Quotes about need
page 17

“The true story is vicious and multiple and untrue after all. Why do you need it? Don’t ever ask for the true story.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Ice

“How can you possibly believe he really loves you?” Miss Sneezy looks from the Mother to the Saint to Mr. Whittier’s hand.“You have no choice,” Mr. Whittier tells her. “If you need to be loved.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

Love

“A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

“The weak are cruel. The strong have no need to be.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: The Foretelling

Strong

“It is not learning we need at all. Individuals need learning but the culture needs something else, the pulse of light on the sea, the warm urge of huddling together to keep out the cold. We need empathy, we need the eyes that still can weep.”

Lydia Millet (1968) American writer

Source: Oh Pure and Radiant Heart

Light, Learning, Sea

“You know how I get angry sometimes? That's because it's the only way I can still feel. And I need to test myself, to make sure I'm really here.”

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home

Source: Sing You Home

Way, Feeling

“Everything is to protect you. I exist in case you need to be protected.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated (2002)
Context: "You do not have to present not-truths to me, Sasha. I am not a child."(But I do. That is what you always fail to understand. I present not-truths in order to protect you. That is also why I try so inflexibly to be a funny person. Everything is to protect you. I exist in case you need to be protected.)

“What you forget when you're planning a hijack by yourself is somewhere along the line, you might need to neglect your hostages just long enough so you can use the bathroom.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Source: Survivor

Forgetting

“Be content with what you have and take joy in the way things are. When you realize you have all you need, the World belongs to you.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

World, Way, Joy

“We need myths to get by. We need story; otherwise the tremendous randomness of experience overwhelms us. Story is what penetrates.”

Robert Coover (1932) writer, teacher

“Sometimes I need what only you can provide: your absence.”

Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist

“No matter how quiet and conformist a person’s life seems, there’s always a time in the past when they reached an impasse. A time when they went a little crazy. I guess people need that sort of stage in their lives.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Life, People, Time, Past

“We are often unable to tell people what they need to know because they want to know something else.”

George MacDonald book Lilith

Source: Lilith (1895), Chapter 9

People

“I need to admit up front that I don't know how to have a fling. I'm not good at playing around and then saying good-bye. I'm throwing myself at your feet because I'm hoping for a shot at forever." Henry Jenkins/Mr. Nobley”

Shannon Hale book Austenland

Source: Austenland

Hope

“Can I hold your hand?" he asked.
I put mine in his.
"The universe is seeming really huge right now," he told me. "I need something to hold on to."
"I'm here.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Universe

“What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,
The labor of an age in pilèd stones,
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

On Shakespeare (1630)
Source: The Complete Poetry

Age, Star, Memory

“All truths wait in all things,
They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,
The insignificant is as big to me as any,
(What is less or more than a touch)…”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Truth, Waiting

“The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Time

“When I need to identify rebels, I look for men with principles”

Frank Herbert book God Emperor of Dune

Source: God Emperor of Dune

Men

“Sometimes what makes us insecure and vulnerable becomes the fuel we need to be overachievers. The antidote for a snakebite is made from the poison, and the thing that made you go backward is the same force that will push you forward.”

T.D. Jakes (1957) American bishop

Source: Reposition Yourself: Living Life Without Limits

“At times our need for a sympathetic gesture is so great that we care not what exactly it signifies or how much we may have to pay for it afterwards.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View

Time

“Where’s a friggin’ rocket when you need it? Ah, crap, Jaden, stop with the pollen. I hate that. Yeah, taste honey, you punk! (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Hate

“Change is in the air, as old patterns fall away and new energies are emerging. Consciously release what needs to be released, and welcome with a full embrace the newness you've prayed for and so richly deserve.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Change

“Man, he wasn't going to need a stress test anytime soon. If his heart could get through a kiss from her, he could probably run a marathon.

While dragging a car behind him.

Sideways to the road.”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

Cars, Kiss, Heart

“I saw Jonathan after he faced the fear demon, you know. It showed itself to him as you. That told me all I needed to know. The greatest fear in Jonathan’s life is the love he feels for his sister.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Love, Life, Fear, Feeling

“In this totally dark world, you can't live unless you're needed by someone.”

Hotaru Odagiri Japanese mangaka and illustrator

World

“Live one day at a time. Keep your attention in present time. Have no expectations. Make no judgements. And give up the need to know why things happen as they do. Give it up!”

Caroline Myss (1952) author from the United States

Source: Why People Don't Heal and How They Can: A Practical Programme for Healing Body, Mind and Spirit

Time

“I have not a desire but a need for solitude.”

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) French philosopher, critic and literary theorist

Source: Mourning Diary

Solitude

“You have within you, right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

World, Hope, Positive

“If friends disappoint you over and over, that's in large part your own fault. Once someone has shown a tendency to be self-centered, you need to recognize that and take care of yourself; people aren't going to change simply because you want them to.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

People, Disappointment, Change, Parting

“You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep seated need to believe.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Sometimes attributed to Contact (1985), but the quote does not appear in that book. <br class="br">It appears attributed to Sagan in Judson Poling's 2003 book "Do Science and the Bible Conflict?", but without source. <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Source: Via Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=Ondv5WzhYYYC&pg=PA21&dq=Sagan

“As far as I know, he never asked where she had been or why she had left and she never told. I guess some stories do not need telling.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

“Life is slippery. We all need a loving hand to hold onto.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Source: Life's Little Instruction Book: 511 Suggestions, Observations, and Reminders on How to Live a Happy and Rewarding Life

Love, Life

“I love you forever" didn't always need to be spoken to be understood.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Enshrined

Love

“But I can't. Need is not quite belief.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

With Mercy for the Greedy
Variant: Need is not quite belief.
Source: All My Pretty Ones (1962)

“When Kino had finished, Juana came back to the fire and ate her breakfast. They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyway. Kino sighed with satisfaction - and that was conversation.”

John Steinbeck book The Pearl

Source: The Pearl

“Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Howard Thurman (1899–1981) American writer

As quoted in Violence Unveiled (1996) by Gil Bailie, p. xv
Variant: Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
Source: The Living Wisdom of Howard Thurman: A Visionary for Our Time

People, World