Quotes about want
page 31

“I don't want to be loved. I want to be desired. Love is safety, but desire is foul.”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Something to Tell You

“The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Way, Understanding

“but she realized that she wanted him to know her. She wanted him to understand her, if only because she had strange sense that he was the kind of man she could fall in love with, even if she didn't want to.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

Love, Understanding, Sense

“Just because you keep something a secret doesn't mean it never happened, no matter how much you want that to be true.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Vanishing Acts

Secret

“He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Intelligence

“The fact is, I love him. He's the boy I want and one day he'll be MINE.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Princess in Training

Love, Boy

“I let it ring. I wanted to breathe for a few minutes, and I could think of nothing that couldn't wait. Besides, I had paid almost $50 for an answering machine. Let it earn its keep.”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Thinking, Waiting

“I just don't want you to worry about me, or think you've met me, or waste your time anymore.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Thinking, Time

“I don't want to lose the boy with the bread.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Variant: I have kept track of the boy with the bread.
Source: The Hunger Games

Boy

“Now," Graves finally said, "anyone else want to piss me off? Anyone else think this is a goddamn?”

Lilith Saintcrow (1976) American writer

Source: Betrayals

Thinking

“What you have to decide… is how you want your life to be. If your forever was ending tomorrow, would this be how you'd want to have spent it? Listen, the truth is, nothing is guaranteed. You know that more than anybody. So dont be afraid. Be alive.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Life, Truth

“Nobody smart knows what they want to do until they get into their twenties or thirties.”

Michael Crichton book The Lost World

Source: The Lost World

“How could you not want to draw breath one more day? How could your own life be such a cheap commodity? But then I started to understand: when your existence is hell, death must be heaven.”

Jodi Picoult book The Storyteller

Source: The Storyteller

Life, Death, Hell, Understanding

“write what readers want to read, which isn’t necessarily what you want to write.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Reading

“If God wanted us to act on instinct, we wouldn't have the power of reason.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Mercy

God

“Death is an inevitability, isn't it? You become more aware of that when you get to my age. I don't worry about it. I'm ready for it. When I go, I want to go doing what I do best. If I died tomorrow, I couldn't complain. It's been good.”

Lemmy Kilmister (1945–2015) British singer-songwriter

Death, Age

“Sometimes to get what you want the most, you have to do what you want the least.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Variant: well, sometimes to get what you want the most, you have to do what you want the least.
Source: My Sister's Keeper

“No one cared what she wanted. No one had ever cared. And perhaps, worst of all, no one ever would care.”

Kate DiCamillo (1964) American children's writer

“I liked those ladies! They were helpers, and they danced.' These are the words I want on my gravestone: that I was a helper, and that I danced.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

Dance

“It's like in the Bible. You can't always get what you want, but if you really need something, you usually find it."
"What part of the Bible is that from?" Ig asked her. "The Gospel of Keith Richards?”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: Horns

Parting

“Try, reach, want, and you may fall. But even if you do, you might be okay anyway.
If you don't try, you save nothing, because you might as well be dead.”

Ann Brashares book Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Dead

“But my whole life has been a matter of fighting for one simple hour to do what I want to do. There was always something getting in the way of my getting to myself.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

Life, Way, Fight

“every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

God, Forgiveness, Time

“There was nothing I wanted to do more than be unconscious again, wrapped in black, gone away. I was raw. I felt swollen with potential tears, like a water balloon filled to burst. Begging for a pin prick.”

Gillian Flynn book Sharp Objects

Source: Sharp Objects

Tear, Water

“Is he dead?" he inquired. "He looks dead."
"No," snapped Maryse. "He's not dead."
"Have you checked? I could kick him if you want.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Dead

“Anthony sneezed and pushed them aside. "Mother, I am trying to have a conversation with the duke."

Violet looked at Simon. "Do you want to have this conversation with my son?"

"Not particularly."

"Fine, then. Anthony, be quiet.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: The Duke and I

“She always wanted to believe in things.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

“You didn’t get the quest you wanted, you got the one you could do.”

Lev Grossman The Magician King

The Magician King

“Just leave me alone. I'm not myself. I'm falling apart, and I don't want you here.”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon

“I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money. I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same that far down.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Letter to Ed White (5 July 1950) as published in The Missouri Review, Vol. XVII, No. 3, 1994, page 137, and also quoted in Jack Kerouac: Angelheaded Hipster (1996) by Steve Turner, p. 117

Money, Understanding, Fish

“Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Life

“I want to know about my mom. And other stuff. I want to know the whole story, good or bad.”
“Me, too,” said Gazzy. “I want to find my parents so I can tell’m what total scuzzes they are. Like, ‘Hi, mom and dad, you’re such scum!”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Moms, Parent

“If you want to see what children can do, you must stop giving them things.”

Norman Douglas (1868–1952) British writer

Children

“Good books make you ask questions. Bad readers want everything answered.”

Scott Westerfeld (1963) American science fiction writer

Books, Question

“I believe I want adult sanity, which seems to me the only unalloyed form of heroism available today.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

“When I was growing up I always wanted to be someone. Now I realize I should have been more specific.”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

Variant: I always wanted to be something, but now I see I should have been more specific.

Funny

“We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Love, People, Light, Heart

“There's an awful lot of inactive kindness which is nothing but laziness, not wanting any trouble, confusion, or effort.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent

Effort

“I’m in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

As quoted in ‪If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People? (2009) ‬by John Mitchinson, p. 87

People

“She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.”

Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary

Source: Madame Bovary

“She shook her head as she confessed, "I want it so much, I'm afraid to hope."
"Never be afraid to hope," Rohan said gently. "It's the
only way to begin."

-Rohan to Win”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Mine Till Midnight

Hope, Way

“Maryse had spoken to her son’s partner with affection she had never shown before, and now she wanted to hold the baby. Maryse was experiencing full-on grandma fever. The Lightwoods thought he and Alec were keeping the baby.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Born to Endless Night

Grandma, Baby

“I want you to love me. I want you to trust me enough to let me love you, and I want you to stay here with me so we can build a life together. That's what I want”

Francine Rivers (1947) American writer

Source: Redeeming Love

Love, Life

“I love you, Gabby, more than you'll ever know. You're everything I've ever wanted in a wife. You're every hope and every dream I've ever had, and you've made me happier than any man could possibly be. I don't ever want to give that up. I can't.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

Love, Dreams, Hope

“I didn't want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you good night — and there's a lot of difference.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Kiss, Night

“Suddenly, I viddied what I had to do, and what I had wanted to do, and that was to do myself in; to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked, cruel world. One moment of pain perhaps and, then, sleep forever, and ever and ever.”

Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange

Source: A Clockwork Orange

Pain, World, Sleep

“Our chief want in life, is somebody who shall make us do what we can.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Considerations by the Way
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)

Life

“I want you to invent it. I want you to have that skill. To create your own reality. Your own set of laws. I want to try and teach you that.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Law, Reality

“I was even a little glad that if it wasn’t going to be me she wanted, it was going to be someone who really deserved her.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“I wondered if it was possible to take someone's pain away with a kiss. Because that was what i wanted to do, take all of his sadness and pour it out of him, comfort him, make the boy i knew come back.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: The Summer I Turned Pretty

Pain, Sadness, Boy, Kiss

“I just want to protect them no matter how much pain befalls me.”

Masashi Kishimoto book Naruto

Source: Naruto, Vol. 47: The Seal Destroyed

Pain

“Even if you forget everything else I want you to always remember that you are a person of value, and you have a friend who loved you enough to give you his most valued possession.”

Bette Greene book Summer of My German Soldier

Source: Summer of My German Soldier

Love, Personality, Forgetting

“What was I up to, you may ask? I certainly didn't want to meet Monsieur Evil again or creepy old Lord Salamander.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Evil

“I would not leave you. I'll be there. Wherever you want 'there' to be.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

“People who ask confidently get more than those who are hesitant and uncertain. When you've figured out what you want to ask for, do it with certainty, boldness and confidence.”

Jack Canfield (1944) American writer

People, Confidence

“You want to go play with your new friends back there? The really pale ones with the taste for plasma? --Shane”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Lord of Misrule

“She was feeling the pressure of the world outside and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

World, Feeling

“I don’t want life to imitate art. I want life to be art.”

Carrie Fisher book Postcards from the Edge

Postcards from the Edge (1987)

Life, Art

“And you know," Jeanne said, looking down at Sylvia with her hands on her hips, "that's how I want to go. Taking my own way out… and totally pissing everybody off at the end.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Black Dawn

Way

“It's funny how different people are. If I'd been this kid and someone was snarling "Ordering a pizza?" at me, without even thinking, I would have snarled back "Yeah. You want pepperoni?"
-Maximum Ride”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

People, Thinking

“Rule number one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”

John Berendt Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Source: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Drink

“My heart only ever had one thought, one want. One need. Despite all, in spite of all… All my heart has ever wanted is you.”

Stephanie Laurens (1943) Australian writer

Source: The Edge of Desire

Heart, For Him, For Boyfriend

“I run after her, not really giving chase. I’m running because I can, because I must.
Because I want to see how far I can go before I have to stop.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

“I didn't have any friends at school, didn't want any. I felt better being alone. I sat on a bench and watched the others play and they looked foolish to me.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

School

“I want to know God's thoughts - the rest are mere details.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

God

“I have a terrible wanderthirst; the very sight of a map makes me want to put on my hat and take an umbrella and start. I
shall see before I die the palms and temples of the South.”

Jean Webster book Daddy-Long-Legs

Source: Daddy-Long-Legs

“He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Sadness, Beauty, Music, Cry

“beer is an excellent argument that there is a God, and that furthermore, He wants us to be happy.”

Jim Butcher book Skin Game

Source: Skin Game

God, Happiness, Beer

“I'm not a. I have no male pride for you to trick me with, and I am not interested in single combat. That is entirely a weakness of your sex, not mine. I am a woman. I will use any weapon and all weapons to get what I want.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Sex

“Now that Scotty has entered the realm of myth, everyone wants to own him. And maybe they should. Doesn't a myth belong to everyone?”

Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad

Source: A Visit from the Goon Squad

“You hit me the instant I saw you." he said, gruffly. "I couldn't look away. I wanted you immediately. Excessively. Almost violently.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

“Focus on where you want to go, not on what you fear.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

Fear

“Jessica swallowed. "I think you had better stick to English."

"But Italian is so moving," Dain said.

"To ho voluto dal primo che ti vedi." I've wanted you from the first moment I saw you.

"Mi tormenti ancora." You've tormented me ever since.”

Loretta Chase book Lord of Scoundrels

Source: Lord of Scoundrels

Thinking

“What kind of wedding do you want?"
"The one with a groom.”

Jude Deveraux (1947) American writer

Source: True Love

Wedding

“I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void. The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror. My indifference to man has shut me out. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

Source: The Seventh Seal

World, Dreams, Feeling, Heart

“I hope when I'm ninety-five the only things I want are free: love, family, a good home-cooked meal.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

Love, Family, Hope, Home

“Taylor Markham," said Raffaela, "I'm going to say a prayer for you." And although I wanted to mock her and explain I didn't believe in anything or anyone, I realised that no one had ever prayed for me before. So I let her.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“This is the part in the movie where that guy says, "Zombies? What zombies?" just before they eat his brains. I don't want to be that guy.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Kin

Guy, Parting

“I have one problem, I don’t hate people. They disgust me and I want to get away from them. I do not have hatred. I have an escape mechanism.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Hate, People, Problem

“Don't ever ask me again if I hate living anywhere with you and Jasmina. This Rock reminds me of the boy I was and being with you in the palace reminds me of the man I want to be.'

'Not just any man,' she whispered. 'A King. Mine.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

Hate, Boy

“Nervous means you want to play. Scared means you don't want to play.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Everywhere I've turned somebody has wanted to sacrifice me for my good—only they were the ones who benefited. And now we start on the old sacrificial merry-go-round. At what point do we stop?”

Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man

Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 23.

“Sometimes it made her want to put her fist through glass; other times, it made her cry a river.”

Jodi Picoult Salem Falls

Source: Salem Falls

Time, Cry

“We don't want to survive. We want to be healed.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

“If you want to be proud of yourself, then do things in which you can take pride”

Karen Horney (1885–1952) American-German psychoanalyst

Source: Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization

“You must always know what it is that you want.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

“There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes

Time

“Hey! Jack the Wanker! Over here! I want your autograph!”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Name of the Star

“She wanted him to see all of her and also none of her. She wanted him to be dazzled by the bits and blinded by the whole. She wanted him to see her whole and not in pieces. She had hopes that were hard to satisfy.”

Ann Brashares book The Last Summer

Source: The Last Summer

Hope

“I never do anything I don't want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

“I have peanut M&M's up there."
"Not my style"
"Raisinets."
"Feh."
"Sam Adams."
Thor narrowed his eyes. "Cold?"
"Downright icy."
Thor crossed his arms over his chest and told him self he was not pouting like a five-year-old. "I want Milk Duds.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Reborn

“But I want to feel like life matters. I
had something real with you, but then the realness scared me. I decided to go for other things instead.”

David Levithan Boy Meets Boy

Source: Boy Meets Boy

Life, Feeling

“I need you to be clever, Bean. I need you to think of solutions to problems we haven't seen yet. I want you to try things that no one has ever tried because they're absolutely stupid.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Stupidity, Problem, Thinking

“But you want murderous feelings? Hang around librarians," confided Gamache. "All that silence. Gives them ideas.”

Louise Penny (1958) Canadian woman writer

Source: A Rule Against Murder

Feeling, Confidence, Idea, Silence

“I take no pride in hopeless longing; I wouldn't hold a stillborn aspiration. I'd want to have it, to make it, to live it.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“It's music rage, which is like road rage, only more righteous. When you get road rage, a tiny part of you knows you're being a jerk, but when you get music rage, you're carrying out the will of God, and God wants these people dead”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

God, People, Music, Jerk

“When I die, don't come, I wouldn't want a leaf
to turn away from the sun -- it loves it there.
There's nothing so spiritual about being happy
but you can't miss a day of it, because it doesn't last.”

Frank O'Hara (1926–1966) American poet, art critic and writer

Love, Happiness, Sun

“The public wants work which flatters its illusions.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

“A shadow is never created in darkness. It is born of light. We can be blind to it and blinded by it. Our shadow asks us to look at what we don’t want to see”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

Light

“Freedom begins way back. It begins not with doing what you want but with doing what you ought - that is, with discipline.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: Let Me be a Woman

Way, Freedom

Quotes about want page 31

Quotes about want
page 31