Quotes about want
page 47

“Experience is what you get when you didn’t know what you wanted.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: The Sweetest Thing

“High calls low and low calls high. I tell you, if you were in such dire straits as I was, you too would elevate your thoughts. The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

Success

“You can’t save others from themselves because those who make a perpetual muddle of their lives don’t appreciate your interfering with the drama they’ve created. They want your poor-sweet-baby sympathy, but they don’t want to change.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: T is for Trespass

Change, Baby

“its hard to talk when you want to kill yourself”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

“You don't need a reason to forgive… If you want to go on with someone, that is what you do.”

Melissa Bank (1961) American writer

Forgiveness

“I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

Source: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Book): Mønti Pythøn Ik Den Hølie Gräilen

Food, Animals

“There are times when you don't know yourself. There are times when you don't want to know yourself. There are times when you want to be what you have never allowed yourself to be before.”

Aidan Chambers (1934) British children's writer

Source: This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn

Time

“You've maddened me for you… have changed everything. So, I'm going to f*ck you long and hard, beauty, because if I'm to be enslaved by you-I want to be your master as well.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Pleasure of a Dark Prince

Beauty, Change

“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

“If a man wants to be romantically involved with you, he tries to kiss you. That's the entire story, and if he doesn't kiss you, there is never a reason to wait around for him.”

Curtis Sittenfeld (1975) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Man of My Dreams

Kiss, Waiting

“People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

People

“Above all, she wanted to look as though she had not given the matter a moment's thought, and that would take time.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Time

“I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.”

Simone de Beauvoir book La Vieillesse

Pt. 2, Ch. 2: Time, activity, history, p. 412
The Coming of Age (1970)
Source: La Vieillesse

Life

“Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Women, Hope, Girl

“If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible. There's nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

People

“Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it’s going to kill us.”

Donna Tartt book The Goldfinch

Source: The Goldfinch

“I am not menopausal. I just wanted half an hour alone. Is that too much to ask? A crappy half hour!”

Janet Evanovich (1943) Novelist

“I never cared,” he said. “I wanted you anyway. I always wanted you.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“Venice is beautiful, but like a Bergman movie is beautiful; you can admire it, but you don't really want to live in it.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Beauty

“Calvin: From now on, I'm not doing anything I don't want to do! The world owes me happiness, fulfillment and success…. I'm just here to cash in.
p145”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat
Source: Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection

Happiness, World, Success

“wanting what you could not have led to misery and madness”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Madness

“Billions of things are going on in this world. You can think about it all you want, but life is still going to keep on happening.”

Michael Singer (1945) American landscape architect

Source: The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

Life, World, Thinking

“Again, I repeat, don’t ask questions you don’t want answered. Just accept the fact that Acheron is a freak of nature and let it go. (Zarek)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Kiss of the Night

Question, Nature

“If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you think.”

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

Life, Way, Thinking, Change

“Destiny is a worrying concept. I don't want to be fated, I want to choose.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

Fate

“He hadn’t stopped wanting love. He had simply, somehow, stopped looking.
He wondered if you could be exhausted without knowing it, if hope could be lost not all at once but could slip away gradually, day by day, and vanish before you ever realized.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What to Buy the Shadowhunter Who Has Everything

Love, Hope

“For the first time, I saw what was in his heart, and I wondered if he might ever want to look deep enough to see mine.”

Jennifer Donnelly A Northern Light

Source: A Northern Light

Time, Heart

“The point is you keep going. You want to. So all the things that make you want to are the point.”

Nick Hornby About a Boy

Source: About a Boy

“I belong to you. You could do anything you wanted with me and I would let you. You could ask anything of me and I'd break myself trying to make you happy.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Happiness

“… she starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see…”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

People

“She hopes for nothing except fine weather and a resolution. She wants to end properly, like a good sentence.”

Zadie Smith book The Autograph Man

Source: The Autograph Man

Hope, Weather

“Sometimes life is not about what u want to do but what u ought to do”

Chetan Bhagat (1974) Indian author, born 1974

Source: Revolution 2020: Love, Corruption, Ambition

Life

“I wanted to touch him like he was a bunny, a kitten, something so special and soft your fingertips can’t leave it alone.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

“I don't want to change anything, because I don't know how to deal with change.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Change

“Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know--because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

“I've played the powerless in too many dark scenes. I was blessed with a birth and a death and I guess I just want some say in between”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Talk To Me Now
Song lyrics
Variant: I was blessed with a birth and a death, and I guess I just want some say in-between.

Death, Birth

“I don't want to care. If I care about things, it'll just be worse, it'll just be another thing to worry about. It's less painful if I don't care.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Less Than Zero

Source: Less Than Zero

Pain, Sad

“Find out what people want to do, then tell them to do it. They'll think you're a genius.”

Connie Brockway (1954) American writer

Source: The Bridal Season

People, Thinking

“Offer them what they secretly want and they of course immediately become panic-stricken.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

“Don't give me no rotten tomato, 'cause all I ever wanted was your sweet potato.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Variant: Don't you give me no rotten tomato," Dexter sang, "just 'cause to your crazy shit I
cannot relate-o.
Source: This Lullaby

“As I look back on my own life, I recognize this simple truth: The greatest opportunities were the scariest lions. Part of me has wanted to play it safe, but I’ve learned that taking no risks is the greatest risk of all.”

Mark Batterson (1969) American pastor and writer

Source: In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars

Life, Truth, Learning, Parting

“It was the heaviest thing I'd ever felt, as if I were being crushed under a thousand trucks. I wanted to black out from the pain, but I breathed deeply.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Pain

“I would like to fall in love again but my only hope is that love doesn't happen to me so often after this. I don't want to get so used to falling in love that i get curious to experience something more extreme - whatever that may be.”

Douglas Coupland book Life After God

Source: Life After God

Love, Hope

“I want to tell her revenge is a devil you don’t want to worship. In destroying your enemy you become it.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Burned

Revenge

“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

Books, Reading

“NO! Don't force yourself to be alone! If you're alive, you can meet that person, somewhere, someday! The person that will be glad that you're alive! You can't… you can't want yourself to die!! So… live…”

Yukiru Sugisaki (1974) Manga artist

Personality

“Ranger Smiled. 'You want me to be Superman? Spend the night with me.”

Janet Evanovich book Hot Six

Source: Hot Six

Smile, Night

“I want to be in fifth grade again. Now, that is a deep dark secret, almost as big as the other one. Fifth grade was easy -- old enough to play outside without Mom, too young to go off the block. The perfect leash length.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Secret, Moms, Perfection

“If you want someone to tell you what to think…"

"You will never be short of people willing to do so.”

Frances Hardinge book Fly by Night

Source: Fly by Night

People, Thinking

“When time passes, it's the people who knew you whom you want to see; they're the ones you can talk to. When enough time passes, what's it matter what they did to you?”

John Irving book The Cider House Rules

Source: The Cider House Rules

People, Time

“Everyone wants someone they can hold and love. Someone who will be there to help pick up the pieces when everything falls apart. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Love, Help

“To know Pritkin was to want to kill him, but so far I'd resisted temptation.”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Embrace the Night

“Some women waited for a night in shining armor. She, apparently, had ended up with a knight in black jeans and leather, who wanted to chase her down and have his evil way with her.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Bayou Moon

Women, Way, Evil, Waiting

“And if I wanted to kill myself, I wouldn't throw myself off a roof. And if I was going to throw myself off a roof, I would put on some pants before I did it.”

Holly Black book White Cat

Source: White Cat

“She must find a boat and sail in it. No guarantee of shore. Only a conviction that what she wanted could exist, if she dared to find it.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

“But grace can be the experience of a second wind, when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on.”

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

Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

“Wars are often waged not because of what we believe, but because of the things we want others to believe.”

Neal Shusterman book Everfound

Source: Everfound

War

“Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”

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

Source: An Economist's Protest: Columns in Political Economy (1966), p. 107

People, Problem

“I finished your song, she said. Our last song. And I want to play it for you.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

“Don't concentrate on the obvious. They might want you to miss something else.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Sorcerer in the North

“Wherever love is, I want to be, I will follow it as surely as the land-locked salmon finds the sea.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Love, Sea

“So where do you start when you want to start your life again?”

Douglas Coupland Hey Nostradamus!

Source: Hey Nostradamus!

Life

“Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Passion

“I didn’t want to know that the monster that lived under your bed when you were a kid not only really is there but used to have a few beers with your dad.”

Robin McKinley book Sunshine

Source: Sunshine

Beer

“I want her to melt into me, like butter on toast. I want to absorb her and walk around for the rest of my days with her encased in my skin.

I want.”

Sara Gruen book Water for Elephants

Source: Water for Elephants

“He closed his eyes. “I’m so tired, Tess,” he said. “I only wanted pleasant dreams for once.”
“That is not the way to get them, Will,” she said softly. “You cannot buy or drug or dream your way out of pain.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Pain, Dreams, Way

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large ego must be in want of a woman to cut him down to size”

Melissa Nathan (1968–2006) British writer

Truth, Universe

“Absolutely not. I'm an expert in procrastination, but the last thing I want you to think is that I'm incompetent, too. Because I'm actually pretty good at what I do." -Jo”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

Thinking

“I want to be that person for him, I want to be the one who keeps him going during this difficult time.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Time, Personality

“There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

Source: An Autobiography

Change

“I'll never know what it was he wanted me to remember.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“Everybody wanted to be the hero of their own story. Nobody wanted to be comic relief.”

Lev Grossman The Magician King

Source: The Magician King

“He wanted to give her another word to say, something like luscious or whisper or strawberry. Hell, antidisestablishmentarianism would do it.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Eternal

Source: Lover Eternal

Hell

“They want to be natural, the anti-social little beasts. They just don't realize that everyone's good depends on everyone's cooperation.”

Richard Adams book Watership Down

Source: Watership Down

Nature, Dependency

“The combination of physical strength and moral sincerity combined with tenderness of heart is exactly what is wanted in a husband.--Ameila Peabody”

Elizabeth Peters (1927–2013) American author and egyptologist

Heart, Sincerity

“He wanted to be a poet,' someone else put in while Maggie hugged Tim and patted his back. 'Said he'd only lacked the words to be one.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Born in Fire

“He wanted to hit something or someone. He wanted to burn up the whole world, heal it, and burn it down again.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

World

“Yes, I want money more than anything else in the world.”

“Then you’ve made the only choice. But there’s a penalty attached, as there is to most things you want. It’s loneliness.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

Source: Gone With the Wind

Money, World, Penalty, Loneliness

“No, not you two. Stay here.'
'Does he just not get how unfair and sexist that is?' Eve asked. 'Men.'
'You really want to go first?'
'Of course no. But I'd like the chance toto go first.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Lord of Misrule

Men, Chance

“Whenever I look at the ocean, I always want to talk to people, but when I'm talking to people, I always want to look at the ocean.”

Haruki Murakami book Hear the Wind Sing

Source: Hear the Wind Sing

People

“Take what you want, and pay for it.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

“If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Not found in Jefferson's writings, according to the Jefferson Monticello center https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/if-you-want-something-you-have-never-had-quotation. First known appearance in print is from 2004. <br class="br">Misattributed

“What she mostly wanted, he learned, was the same thing many people want--someone to notice she was there.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

People, Learning

“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want for nothing. He makes me lie down in the green pastures. He greases up my head with oil. He gives me kung-fu in the face of my enemies. Amen”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

Lie

“See the TURTLE of enormous girth,
On his shell he holds the earth.
If you want to run and play,
Come along the BEAM today.”

Stephen King book The Gunslinger

Source: The Gunslinger

“… It makes me cry, I want to talk about something I am not sure I can talk about, I want to talk about the inside from the inside, I do not want to leave it
I am so happy in the silky damp dark of the labyrinth and there is no thread”

Hélène Cixous (1937) French philosopher and writer

Source: The Book of Promethea

Happiness, Cry

“I can buy your contract.” “No, you can’t. Any sale of our mortgage requires my consent, and I won’t consent to it.” He grinned. “You don’t want to work under me?” “I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Burn for Me

“If you want people to listen to you, you have to listen to them. If you hope people will change how they live, you have to know how they live. If you want people to see you, you have to sit down with them eye-to-eye.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Source: My Life on the Road

People, Hope, Change

“I don't want to hurt myself. I want to stop hurting.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

Hurt

“But it's funny how the memory works and how sometimes we just belive whatever we want.”

Chris Bohjalian (1962) American novelist

Source: Secrets of Eden

Memory

“Mundus vult decipi: the world wants to be deceived.”

Martin Buber book I and Thou

Source: I and Thou

World

“The angel brought you back."
"Because you asked him to. You could have anything alse in the world, and you asked for me."
"But I dont want anything else in the world. I love you. I would do it again. I would ask for you.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Love, World, Angels

“Why do I act like this, agreeing when I really disagree, letting people force me to do things I don't want to do?”

Haruki Murakami book The Strange Library

Source: The Strange Library

People

“If you limit your choice only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.”

Robert Fritz (1943) American managemetn consultant

Source: The Path of Least Resistance

“Before you make a decision," he said, "I want you to know that I love you.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Queen of Attolia

Source: The Queen of Attolia

Love, Decision

“a depressed person doesn't want you to try and cheer them up. It makes us
sick.”

Brandon Sanderson Elantris

Source: Elantris

Personality

“I want to be with God all the time. But I don't want to be a monk, or totally give up worldly pleasures. I guess what i want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

God, Pleasure, World, Learning

“If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it, too. I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Variant: I don't want to be somebody's crush. if somebody likes me, i want them to like the real me, not what they think i am. And i don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so i can feel it too. - Sam
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Feeling, Thinking

“Fathers never have exactly the daughters they want because they invent a notion a them that the daughters have to conform to.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Source: The Woman Destroyed

Daughters, For Father

Quotes about want page 47

Quotes about want
page 47