Quotes from Nothing

“From the moment we are born, we begin to die.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“Everything begins only to end. The moment you were born you began to die. That's how it is with everything.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“And although we'd sworn we'd never become like them, that was exactly what was happening. We weren't even fifteen yet.
Thirteen, fourteen, adult, dead.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“How come everyone's making like everthing that isn't important is very important, all the while they're so busy pretending what's really important isn't important at all?”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“Meaning is not something you can sell”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“Even if you learn something and think you're good at it, there'll always be someone who's better.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“You go to school to get a job, and you get a job to take time off to do nothing. Why not do nothing to begin with?”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“We cried because we had lost something and gained something else. And because it hurt both losing and gaining. And because we knew what we had lost but weren't as yet able to put into words what it was we had gained.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“Si valiera la pena enfadarse por algo, también existiría algo por lo que alegrarse. Si mereciera la pena alegrarse por algo, existiría algo que importara”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“...suddenly I got shivers down my spine thinking about how many different people one and the same person can be.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“Todo da igual. Porque todo empieza sólo para acabar. En el mismo instante en que nacéis empezáis ya a morir. Y así ocurre con todo.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“¿Por qué finge todo el mundo que todo lo que no es importante lo es y mucho, y al mismo tiempo todos se afanan terriblemente en fingir que lo realmente importante no lo es en absoluto?”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“Nada importa. Hace mucho que lo sé.
Así que no merece la pena hacer nada. Eso acabo de descubrirlo.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“Si vivís hasta los ochenta, habréis dormido treinta años, ido a la escuela y hecho deberes cerca de nueve años y trabajado casi catorce años. Como ya habéis empleado más de seis años en ser niños y jugar, y después gastaréis, como mínimo, doce años en limpiar, hacer la comida y cuidar a los hijos, os quedarán como máximo nueve años para vivir. Y todavía osaréis emplear esos nueve años en fingir que tenéis éxito actuando en este teatro sin sentido, cuando en lugar de ello podríais disfrutar de esos años inmediatamente.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“We were supposed to amount to something. Something was the same as someone, and even if nobody ever said so out loud, it was hardly left unspoken, either. It was just in the air, or in the time, or in fence surrounding the school, or in our pillows, or in the soft toys that after having served us so loyally had now been unjustly discarded and left to gather dust in attics or basements. I hadn't known.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“The door smiled. It was the first time I'd seen it do that. Pierre Anthon left the door ajar like a grinning abyss that would swallow me up into the outside with him if only I let myself go. Smiling at whom? At me, at us. I looked around the class. The uncomfortable silence told me the others had felt it too.

We were supposed to amount to something.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“How come you girls want to be dating?.. First you fall in love, then you start dating, then you fall out of love, and then you split up again.
Pierre Anthon - to the author and Ursula-Marie”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“...we knew that everything was more about how it appeared than how it was. The most important thing, in any circumstance, was to amount to something that really looked like it was something.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“El significado es relativo y por tanto vacío de significado.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“- Nada importa. Hace mucho que lo sé. Así que no merece la pena hacer nada. Eso acabo de descubrirlo.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“To be sure, there were still a lot of people against us, but the very intensity of the fight over the meaning of the heap of meaning could only indicate that the matter was of the greatest significance. And significance was the same as meaning, and the greatest significance was therefore the same as the greatest meaning.

And I only doubted a tiny little bit.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“Each day was like the next. And even though we looked forward all week to the weekend, the weekend was always still a disappointment, and then it was Monday again and everything started over, and that was how life was, and there was nothing else. We began to understand what Pierre Anthon meant. We began to understand why grown-ups looked the way they did. And although we'd sworn we'd never become like them, that was exactly what was happening. We weren't even fifteen yet. Thirteen, fourteen, adult. Dead.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“Todo consistía más en cómo lucían las cosas que en cómo eran. Sea como fuere, lo más importante era convertirse en algo que tuviera apariencia de algo.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“Without knowing exactly what, I knew that the fire was something that had to do with the meaning. I decided I wasn't going to forget it, no matter what happened. No matter that the fire wasn't something that could be added to the heap, or that I was ever going to be able to explain in any way to Pierre Anthon.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“Spring was nothing but a reminder to us that we, too, would soon be gone”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“He must have gotten all that knowledge from the newspapers. I don't see the point, collecting all that knowledge others have already discovered.”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

“-Aunque aprendáis algo que os haga creer que sabéis algo, siempre habrá alguien que sabrá más de ese tema que vosotros”
― Janne Teller, quote from Nothing

About the author

Popular quotes

“We spread the Gospel by the proclamation of the Word of God (see Rom. 10:17). But God has told us that we should restrain evil by the power of the sword and by the power of civil government (as in the teaching of Romans 13:1–6, quoted above, p. 37). If the power of government (such as a policeman) is not present in an emergency, when great harm is being done to another person, then my love for the victim should lead me to use physical force to prevent any further harm from occurring. If I found a criminal attacking my wife or children, I would use all my physical strength and all the physical force at my disposal against him, not to persuade him to trust in Christ as his Savior, but to immediately stop him from harming my wife and children! I would follow the command of Nehemiah, who told the men of Israel, “Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes” (Neh. 4:14; see also Genesis 14:14–16, where Abraham rescued his kinsman Lot who had been taken captive by a raiding army). Boyd has wrongly taken one of the ways that God restrains evil in this world (changing hearts through the Gospel of Christ) and decided that it is the only way that God restrains evil (thus neglecting the valuable role of civil government). Both means are from God, both are good, and both should be used by Christians. This is why Boyd misunderstands Jesus’ statement, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matt. 5:39). When this verse is rightly understood (see below, p. 82), we see that Jesus is telling individuals not to take revenge for a personal insult or a humiliating slap on the cheek.51 But this command for individual kindness is not the same as the instructions that the Bible gives to governments, who are to “bear the sword” and be a “terror” to bad conduct and are to carry out “God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom. 13:3–4). The verses must be understood rightly in their own contexts. One is talking about individual conduct and personal revenge. The other is talking about the responsibilities of government. We should not confuse the two passages.”
― Wayne A. Grudem, quote from Politics - According to the Bible: A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture

“Think about it: Why should we care whether what makes us happy is just an electrical impulse in our brain or something funny that we see some fool do on TV? Does it matter what makes you smile? Wouldn't you rather be happy for no reason than unhappy for good reasons?”
― Terry Trueman, quote from Stuck in Neutral

“Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”
― Max Ehrmann, quote from Desiderata: Words For Life

“Trains in these parts went from East to West, and from West to East . . .
On either side of the railway lines lay the great wide spaces of the desert - Sary-Ozeki, the Middle lands of the yellow steppes.
In these parts any distance was measured in relation to the railway, as if from the Greenwich meridian . . .
And the trains went from East to West, and from West to East . . .”
― Chingiz Aitmatov, quote from The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years

“Life for me had already lost much of its pulp; the edges were collapsing into the center, and in that gap was the sympathy Peter had sought all his life and never got from anyone. Or perhaps "sympathy" was the wrong word; what he was telling me was more confirmation of what I already understood in biblical terms: the bad Peter, under the influence of the Devil, did horrible things. His honesty was evidence that the good Peter was finally triumphing over the bad one, because to me, that was the whole point of confession -- to figure out where you've gone wrong and to stop sinning.”
― Margaux Fragoso, quote from Tiger, Tiger: A Memoir

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.