Quotes about want
page 52

“There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen”

Maurice Sendak book Where the Wild Things Are

Source: Where the Wild Things Are

“You wanted happiness, I can’t blame you for that, and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy but tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Source: Crush

Love, Happiness, Joy

“That someone can want something out of another person who gives absolutely nothing in return astounds me.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Personality

“I am; I was. I want to be.”

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

Source: Horns

“I want you to go back into the barrack and tell the men to come out after the storm. Tell them to look up at me tied here. Tell them I’ll open my eyes and look back at them, and they’ll know hat I survived.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

Men

“Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French. One of the things which Gertrude Butterwick had impressed on Monty Bodkin when he left for his holiday on the Riviera was that he must be sure to practise his French, and Gertrude’s word was law. So now, though he knew that it was going to make his nose tickle, he said:
‘Er, garçon.’
‘M’sieur?’
‘Er, garçon, esker-vous avez un spot de l’encre et une piece de papier—note papier, vous savez—et une envelope et une plume.’
The strain was too great. Monty relapsed into his native tongue.
‘I want to write a letter,’ he said. And having, like all lovers, rather a tendency to share his romance with the world, he would probably have added ‘to the sweetest girl on earth’, had not the waiter already bounded off like a retriever, to return a few moments later with the fixings.
‘V’la, sir! Zere you are, sir,’ said the waiter. He was engaged to a girl in Paris who had told him that when on the Riviera he must be sure to practise his English. ‘Eenk—pin—pipper—enveloppe—and a liddle bit of bloddin-pipper.’
‘Oh, merci,’ said Monty, well pleased at this efficiency. ‘Thanks. Right-ho.’
‘Right-ho, m’sieur,’ said the waiter.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Luck of the Bodkins

Source: The Luck of the Bodkins (1935)

World, Law, Girl, Lovers

“Sometimes life has a cruel sense of humor, giving you the thing you always wanted at the worst time possible.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Life, Sense, Time, Heartbreaking

“I don't want to see you. I don't like you. I don't like your face. You look like an insufferable egotist. You're impertinent. You're too sure of yourself. Twenty years ago I would have punched your face with the greatest of pleasure.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Pleasure

“I took the other road, all right, but only because it was the easy road for me, the way I wanted to go. If I've encountered some unnecessary resistance that's because most of the traffic is going the other way.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

Source: Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

Way

“I don’t. I don’t want anybody else to touch you. I’m silly. I get furious if they touch you.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

“If things go badly for me tonight, I want you to stay with Mr. Wynter; he will pay you a decent wage.”

“Will he make me bathe?”

“No, he will debate the matter with you until you decide to wash.”

“Ah. One of those.”

Eoin Colfer book Airman

Source: Airman

“You think you want to know something, and then once you do, all you can think about is erasing it from your mind.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Thinking

“That's another reason I keep putting marriage off. I know I want something like what you two share, and I'm not sure I've found it yet. I'm not sure I ever will. And with love like that… they say anything's possible, right?”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

Love, Marriage

“You wanted us all back together again!" Bonnie shouted at Caroline, and pulled the scandalized girl into the dance. Meredith, her dignity forgotten, joined them too.
And for a long time in the clearing there was only rejoicing.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Dark Reunion

Girl, Time, Dance

“So society has strangled in its asylums all those it wanted to get rid of or protect itself from, because they refused to become its accomplices in certain great nastiness.”

Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director

Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society (1947)
Context: And what is an authentic madman? It is a man who preferred to become mad, in the socially accepted sense of the word, rather than forfeit a certain superior idea of human honor. So society has strangled in its asylums all those it wanted to get rid of or protect itself from, because they refused to become its accomplices in certain great nastinesses. For a madman is also a man whom society did not want to hear and whom it wanted to prevent from uttering certain intolerable truths.

“I don't want to hear any words like that while I'm here. Scout, you'll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?'

I said not particularly.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Scouting

“The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret… but you wont find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled.”

Christopher Priest book The Prestige

Source: The Prestige

Secret, Fools

“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

“You can't fool me, comrade. You want to put on a cowboy hat and keep lawless bank robbers in line.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Fools

“Books--oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same
feelings."

"I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be
no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Books, Feeling, Thinking, Reading

“If you want to be happy, be!”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Happiness

“I want to question my belief, so that what is left after I have questioned it, will be even stronger.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Question

“In this pause, I suddenly saw something very clearly.

Whatever it was I wanted from my mother was simply not there to be had. It was not her fault.

And it was therefore not my fault that I was unable to elicit it.”

Alison Bechdel book Are You My Mother?

Source: Are You My Mother?

“If I don't want to be seen, you don't see me.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

“Listen to me, Cammie. There are things in this life…in this world…There are things that you don’t want to remember.” - Rachel Morgan”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

Life, World

“Stop calling your akri your daddy. It makes my wings droop. (Xirena)
My akri is my daddy. He said so and it is so, so your wings can droop all they want, ‘cause it won’t change anything! (Simi)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Devil May Cry

Change

“… It's hard to make changes. Things get so comfortable and you don't want to move. Maybe it would do you good to be a little uncomfortable for a while, and do something different…”

Danielle Steel book Legacy

Source: Legacy

Change

“She wanted him to notice her so much.”

Ann Brashares The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Source: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

“We often cause ourselves suffering by wanting only to live in a world of valleys, a world without struggle and difficulty, a world that is flat, plain, consistent.”

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

Source: Belonging: A Culture of Place

World, Suffering

“But you’re everything I want. Remember that. I love you, Lia. Not a title. And not because a piece of paper says I should. Because I do.”

Mary E. Pearson (1955) young-adult fiction writer

Source: The Heart of Betrayal

Love

“There are things we want, and things we may have…. Sanity lies in knowing the difference.”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Death's Mistress

“A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whether they really want it.”

Lionel Shriver book Checker and the Derailleurs

Source: Checker and the Derailleurs

People, Thinking

“A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are.”

Donna Tartt book The Goldfinch

Source: The Goldfinch

People, Understanding, Heart

“If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

Hurtful

“Love is not about what you want. It's about finding happiness for the one you love.”

Terry Goodkind book Wizard's First Rule

Source: Wizard's First Rule

Love, Happiness

“The strange thing was, he wanted to like everyone. He just couldn't find a way to do it.”

David Guterson book Snow Falling on Cedars

Source: Snow Falling on Cedars

Way

“I am a jumble of passions, misgivings, and wants. It seems that I am always in a state of wishing and rarely in a state of contentment.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Passion

“Be out of the mainstream. I'm out of the mainstream. I enjoy it, who wants to be in the mainstream?”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Victory Begins at Home (20 January 2004)
Context: Now if you're just out of the mainstream, if you don't have blind Bush love, you are somehow suspect. Don't ever let them tell you that. Be out of the mainstream. I'm out of the mainstream. I enjoy it, who wants to be in the mainstream? When Ronald Reagan was running, he would always say 'it's morning in America' and everybody would smile and I would think 'yeah but, I'm not a morning person'. I'm the guy who thinks religion is bad and drugs are good. I think children aren't innocent, god doesn't write books, and Jesus wasn't a republican. I think girls hate each other, no doesn't mean no and being drunk is funny. I'm for mad cow disease, how am I gonna win that? I'm against suing tobacco companies. I think abstinence is a perversion. I think Bush's lies are worse than Clinton's. I think Vegas was better when it was run by the mob. I think men are only as loyal as their options. I think stereotypes are true and rehab is for quitters.

“It never seemed fair that just when you're old enough to do anything you want, you can't. You have to start working, so there's no time. And if there is time, you're not working, so there's no money.”

Terri Farley (1950) American writer

Source: Seven Tears Into the Sea

Money, Time

“I want to live," he said, "So I have to die.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

“There’s always a choice. That’s God’s way, always will be. Your will is still free. Do as you will. There’s no set of leg-irons on you. But… this is what God wants of you.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

God, Way

“I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Food, Dreams, Animals

“Wittgenstein once wrote that when the eye sees something beautiful, the hand wants to draw it. I wish I could draw you.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love

Beauty, Drawing

“All any of us wanted, really, was to know that we counted. That someone else's life would not have been as rich without us here.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Life

“If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

Life, Dreams

“Oh, come on, Arthur."
"I don't want to hear it, Andy."
"Jesus Christ"
"He doesn't want to hear it, either.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Christ

“Oh Alexander," she said, "what do you want from me…"
"Everything!" he whispered fiercely.”

Paullina Simons book The Bronze Horseman

Source: The Bronze Horseman

“Wow, look at this setup. NASA called. They want Houston back.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end.”

Gilda Radner (1946–1989) American comedian

Way, Learning, Perfection

“I wonder if other mothers feel a tug at their insides, watching their children grow up into the people they themselves wanted so badly to be.”

Jodi Picoult book Keeping Faith

Source: Keeping Faith

Children, People, Feeling

“BE QUIET!!… What do you want…? I was in the middle of saying something nice…”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Source: Bleach, Volume 01

“You need Power,
only when you want
to do something harmful
otherwise
Love is enough to get everything done.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Love

“An eye for an eye? How Christian of you.'

Unbelievers always want other people to act like Christians.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Shadow

Source: Ender's Shadow

People

“If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, "This sucks. I'm going to do my own thing.”

Yvon Chouinard (1938) American mountain climber

Source: Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

Understanding, Study

“The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Source: On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978

Truth

“You are freakishly tall, aren’t you? (Tory)
For a woman wanting my help you are ever determined to insult me. Should I make this as painless as possible and leave now before the die-painfully-you-asshole-prick stuff starts again? (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Help

“What i want is for what i want to actually matter.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Six Earlier Days

“It was not generally realized that what children mostly wanted was to be left alone.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Children

“It's scary when it's real. When it's not just thinking about a person, but, like, having a real live person in front of you, with, like, expectations. And wants.”

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

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Thinking, Personality

“She wanted to feel safe. Untouchable in her home. The ultimate female fantasy.”

Kathy Reichs book Déjà Dead

Source: Déjà Dead

Feeling, Home

“I didn’t hear him behind me. I felt him. Electric. Wild. One foot in the swamp. Never going to crawl all the way out.
And I wanted to have sex with whatever he was. Where was I supposed to put that in my head?”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

Sex, Way

“Healthy striving is about striving for internal goals, and wanting to be our best selves. Perfectionism is not motivated internally. Perfectionism is about what people will think. And you do not see effective leaders in corporations sitting on an email for three hours to make sure it’s worded just perfectly. You don’t. They have work to get done.. You don’t see elite athletes letting themselves be discouraged by a bad workout or a single bad performance. It happens all the time. They’re accustomed to winning, they’re accustomed to losing. Once perfectionism becomes the goal, they’re out of the sport.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Washington Post, October 2012 http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/exhaustion-is-not-a-status-symbol/2012/10/02/19d27aa8-0cba-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story_2.html <br class="br">Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

People, Motivation, Thinking, Sport

“Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled — to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

"The Ponds"
House of Light (1990)

Life, World

“He killed himself for wanting to live.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“Tsze-Kung asked, “Is there one word with which to act in accordance throughout a lifetime?” The Master said, “Is not reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Analects

“I am what I want to be," he said. "You forgot that— and that was your mistake.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: The Kill

“Only yesterday a young woman came to me wanting a trap set for a man with a sweet smile and lithe arms. She was a fool, not for wanting him, but for wanting more of him than that.”

Patricia A. McKillip (1948) American fantasy writer

Smile, Fools

“I wanted to remember in order to be able to return.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

“What happens when we get back?
I don't know. I guess we try and forget.
I don't want to forget.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Forgetting

“And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.”

Raymond Carver book A New Path to the Waterfall

Source: A New Path to the Waterfall

Life, Feeling

“I never could stand being forced to do something I didn't want to do at a time I didn't want to do it. Whenever I was able to do something I liked to do, though, when I wanted to do it, and the way I wanted to do it, I'd give it everything I had.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Way, Time

“Slowly but surly I want to strip her of every kind of happiness as to make a saint of her.”

Jean Genet book Our Lady of the Flowers

Source: Our Lady of the Flowers

Happiness

“The truth is… you think what people want you to think.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

People, Truth, Thinking

“All I can say is, she's the one I think about. All the time. She's the voice I want to hear. She's the face I hope to see. - Sam Roxton”

Sophie Kinsella book I've Got Your Number

Source: I've Got Your Number

Hope, Thinking, Time

“The search for truth takes you where the evidence leads you, even if, at first, you don't want to go there.”

Bart D. Ehrman (1955) American academic

Source: Forged: Writing in the Name of God

Truth, Search

“And I just want to tell you, at some point it doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong. At some point, being
angry is just another bad habit, like smoking, and you keep poisoning
yourself without thinking about it.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: This is Where I Leave You

Thinking

“I want to tell you a terrific story about oral contraception. I asked this girl to sleep with me and she said 'No.”

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

Standup Comic (1999)
Context: A fast word about oral contraception. I was involved in an extremely good example of oral contraception two weeks ago. I asked a girl to go to bed with me, she said "no."

Girl, Sleep