“It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it.”

“If you want something to be true badly enough, you can rewrite it that way, in your head. You can even start to believe it.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

“It's easy to say you will do what's right and shun what's wrong, but when you get close enough to any given situation, you realize that thereno black or white. There are gradations of gray.”

Jodi Picoult book The Storyteller

“what's right? If you want something, you have the right to take it. If you want to do something, you have the right to do it.”

Bret Easton Ellis (1964) American novelist

“You can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

“If you have a past with which you feel dissatisfied, then forget it, now. Imagine a new story for your life and believe in it. Focus only on the moments when you achieved what you desired, and that strength will help you to get what you want.”

Paulo Coelho book The Fifth Mountain

“[Thelma] "…You make your own punishments in life, I honest to God believe that. You get exactly what you deserve. God sees to it."”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

“Gays and lesbians, when you fight against discrimination and a cure for AIDS, you are right - but your patch is not big enough. Conservatives and progressives, when you fight for what you believe, right wing, left wing, hawk, dove, you are right from your point of view, but your point of view is not enough.”

Jesse Jackson (1941) African-American civil rights activist and politician

“Mental sickness has set up a system by which it never loses. No matter what you do and no matter what the results are, you will win an ego-victory. That means that when you send your desires out into the world: 1. You will get what you want, or 2. You won't get what you want. Of you get what you want, the pseudo-nature says, "I have at last been given what I so richly deserve," and the sickness feels affirmed. If you don't get what you want, you feel sorry for yourself. You still feel affirmed because you get a feeling, and that's all that neurosis wants is a feeling.”

Vernon Howard (1918–1992) American writer

“Whether you deserve something was never in question. You deserve it all. That is given in your very existence. The universe wants you to succeed and wants you to experience abundance, freedom and joy. It is simply not the kind of universe that treats you as if you are incapable of creating those things yourself. And this means that it loves you more than you want it to sometimes!”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher