The problem is, he thinks there’s nothing he can do about it. The lads and the people in this town have been living in the same day their whole lives … That’s why nothing ever changes. TwentyFourSeven 1997 starring Bob Hoskins & Danny Nussbaum & Justin Brady & James Hooton & Darren O Campbell & Karl Collins & Johann Myers & Jimmy Hynd & Mat Hand & James Corden & Frank Harper et al, director Shane Meadows
Don’t you believe it. It’s exhausting doing nothing. Buffet Froid 1979 starring Gerard Depardieu & Bernard Blier & Jean Carmet & Liliane Rovere & Carole Bouquet & Denise Gence & Marco Perrin & Jean Benguigui & Jean Rougerie & Bernard Crombey et al, director Bertrand Blier, Alphonse to bloke on tube platform
If you leave, you get nothing. Do you understand me? Nothing. Breaking Bad s5e7: Say My Name, Walter to Jesse, AMC 2012
Matt in Pub: So tell me, what was life like in Britain under the EEC?
Couple: … Nothing to do. Absolutely nothing. Matt Berry, Road to Brexit, BBC 2020
Nothing to live for. Gone with the Wind 1939 starring Clark Gable & Vivien Leigh & Leslie Howard & Olivia de Haviland & Thomas Mitchell & Barbara Mitchell & Evelyn Keyes & Ann Rutherford & George Reeves & Fred Crane & Hattie McDaniel & Alicia Rhett et al, director Victor Fleming, Scarlett
I buried my head under the darkness of the pillow and pretended it was night. I couldn’t see the point of getting up. I had nothing to look forward to. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Each day I go into the fields to see what is growing
and what remains to be done.
It is always the same thing: nothing. W D Ehrhart, The Farmer
A person who had no-one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and shield it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart. Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Well it’s Day Day 920 of Build Back Better.
Nothing is built.
Nothing is back.
Nothing is better. Ragged Trousered Philanderer, tweet 25th September 2002
No, you lost your chance, me old son. You contributed absolutely nothing to this life. A waste of time you being here at all. No plaque for you in Westminster Abbey. The best you can expect is a few daffodils in a jam-jar. A rough-hewn stone bearing the legend, He came and he went, and in between nothing. Tony Hancock, Hancock’s Half Hour
Solzhenitsyn: he was secretly writing a novel … Faced by the failure of the revolutionary dream, it was now difficult to believe in anything. That maybe ideology itself was the problem … But in every case, he said, thousands and often millions were killed. Solzhenitsyn’s book contained a damning conclusion … The only way to escape from that horror was to stop trying to change the world. Instead the safest thing to believe in the future was to believe in nothing. Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head III: Money Changes Everything, BBC 2021
Everything science has taught me strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. I believe in an immortal soul. Science has proved that nothing disintegrates into nothingness. Life and soul, therefore, cannot disintegrate into nothingness, and so are immortal. Wernher von Braun
Try to think of a true nothing. An absolute nothing. The Entire History of the Universe e11: Was the Universe Born from Nothing?
So what came before? … Our universe was born from ‘nothing’ … How does one get something from nothing? ibid.
Where did the universe come from? ibid.
Even empty space jiggles a residual energy in the vacuum that is always there. Known as the Quantum Vacuum, this fills the entire universe as virtual particles flicker in and out of existence. So in the quantum world empty space is not really empty. ibid.
Estragon: Nothing to be done.
Vladimir: I’m beginning to come around to that opinion. Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot
May one enquire where His Highness spent the night? ibid. Vladimir
Suppose we repented? ibid.
People are bloody ignorant apes. ibid. Estragon
Estragon: Let’s go.
Vladimir: We can’t.
Estragon: Why not?
Vladimir: We’re waiting for Godot. ibid.
What about hanging ourselves? ibid. Estragon
We’ve no rights any more? ibid.
Do you want a carrot? ibid. Vladimir
Estragon: No use struggling.
Vladimir: One is what one is. ibid.
You’re not Mr Godot, sir? ibid. Estragon to Pozzo
Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful. ibid.
Given the existence as uttered forth in the personal works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames ... is established beyond all doubt ... that man ... wastes and pines ... for reasons unknown. ibid. Lucky
Estragon: Well shall we go?
Vladimir: Yes, let’s go [They do not move]. ibid.