Quotes about want
page 49

“What do you want from me?" he asks.
What I want from every person in my life, I want to tell him.
More.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Jellicoe Road

“people who try to control situations all the time are afraid that if they don't, nothing will work out the way they want.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

People, Way, Time

“We wanted to test each other's capacity for survival: only if we had tried in vain to destroy one another would we know we were safe.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: On Love

“He wanted to work in Hot Woman Valhalla until he died of testosterone poisoning. (Nick)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

“She would buy magic every day of the week. Love me, that face said. I'm so lonely, so desperate. I'll give you whatever you want.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Love

“I've come to know that what we want in life is the greatest indication of who we really are.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Gift

Life

“I don't-" I shake my head. (…)
"What? What were you going to say?" This is another trick of shrinks. They never let you stop in midthought. If you open your mouth, they want to know exactly what you had the intention of saying.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

“You have friends who actually care about you and speak the language of the inner self. You have avoided them of late. Your soul is as disheveled as your apartment, and until you can clean it up a little you don't want to invite anyone inside.”

Jay McInerney book Bright Lights, Big City

Source: Bright Lights, Big City

Soul

“Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know “why” I look this way. I’ve traveled a long way and some of the roads weren’t paved.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

People, Way, Travel

“My friends call me by my name."
"You don't have any friends."
"I don't want you to be my friend, Selia, or my servant, not now. I thought you were both. You have let me know I was wrong. So are you to treat me so. You are wrong.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

“so whatever you want to do, just do it… Making a damn fool of yourself is absolutely essential.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Fools

“Look, don’t get me wrong. I worship the ground this guy walks on. I’m excited to meet him tonight. I’m dying to meet him tonight. If he wanted to carry me off and make me his love slave, I’d do it, so long as I got advance copies of his books.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

Love, Books, Guy

“God wants us to live consistently, He wants us to enjoy every single day of our lives.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

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

God

“As for the age of electronics, Selena, I really don't want to get personal with something that comes with a warning label and batteries. (Grace)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Age, Personality

“Where does a werewolf sleep? Anywhere he wants to.”

Patricia Briggs book Silver Borne

Source: Silver Borne

Sleep

“How could you love someone and not want them to be happy?”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Danse Macabre

Source: Danse Macabre

Love, Happiness

“Amy," Elsie Moore said in her crackling voice, her gaze fixed on Declan. "I want you to get me a new bear. A blond one.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: On the Edge

“After all this kind of fanfare, and even more, I came to a point where I needed solitude and to just stop the machine of 'thinking' and 'enjoying' what they call 'living,' I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds…”

Jack Kerouac book Lonesome Traveler

Variant: I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of ‘thinking’ and ‘enjoying’ what they call ‘living’, I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds.
Source: Lonesome Traveler

Lie, Thinking, Solitude, Grass

“Something always happens. You still have to promise stuff anyway. If you have to work to make the promises true… it's like a spell. You have to say the words every time you want the results.”

Diane Duane book High Wizardry

Source: High Wizardry

Time

“I just want the pain to end.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

Pain

“A lot of people refuse to do things because they don't want to go naked, don't want to go without guarantee. But that's what's got to happen. You go naked until you die”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

People

“Mr. Rochester never courted Jane Eyre, Tessa pointed out.
No, he dressed up as a woman and terrified the poor girl out of her wits. Is that what you want?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Girl

“We really wanted to know all the unknowable things about each other and how we were the same and how we were different, if we even were, maybe nobody is.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

“When I am in the darkness, I want to think of it in the light, with you. - James Carstairs”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Thinking, Light

“Let me tell you about gays in the military. I don't want any gay people hanging around me while I'm killing kids. I just don't want to see it.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Variant: I don't want any gay people hanging around me while I'm killing kids. I just don't want to see it.

People

“I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. It didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women (1978)
Context: I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. On the other hand, when I got drunk I screamed, went crazy, got all out of hand. One kind of behavior didn't fit the other. I didn't care.

Personality

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a thirty-something woman in possession of a satisfying career and fabulous hairdo must be in want of very little”

Shannon Hale book Austenland

Source: Austenland

Truth, Universe

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Dogs

“From biscuit to brides, if there is anything their children really want, parents have a problem.”

Chetan Bhagat book 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Source: 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Children, Problem, Parent

“Live your life the way you want. You'll figure it out.”

John Grisham (1955) American lawyer, politician, and author

Life, Way

“Don't worry about your originality. You couldn't get rid of it even if you wanted to. It will stick with you and show up for better or worse in spite of all you or anyone else can do.”

Robert Henri (1865–1929) American painter

“… he did not want me to seek the whys, because there are some things that happen for which we can formulate no whys, for which whys simply do not exist and, perhaps, are not necessary.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Purple Hibiscus

Source: Purple Hibiscus

“Am I a man? To want you so badly that nothing else matters? To see you, and know I would sacrifice honor or family or life itself to lie wi' you, even though ye'd left me?”

Diana Gabaldon book Voyager

Source: Voyager

Life, Lie, Family

“I wondered if the person who really loves you is the person who knows all your stories, the person who WANTS to know all your stories.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Source: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Love, Personality

“She had to go on this quest. The fate of the world might depend on it. But part of him wanted to say: Forget the world. He didn’t want to be without her.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Fate, World, Parting, Dependency

“What you want most you push away from you.
You want more than you care to admit.”

Tarjei Vesaas (1897–1970) Norwegian poet

Source: The Bridges

“Mahon's wife stared down at us. Her hands went to her hips. "Which one of you idiots wants to explain to me what the hell is going on?"
With great effort I raised my arm and pointed in Mahon's general direction. "Him.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds - Awake

Hell, Effort

“I'll be anything you want, just tell me what you want and I'll be that.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

“The heart wants what the heart wants," she says, somewhat cryptically. I purse my lips in disapproval. "You'd think the heart would know better.”

Candace Bushnell book Summer and the City

Source: Summer and the City

Thinking, Heart

“You'll do what you think you want to do, or what you think you ought to do. If you're very lucky, luckier than anybody I know, the two will coincide.”

Wallace Stegner book Angle of Repose

Source: Angle of Repose

Thinking

“Wake up, Caitlin, Mr. Lensing had said. But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away. I understood those mermaids. I didn't care if they sang to me. All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again, pulling me upward into light, to drown.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

Life, Sleep, Light

“If you want a happy ending, it just depends on where you close the book!”

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

From the published screenplay for "The Big Brass Ring" (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Santa Teresa Press, 1987)
Variant: If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.

Happiness, Books, Dependency

“I want you to show them the difference between what they think you are and what you can be.”

Ernest J. Gaines A Lesson Before Dying

Source: A Lesson Before Dying

Thinking

“Well," I said finally, knowing he was waiting, "you make me laugh."
He nodded. "And?"
"You're pretty good-looking."
"Pretty good-looking? I called you beautiful."
"You want to be beautiful?" I asked him.
"Are you saying I'm not?”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Beauty, Waiting

“I wanted to read all these books, but I would have to have been in a rest home or something to do that (p. 37,).”

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

Books, Home, Reading

“Wo ai ni, Tessa,” he whispered. “Wo bu xiang shi qu ni.” She knew, without knowing how she knew, what the words meant. I love you. And I don’t want to lose you.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Prince

Love

“If he wants to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before him have made the same life choice.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

Life, Country

“Some morning while your eating breakfast and you need something new to think about, though, you might want to ponder the fact that you see your kids across the table not as they are but as they once were, about three nanoseconds ago.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Source: Death by Black Hole - And Other Cosmic Quandaries

Thinking

“To think what is true, to sense what is beautiful and to want what is good, hereby the spirit finds purpose of a life in reason.”

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic

Life, Beauty, Thinking, Sense

“If you only try to please others, you're going to resent those people you're trying to please; the ones who are often closest to you. If you choose a path that you yourself want to take, then you're going to be much kinder to the people in your life.”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Source: Plenty: A Collection of Sarah McLachlan's Favorite Recipes

Life, People

“I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

Responding to a press conference question as to whether he was a "card-carrying" member of the Black Muslims, as quoted in The New York Times (27 February 1964) http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F4091EF7355D17738DDDAE0A94DA405B848AF1D3; also in Sports Illustrated (9 March 1964). <br class="br">Context: I believe in Allah and in peace. I don't try to move into white neighborhoods. I don't want to marry a white woman. I was baptized when I was twelve, but I didn't know what I was doing. I'm not a Christian anymore. I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be... I'm free to be what I want.

Truth

“She had always wanted a brother. And she had one now. Sebastian. It was like always wanting a puppy and being a hellhound instead.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“You said you want to became Hokage. I have become the Kazekage. If you are willing to bear the name Kage, you have to do what you must do.”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist