, so simple and accurate, nothing else would do. — Becca Fitzpatrick

I look up at the sky, wondering if I'll catch a glimpse of kindness there, but I don't. All I see are indifferent summer clouds drifting over the Pacific. And they have nothing to say to me. Clouds are always taciturn. I probably shouldn't be looking up at them. What I should be looking at is inside of me. Like staring down into a deep well. Can I see kindness there? No, all I see is my own nature. My own individual, stubborn, uncooperative often self-centered nature that still doubts itself
that, when troubles occur, tries to find something funny, or something nearly funny, about the situation. I've carried this character around like an old suitcase, down a long, dusty path. I'm not carrying it because I like it. The contents are too heavy, and it looks crummy, fraying in spots. I've carried it with me because there was nothing else I was supposed to carry. Still, I guess I have grown attached to it. As you might expect. — Haruki Murakami

Nothing I did contributed to me having cancer, so I can't sit back and say, 'Oh why me.' Why not me? Why does tragedy always have to hit someone else? — Eric Davis

I hate having to repeat myself, but sometimes there is really nothing else to say — Dmitry Dyatlov

It's like if someone had a loaded gun in your face. I don't know how else to describe how it felt to try to talk to my father. Even on a good day. If someone always has a loaded gun in your face, you weigh every word before you say it. You only dare say it if it might save you. But you're never sure, so there's this tendency to freeze. Say nothing at all. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

Words fail.... As a grudging admission, after much denial, that even as we try to preserve and create, through, with, in language, whatever is beautiful or scandalous in our lives, language fails because it falsifies. Like money, it corrupts the very possibilities it creates. Words after all the first currency. ... In trying to say what we mean, we end up saying something else. ... And yet, we have nothing else but words. — Ramon C. Sunico

No one can say with finality that God is only 'this' and nothing else. He is formless, and again He has forms. For the bhakta He assumes forms. But He is formless for the jnani, that is, for him who looks on the world as a mere dream. The bhakta feels that he is one entity and the world another. Therefore God, reveals Himself to him as a Person. But the jnani - the Vedantist, for instance - always reasons, applying the process of 'Not this, not this'. Through this discrimination he realizes, by his inner perception, that the ego and the universe are both illusory, like a dream. Then the jnani realizes Brahman in his own consciousness. He cannot describe what Brahman is. — Ramakrishna