Quotes about want
page 38

“Because when the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same things: comfort, love, and a peaceful heart.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: Have a Little Faith: a True Story

Love, World, Peace, Heart

“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

Love, Life, Chance

“This is what it means to be loved… when someone wants to touch you, to be tender…”

Banana Yoshimoto book The Lake

Source: The Lake

Love

“Part of love is letting a person be who they want to be”

David Levithan Boy Meets Boy

Source: Boy Meets Boy

Love, Parting, Personality

“Death should be a celebration. Like a birthday. I want to go up like a rocket when my time comes, and fall down in a cloud of stars, and hear everyone go: ahh!”

Joanne Harris (1964) British author

Death, Star, Birthday, Time

“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

God

“She was reflecting back on a truth she had learned over the years: that people heard what they wanted to hear, saw what they wanted, believed what they wanted.”

Jeffery Deaver book The Bodies Left Behind

Source: The Bodies Left Behind

People, Truth, Learning

“I am an unwilling devil. I cry like some vagrant child. I want to go home.”

Anne Rice book The Vampire Lestat

Source: The Vampire Lestat

Home, Cry

“Destroy it?' Leo was appalled. 'You've got a life-size bronze dragon, and you want to destroy it?'
'It breathes fire,' Nyssa explained. 'It's deadly and out of control.'
'But it's a dragon!”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Life

“She wanted to be buried in a coffin filled with used paperbacks.”

Sherman Alexie (1966) Native American author and filmmaker

Source: Ten Little Indians

“In there?'
She nodded.
'You want us to go into the tortoise?'
Another nod.
'It's alive.'
Another nod.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

“Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses to be bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?”

Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange

Source: A Clockwork Orange

God, Way

“You can want one thing and have a secret wish for its opposite.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Six Rules of Maybe

Secret

“You want me to give her a key?" the guy asked.
"I want you to give her a possibility," she told him, looking at my necklace again. "And that's what a key represents. An open door, a chance. You know?”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Guy, Chance

“Men Wanted: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.”

Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) Anglo-Irish polar explorer

The first published appearance of this "ad" is on the first page of a 1949 book by Julian Lewis Watkins, The 100 Greatest Advertisements: Who Wrote Them and What They Did. (Moore Publishing Company), except with the Americanized word "honor", rather than "honour".

Men, Success

“I've wanted to go out with you from the first moment I saw you. I just had to wait until you were ready.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

Waiting

“I tell you this as a cautionary tale: beware of getting what you want. It's bound to disappoint you.”

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home

Source: Sing You Home

Disappointment

“I tried to hold myself apart, showing only what I wanted, doling out bits and pieces of who I was. But that only works out for so long. Eventually, even the smallest fragments can't help but, make a whole.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Help

“I changed my mind. I don’t want to be an inveshtigative journalist anymore. I want to be a professional rum drinker.”

“There are people who do that,” Duff said. He’d barely sipped his rum.

“Really? What do you call them?”

“Alcoholics.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

People, Alcohol, Change

“And he understands. He understands why people hold hands: he’d always thought it was about possessiveness, saying This is mine. But it’s about maintaining contact. It is about speaking without words. It is about I want you with me and don’t go.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

People, Understanding

“She wanted to crawl into his pocket and be safe forever.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

“Not everything you wanted, deep inside, worked out.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: The MacKade Brothers: Devin and Shane

“Being myself includes taking risks with myself, taking risks on new behavior, trying new ways of 'being myself', so that I can see who it is I want to be.”

Hugh Prather (1938–2010) American writer

Way, Behavior

“You can never know anyone as completely as you want. But that’s okay, love is better.”

Caroline Paul (1963) American writer

Source: Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology

Love

“Have you ever wanted something that you knew was bad for you? Something that you ached for so much you could think of nothing else? [Wren]”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Unleash the Night

Thinking

“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

“If you want to lead an extraordinary life, find out what the ordinary do–and don't do it.”

Tommy Newberry American writer

Source: Success is Not an Accident: Change Your Choices Change Your Life

Life

“As far as I was concerned, we'd come to a draw: I hadn't wanted to come, and she didn't want me to leave. We were even. But I knew my mother wouldn't see it that way. Lately, we didn't seem to see anything the same.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You

Way, Drawing

“It's easy to mistake understanding for empathy - we want empathy so badly. Maybe learning to make that distinction is part of growing up. It's hard and ugly to know somebody can understand you without even liking you.”

Thomas Harris book Hannibal

Variant: I think it's easy to mistake understanding for empathy - we want empathy so badly. Maybe learning to make that distinction is part of growing up. It's hard and ugly to know somebody can understand you without even liking you.
Source: Hannibal

Understanding, Learning, Parting

“Amos sipped his coffee. The faraway look on his face reminded me of my dad. “I don’t want to scare you.”
“Too late.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Coffee

“It was a distorted form of inverse logic: If hopes never come true, then hope for what you don't want.”

Amy Tan The Hundred Secret Senses

Source: The Hundred Secret Senses

Hope

“I want to make a difference with people who want to make a difference, doing something that makes a difference.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

People

“She wanted more, more slang, more figures of speech, the bee's knees, the cats pajamas, horse of a different color, dog-tired, she wanted to talk like she was born here, like she never came from anywhere else”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Dogs, Color, Cats, Bee

“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

“There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe…. The soul of the world is nourished by people's happiness.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

The Old King, p. 22.
Source: The Alchemist (1988)

Happiness, People, Truth, World

“He held her close enough to kiss, close enough to whisper the most important secrets in the world, and he spoke to her as he would have wanted some good angel to speak to his family, to his own shivering young soul, long ago and in a land far away.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Saving Raphael Santiago

Secret, World, Family, Angels

“To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Time, Help

“they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and I keep on remembering mine”

Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) American poet

Memory

“It's starting to sink in," Corny said. "I can almost look at you without wanting to bang my head against the wall.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Tithe

“Yes, there's one thing I do want. I want to be aware of the minutes and the seconds, and to make each one count.”

Jacqueline Susann book Valley of the Dolls

Source: Valley of the Dolls

“Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance and holler, just trying to be loved.”

Alice Walker book The Color Purple

Source: The Color Purple

Love, Singing, Dance

“I want him to burn for me, to not be able to go a day without touching me, holding me, caressing me. He’ll be an excellent lover. I want a man who knows how to please me”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: The Tycoon's Rebel Bride

Lovers

“Focus on yourself -- do what you want, when you want, without having to consider anyone else's agenda.”

Lauren Weisberger book Un anello da Tiffany

Source: Chasing Harry Winston

“There's a place beyond words where experience first occurs to which I always want to return. I suspect that whenever I articulate my thoughts or translate my impulses into words, I am betraying the real thoughts and impulses which remain hidden.”

Jerzy Kosiński book The Painted Bird

Source: The Painted Bird

“you know festus means happy in Latin right? You want us to go save the world on Happy the dragon?"
-Jason to Leo in the lost hero”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Happiness, World

“When you want something bad, you'll tell yourself a thousand lies.”

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home

Source: Sing You Home

“I am dead. I have no desire for you. My body no longer wants the one who doesn’t love.”

Marguerite Duras book The Lover

Source: The Lover

Love, Dead

“when things break, it's not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again. it's because a little piece gets lost -- the two remaining ends couldn't fit together even if they wanted to. the whole shape has changed.”

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Change

“There was something about Jace, though, that made her want to push him, crack that shell of cynicism and make him admit her believed something, felt something, cared about anythinng at all.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“When Barrons looks at me like that, it rattles me. Lust, in those ancient, obsidian eyes, offers no trace of humanity. Doesn’t even bother trying. Savage Mac wants to invite it to come out and play. I think she’s nuts. Nuts, I tell you.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

Thinking

“i wanted to try things, everything, especially things that are illegal and have a faint whiff of glamour.”

Michelle Tea (1971) American writer

Source: Rent Girl

“Do you understand now why books are hated and feared? Because they reveal the pores on the face of life. The comfortable people want only the faces of the full moon, wax, faces without pores, hairless, expressionless.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Life, Hate, People, Books

“If you cannot love me, I will die. Before you came I wanted to die, I have told you many times. It is cruel to have made me want to live only to make my death more bloody.”

James Baldwin book Giovanni's Room

Source: Giovanni's Room

Love, Death, Time

“Our lives are marked and shaped by our regrets. Things we all want to take back and can’t. In a perfect world, we would never hurt the ones we love or cause hurt to befall them. But the world isn’t perfect and neither are we.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Styxx

Love, World, Hurt, Perfection

“My mother… she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Beauty, Mother's Day, For Mother

“What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness.”

Barbara Kingsolver Animal Dreams

Source: Animal Dreams

“Maybe under all that guilt and certainty that he couldn't love again, he still wanted me. I would have liked to have found out. But I didn't have the time.
Instead, I punched him.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Love, Time

“When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want to summon
the eyes and hidden mouths
of stone and light and water
to testify against you.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Beauty, Light, Water

“There were things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him, so I buried them, and let them hurt me.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Variant: There were things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him, so I buried them, and let them hurt me. (p. 181)
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 181

Hurt, Heartbreaking, Hurtful

“Love's lengthways splits the heart in two - the heart where you are, the heart where you want to be.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: The Powerbook

Love, Heart

“The old tale of Sleeping Beauty might end happily in French or English, but he was in Russia, and only a fool would want to live through the Russian version of any fairy tale.”

Orson Scott Card Enchantment

Source: Enchantment

Beauty, Fools, Sleep

“You always want what you can’t have.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Variant: You always want what you cant have
Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

“Maybe I was being too picky. Maybe I didn't want to be close to anyone. Maybe I'd just be the type who couldn't feel love all the way or something. I couldn't tell what was wrong, but what was wrong was that it just wasn't right.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Secret Life of Prince Charming

Love, Way, Feeling

“Your heart has to let your head know what it wants.”

Debbie Macomber (1948) American writer

Source: Twenty Wishes

Heart

“If I start giving people what they like I'll turn into one of them and I don't want to be one of them I want to be one of me.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

People

“What do you know?”
“Almost everything. That almost part can be a real kick in the teeth sometimes.”
“What do you want, then?”
“What I can’t have.” Wit turned to him, eyes solemn. “Same as everyone else, Kaladin Stormblessed.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Parting

“Honestly, it’s so easy to get what you want from people if they think you’re a psycho.”

Sophie Kinsella book Twenties Girl

Source: Twenties Girl

People, Thinking

“If you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward.”

Morrie Schwartz (1916–1995) American sociologist

Life

“There are times in this life when a person must do or say things he doesn't want to. Human beings and chains, it is the oldest acquaintanceship in the world.”

Nadeem Aslam book Maps for Lost Lovers

Source: Maps for Lost Lovers

Life, World, Time, Personality

“Business is a game, played for fantastic stakes, and you're in competition with experts. If you want to win, you have to learn to be a master of the game.”

Sidney Sheldon Master of the Game

Source: Master of the Game

Game, Business, Learning

“I love you; I love you and I don’t care that you’re my sister; don’t be with him, don’t want him, don’t go with him. Be with me. Want me. Stay with me.
I don’t know how to be without you.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Love, Sister

“They do sometimes go crazy, these people, because the world is telling them not to want the things they want. It can seem saner to give up-But then one goes insane from giving up.”

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

Source: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

People, World

“Amnesia is not knowing who one is and wanting desperately to find out. Euphoria is not knowing who one is and not caring. Ecstasy is knowing exactly who one is - and still not caring.”

Tom Robbins book Another Roadside Attraction

Source: Another Roadside Attraction

“I never felt the urge to jump off a bridge, but there are times I have wanted to jump out of my life, out of my skin.”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

Life, Time

“She wants you to be a god," I told him.
"I know." His face twisted with embarrassment, and in spite of itself my heart lightened. It was such a boyish response. And so human. Parents, everywhere.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

God, Parent, Heart

“Sara: "You are so brave," I tell her, and then I smile. "When I grow up, I want to be just like you."
To my surprise, Kate shakes her head hard. Her voice is a feather, a thread. "No Mommy," she says. "You'd be sick.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Smile

“I think I want to be in love with you but I don't know how.”

Angela Carter The Magic Toyshop

Source: The Magic Toyshop

Love, Thinking

“I wonder if everyone who faces death hurts like this. It's as though for the first time I realize how much just being alive makes my body ache. But I don't want that ache to stop.”

Shannon Hale book Book of a Thousand Days

Source: Book of a Thousand Days

Death, Time, Hurt

“Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power—not because they don’t see it, but because they see it and they don’t want it to exist.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Variant: Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power — not because they don’t see it, but because they see it and they don’t want it to exist.

People