Quotes about need
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“School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is.”

Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist

School

“A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it.”

Bob Hope (1903–2003) American comedian, actor, singer and dancer

Money, Funny

“Baby," she says in a harsh whisper, "in this world, lots of people will try to grind you down. They need you to be small so they can be big. You let them think whatever they want, but you make sure you get yours. You get yours.”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

People, World, Thinking, Baby

“On some days you get what you want, and on others, you get what you need.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Source: Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

“When we're awake, we see what we need to see. When we're asleep, we see what is really there.”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

Source: Second Glance

“the only thing you need to
do for now is get some rest and take good care of yourself until you do
know the answer”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

“There was something about our silence that made me comfortable. He wasn't talking to me, but I didn't feel ignored. I felt we were part of the same moment, and it didn't need to be defined.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Feeling, Silence, Parting

“If we acknowledge our need for God, he will help us.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

God, Help

“You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Subterranean Homesick Blues

Way, Weather

“Generally, people who are good at writing letters have no need to write letters. They've got plenty of life to lead inside their own context.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 13, The Rat's First Letter

Life, People

“Sometimes you should have something you don't need but that you want.”

Sara Zarr (1970) American children's writer

Source: How to Save a Life

“You don't need to be told some things. You can sometimes tell more by a man's silence and the set of his head than by what he says.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: Jayber Crow

Silence

“I was a man before I was a king, and no true man walks away when a friend needs him.”

David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy

Source: Fall of Kings

“She wasn't a person who needed to be liked so much as she was a person who liked to be notorious.”

E. Lockhart book The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Source: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Personality

“Watching them, I thought again of how we can't expect everybody to be there for us, all at once. So it's a lucky thing that really, all you need is someone.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Variant: We can't expect everybody to be there for us, all at once. So it's a lucky thing that really, all you need is someone.
Source: Lock and Key

“I said, 'I need to know how he died.'
He flipped back and pointed at, 'Why?'
So I can stop inventing how he died. I'm always inventing.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“Phaedra looked across the water and her eyes met Lucian’s. Their needs came second. It came from the privilege of being trusted.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Quintana of Charyn

Water

“Every woman needs a daughter to tell her stories to.”

Karen White (1964) American writer

Daughters

“Maybe you don't need beauty sleep, but some of us aren't so lucky.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Beauty, Sleep

“Women don't have a sense of humor. They don't need one. The Almighty made them as a permanent joke on men. From which one may logically deduce tha the Almighty is a female.”

Loretta Chase book Lord of Scoundrels

Source: Lord of Scoundrels

Women, Men, Sense

“[Stephanie Plum]Jeez. No True Love"
[Grandma Mazur] There's always been true love, but in my day, you either talked yourself into thinking you had it, or you talked yourself into thinking you didn't need it.”

Janet Evanovich (1943) Novelist

Source: Explosive Eighteen

Love, Thinking, Grandma

“We all of us need to be toppled off the throne of self, my dear," he said. "Perched up there the tears of others are never upon our own cheek.”

Elizabeth Goudge (1900–1984) English fiction writer

Source: The White Witch

Tear

“The angel has confided in me that he is going to ask the Lord if he can become Spider-Man. […] The children need heroes, he says. I think he just wants to swing from buildings in tight red jammies.”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Children, Angels, Confidence, Thinking

“You need to stop thinking with your head, Mud Boy, and start thinking with your heart.”

Artemis sighed. The heart was an organ for pumping oxygen-rich blood to the cells. It could no more think than an apple could tap-dance.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Boy, Thinking, Heart, Dance

“Society has provided [children] no rituals by which they become members of the tribe, of the community. All children need to be twice born, to learn to function rationally in the present world, leaving childhood behind.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth

Children, World, Communication, Learning

“Jeez, someone needs to push the reset button on this planet.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine

“You need to modulate that unwarranted ire, buddy. I'm not your 'ho and you ain't my pimp”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Styxx

“Dogs make sense. They understand hierarchy and the need to cooperate. They come when you call them. A cat though—a cat will take your number and get back to you. Maybe. If he’s in a good mood.”

Eileen Wilks Mortal Danger

Source: Mortal Danger

Dogs, Cats, Mood, Understanding

“Everything I needed was in my car, even the chickens”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Guilty Pleasures

Source: Guilty Pleasures

Cars

“An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer

Loneliness

“The gods need heroes. They always have.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

God

“There's no need to imagine that you're a wondrous beauty, because that's what you are.”

Tove Jansson book Moominsummer Madness

Source: Moominsummer Madness

Beauty, Imagination

“One Ranger is all you'll ever need. - Ranger”

Janet Evanovich Twelve Sharp

Source: Twelve Sharp

“We were still at the age when girls are years older than guy, and the guys grow up by doing their best when the girls need them to.”

Tana French book Faithful Place

Source: Faithful Place

Age, Guy, Girl

“You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Variant: You can never get enough of what you don’t really need.

Happiness

“When we are sure that we are on the right road there is no need to plan our journey too far ahead. No need to burden ourselves with doubts and fears as to the obstacles that may bar our progress. We cannot take more than one step at a time.”

Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American writer

Fear, Time

“Women need chocolate. It's a scientific fact.”

Sophie Kinsella book Remember Me?

Source: Remember Me?

Women

“People who need to bully you are the easiest to push around.”

Douglas Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

People

“my 6 foot goddess
makes me laugh
the laughter of the mutilated
who still need
love…

she has saved me
from everything that is
not here”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Love, Laughter

“Let the past be content with itself, for man needs forgetfulness as well as memory”

James Stephens book Irish Fairy Tales

Source: Irish Fairy Tales

Memory, Past, Forgetting

“People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.”

Walter Isaacson book Steve Jobs

Source: Steve Jobs

People

“I slammed the doors open a little harder than I needed to, stalked out to the Blue Beetle, and drove away with all the raging power the ancient four-cylinder engine should muster. Behold the angry wizard puttputt-putting away.”

Jim Butcher book Summer Knight

Source: Summer Knight

Rage

“You don't need to change one hair. One freckle. One little toe. And if its me thats made you feel you should do this.. then there's something wrong with me. -Luke Brandon”

Sophie Kinsella book Mini Shopaholic

Source: Mini Shopaholic

Feeling, Change

“When you face adversity, you need to remind yourself that whatever is trying to defeat you could very well be what God will use to promote you.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

God

“Sometimes a person needs to hear you forgive them so they can start to forgive themselves.”

Rachel Gibson (1961) American writer

Source: Any Man of Mine

Forgiveness, Personality

“The gift was not large as money goes, and my need was not great, but the spirit of the gift is beyond price and leaves me blessed and in debt.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Money

“You can hide memories, but you can’t erase the history that produced them.” Sara looked directly into his eyes. “If nothing else, you need to remember that. You can’t erase history, or change it. It would be like destroying yourself.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

History, Memory, Change

“Time is a gift, given to you, given to give you the time you need, the time you need to have the time of your life.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Life, Time

“It's too late. Seventeen-year-olds don't need fathers.
Oh god. I'm thirty-four years old and I need a father. I can't even begin to think what my daughter needs.”

Melina Marchetta book Looking for Alibrandi

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

God, Thinking, Daughters

“Look, I need to tell you something,' I continued. The words came stumbling out of me. 'I couldnt stand it if… I dont want you to---'
Percy?' she said. 'You look like you're going to be sick.'
And that's how I felt.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

“Suffering is not enough. Life is both dreadful and wonderful… How can I smile when I am filled with so much sorrow? It is natural--you need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than your sorrow.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Life, Smile, Nature, Suffering

“Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Learning, Graduation

“He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure.”

John Steinbeck book Cannery Row

Source: Cannery Row

Pleasure, Feeling, Hurt

“We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

“I need to go to parties, Raisa mused, so I don't think so much.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Demon King

Thinking

“I am willing to release the need to be unworthy. I am worthy of the very best in life, and I now lovingly allow myself to accept it”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

Life

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Motivational, Leadership, Back To Work

“If you need a helping hand, you can find one at the end of your arm.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Help

“Children are dying."
Lull nodded. "That's a succinct summary of humankind, I'd say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words.”

Steven Erikson book Deadhouse Gates

Source: Deadhouse Gates

Children, World, History

“Death,
I need my little addiction to you.
need that tiny voice who,
even as I rise from the sea,
all woman, all there,
says kill me, kill me.”

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

"Letters to Dr. Y."
Words for Dr. Y (1978)

Death, Sea

“I'm not sure I even need a lover, male or female. Sometimes I think I'd settle for five good friends.”

Armistead Maupin (1944) American writer

Source: 28 Barbary Lane: The Tales of the City Omnibus

Lovers, Thinking

“I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind…”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

“A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 412
Variant: You have everything but one thing: madness. A man needs a little madness or else - he never dares cut the rope and be free.
Source: Zorba the Greek

Personality, Madness

“Men really do need sea-monsters in their personal oceans”

John Steinbeck book The Log from the Sea of Cortez

Source: The Log from the Sea of Cortez

Men, Personality, Sea

“And I think that's what our world is desperately in need of - lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution (2006)
Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

People, World, Way, Lovers

“Well, I myself find that respect is like manure. Use it where needed, and growth will flourish. Spread it on too thick, and things just start to smell.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

“Every good writer I know needs to go into some deep, quiet place to do work that is fully imagined. And what the Internet brings is lots of vulgar data. It is the antithesis of the imagination. It leaves nothing to the imagination.”

Jonathan Franzen (1959) novelist

Imagination

“Truth might be stranger than fiction, but it needs a better editor.”

David Benioff book City of Thieves

Source: City of Thieves

Truth

“I don't really know if it's the right thing to do, making new life. Kids grow up, generations take their place. What does it all come to? More hills bulldozed and more ocean fronts filled in? Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it?”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 15, The Song Is Over

Life, Cars, Cats

“Kat, who sat beside us, shouted, "Rewind that!" and threw popcorn at the screen. "Mr. Holland's expression was all, like, oh, no, I'm going to need to my balls reattached, and Cole's was all, you're about to lose something else, sucka.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Through the Zombie Glass

“America… just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

"September,", p. 413
1970s, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 (1973)
Context: This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
Context: If the current polls are reliable... Nixon will be re-elected by a huge majority of Americans who feel he is not only more honest and more trustworthy than George McGovern, but also more likely to end the war in Vietnam. The polls also indicate that Nixon will get a comfortable majority of the Youth Vote. And that he might carry all fifty states... This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. The tragedy of all this is that George McGovern, for all his mistakes... understands what a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race this country might have been, if we could have kept it out of the hands of greedy little hustlers like Richard Nixon. McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose... Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?

Money, World, Cars

“because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie.”

Alan Paton book Cry, the Beloved Country

Source: Cry, the Beloved Country

Life, Lie, Star, Falseness

“My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it's very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Idea

“You don’t need to conduct autopsies on your disasters.”

Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“Honey, you need to get laid. (Selena)
Why don’t you speak a little louder, Lanie? I don’t think the guys in Canada were able to hear you. (Grace)
Oh, I don’t know. They’re probably headed south even as we speak. (Waiter)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Guy, Thinking

“We need solitude, because when we're alone, we're free from obligations, we don't need to put on a show, and we can hear our own thoughts.”

Tamim Ansary (1948) Afghan-American author/public speaker

Source: West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story

Solitude

“Cery: So, Hem, tell me why I shouldn't see how many holes I need to make before you start leaking money?”

Trudi Canavan book The High Lord

Source: The High Lord

Money

“But he could not renounce his infinite capacity for illusion at the very moment he needed it most… he saw fireflies where there were none.”

Gabriel García Márquez book The General in His Labyrinth

Source: The General in His Labyrinth

“You people with hearts,' he said once, 'have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful.”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

People, Heart

“Maybe some women aren't meant to be tamed. Maybe they just need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with them.
-Carrie Bradshaw”

Candace Bushnell (1958) American author

Women

“When I thought about why I was sometimes reluctant to push myself, I realized that it was because I was afraid of failure - but in order to have more success, I needed to be willing to accept more failure.”

Gretchen Rubin (1966) American writer

Source: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

Failure, Success

“Sinead broke in. "The cops need to know what to do with Evan, Amy. What should I tell them?"
"Shoot to kill?" Ian suggested.”

Gordon Korman book The Medusa Plot

Source: The Medusa Plot

“I came to Party Crashing because accidents happen. People you love will die. Nothing you treasure will last forever. And I need to accept and embrace that fact.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

Love, People

“I didn't call you because I'm tired of you only wanting me around when you need something. I'm tired of watching you be in love with someone else - someone, incidentally, who will never love you back. Not the way I do.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Variant: No." Magnus strode toward him. "I didn't call you because I'm tired of you only wanting me around when you need something. I'm tired of watching you be in love with someone else-someone, incidentally, who will never love you back. Not the way I do.
Source: City of Glass

Love, Way