Quotes about want
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“It makes no difference where you go, there you are. And it makes no difference what you have, there’s always more to want. Until you are happy with who you are, you will never be happy because of what you have.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

Happiness

“I used to want the words "She tried" on my tombstone. Now I want "She did it."”

Katherine Dunham (1909–2006) Dancer, choreographer, songwriter, activist

“But sometimes you gotta do stuff you don’t want to do.”

P. C. Cast book Burned

Source: Burned

“The purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done.”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

Variant: The purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done. This is what fate demands of us.
Source: Brisingr

Life

“If you want someone to be ignored, then build a life-size bronze statue of them and stick it in the middle of town…”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Source: Wall and Piece (2005)

Life

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Personality

“I want him to love me as much as I love him.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: The Awakening

Love

“Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Source: Life's Little Instruction Book: 511 Suggestions, Observations, and Reminders on How to Live a Happy and Rewarding Life

Funny, Powerful, Dreams, Personality

“When you compare the sorrows of real life to the pleasures of the imaginary one, you will never want to live again, only to dream forever.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Life, Pleasure, Dreams

“Respect is how to treat everyone, not just those you want to impress.”

Richard Branson (1950) English business magnate, investor and philanthropist

Source: Screw It, Let's Do It: Lessons In Life

“I don't want… to run away by myself… because no matter what… I'd rather be together with everyone…”

Hiro Mashima (1977) Japanese manga artist

“The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell together, as quickly as possible.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Hell

“All things want to float.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

“…because talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

“If only I knew what I wanted I could try to see about getting it.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“You know that the things you put it your head stay there, right?'
'Yeah. But you remember some things, don't you?'
'Yeah. You remember the things you want to forget and forget the things you want to remember.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

Forgetting

“You can't just avoid the game by saying you don't want to play.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Game

“You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this:
“Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.”
I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: Hannah Coulter

Life, Way

“It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want—oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Spring, Heart

“When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.

--from WHEN DEATH COMES”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Variant: When it’s over, I want to say: All my life I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
Source: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1

Life, Death

“And so we exchange privacy for intimacy. We gamble with it, hoping that by exposing ourselves, someone will find a way in. This is why the human animal will always be vulnerable: because it wants to be.”

Max Barry (1973) Australian writer

Source: Lexicon

Hope, Way, Animals

“I just want to say to the kids out there watching: You can do anything you want in life. Unless Jay Leno wants to do it too.”

Conan O'Brien (1963) American television show host and comedian

Life

“love wasn't the soft, silky words the poets spoke of. Love, with it's twin edges, was the one factor that weakened so many women, that pushed them to compromised their own wants, their own needs for the needs and wants of another.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Sweet Revenge

Love, Women

“Life takes us by surprise and orders us to move toward the unknown — even when we don't want to and when we think we don't need to.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994)
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Life, Thinking

“It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

Change

“I don't want to put the world to rights… I just don't like people who put the world to wrongs.”

Lee Child book 61 Hours

Source: 61 Hours

People, World

“There was always a way, when one knew what one wanted.”

Donna Woolfolk Cross book Pope Joan

Source: Pope Joan

Way

“The smile made her want to hug him, and maybe love him up some more. Stupid smile.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Forever and a Day

Love, Stupidity, Smile

“When I look at small things, I think I shall go on living: drops of rain, leather gloves shrunk by being wet… When I look at something too big, I want to die: the Diet Building, or a map of the world…”

Kóbó Abe book The Box Man

Source: The Box Man

World, Thinking

“Everybody says they want to be free. Take the train off the tracks and it’s free-but it can’t go anywhere.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

Training

“I don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

"Susan Sontag Finds Romance" http://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/02/books/booksspecial/sontag-romance.html?ex=1168146000&en=d224e29f399a3317&ei=5070, interview with by Leslie Garis, The New York Times (2 August 1992)

Feeling, Passion

“I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

People, Art

“So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Source: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X

Life, Learning

“I wanted to let the world know that no one had a perfect life, that even the people who seemed to have it all had their secrets.”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

Life, People, Secret, World

“The golden rule for understanding spiritually is not intellect, but obedience. If a man wants scientific knowledge, intellectual curiosity is his guide; but if he wants insight into what Jesus Christ teaches, he can only get it by obedience.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

Understanding, Knowledge, Christ

“The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action in mind.”

Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer

"The Plowboy Interview: Frank Herbert", in Mother Earth News No. 69 (May/June 1981)
General sources

People

“I want to think and at the same time that's the last thing in the world I want to do.”

Erich Maria Remarque book The Black Obelisk

Source: The Black Obelisk

World, Thinking, Time

“If we discovered that we had only five minutes left to say all that we wanted to say, every telephone booth would be occupied by people calling other people to stammer that they loved them.”

Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet

Love, People

“Every artist is an unhappy lover. And unhappy lovers want to tell their story.”

Iris Murdoch book The Black Prince

Source: The Black Prince

Lovers

“What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest, because they’re dragging you down. They’re turning you into Microsoft. They’re causing you to turn out products that are adequate but not great.”

Walter Isaacson book Steve Jobs

Source: Steve Jobs

“Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it’s unbelievable.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda said, "Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable...

“If you want to learn how to be happy, you have to know what is sadness first.”

Etgar Keret book Missing Kissinger

Source: Missing Kissinger

Sadness, Learning, Happiness

“And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is something in you that wants to move out of it.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

Solitude

“Public education was not founded to give society what it wants. Quite the opposite.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Education

“I think it's so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is so momentary--you're happy for an instant and then you start thinking again. Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Life, People, Thinking, Happiness

“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.”

Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) Film actress from Sweden

Motivational, Success, Happy, For women

“If anyone were to ask me what I want out of life I would say- the opportunity for doing something useful, for in no other way, I am convinced, can true happiness be attained.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Life, Way, Happiness

“If I want a long boring story with no point to it, I have my life.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Life

“I wanted to do things to Richard that would make the sun grow cold with horror.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

Source: My Work is Not Yet Done: Three Tales of Corporate Horror

Sun

“I can't sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can't help it.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Three Men in a Boat

Source: Three Men in a Boat

Nature, Help

“I don't want to be a man," said Jace. "I want to be an angst-ridden teenager who can't confront his own inner demons and takes it out verbally on other people instead."
"Well," said Luke, "you're doing a fantastic job.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

People

“So I want to thank the Pentagon, the Soviet Union and the military-industrial complex from the bottom of my heart. Without them, I could never have become the man I am today.”

George Carlin book Last Words

Source: Last Words

Heart

“She wanted to go over and hug his tears away, but she was too frightened.”

Steven Spielberg (1946) American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur

Source: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Tear

“It's a big deal when you finally get the chance to do the one thing you want to do -need to do- more than anything. It can kind of scare the crap out of you.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Chance

“Keep things at arm's length… If you let anything come too near you want to hold on to it. And there is nothing a man can hold on to.”

Erich Maria Remarque book Three Comrades

Source: Three Comrades

“I have a very strict gun control policy: if there's a gun around, I want to be in control of it.”

Clint Eastwood (1930) actor and director from the United States

“Tell me how you want to die, and I'll tell you who you are.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Variant: Tell me how you want to die, and I'll tell you who you are.
Source: Tears and Saints (1937)

“I just found you - I don't want to leave you so soon.”

P. C. Cast book Untamed

Source: Untamed

“I don't want realism. I want magic!”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

“There are noble books but one wants the breath of life sometimes.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1 March 1838); published in The Letters of Margaret Fuller vol. I, p. 327, , edited by Robert N. Hudspeth (1983).
Context: There are noble books but one wants the breath of life sometimes. And I see no divine person. I myself am more divine than any I see — I think that is enough to say about them...

Life, Books

“Success in fighting means not coming at your opponent the way he wants to fight you.”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

Source: Vegas Moon

Way, Success, Fight

“Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

1910s, Mending Wall (1914)

Love

“In today's rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Thinking, Joy, Forgetting

“If you have enough book space, I don't want to talk to you.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Books

“No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Feeling

“When I want to read a novel, I write one.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Reading

“Leonard asks me if there's anything I need to know before he dies, I think about it for a minute, turn to him, say what's the meaning of life, Leonard? He laughs, says that's an easy one, my son, it's whatever you want it to be.”

James Frey My Friend Leonard

Source: My Friend Leonard

Life, Thinking

“We all do, kid. People have destructive impulses. Some of us want to see the world in ruins just for the fun of it… even if we're ruined along with it.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

People, World

“I make myself rich by making my wants few.”

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

“I want to love you simply, in words not spoken: tinder to the flame which transforms it to ash
I want to love you simply, in signs not expressed: clouds to the rain which make them evanescent (Aku Ingin-I Want)”

Sapardi Djoko Damono (1940) Indonesian poet

Love

“I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Lie, Heart

“I don’t want to be a supermodel; I want to be a role model.”

Queen Latifah (1970) American musician and actress

“I gave him my hard stare. “You're a control freak and I fight all authority. And you want us to mate?”
A wicked spark lit his eyes. “Many, many times.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Time, Fight

“Don't want to be near you for the thoughts we share but the words we never have to speak.”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

“If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Variant: If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.
Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 8

Hell, Time, Flying

“Human beings are poor examiners, subject to superstition, bias, prejudice, and a PROFOUND tendency to see what they want to see rather than what is really there.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth

“True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness: "I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live."”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics, Chapter 26 "The Civilizing Power of the Ethics of Reverence for Life"

Life

“There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

People, World

“Explain to me what loving feels like, Beth. I want to understand.”

Jennifer Ashley (1974) American author

Source: The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie

Love, Feeling, Understanding

“… there are two ways of being unhappy. Not getting what you want is one. Getting what you want is the other.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Way

“So few want to be rebels anymore. And out of those few, most, like myself, scare easily.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

“I want the following word: splendor, splendor is fruit in all its succulence, fruit without sadness. I want vast distances. My savage intuition of myself.”

Clarice Lispector (1920–1977) Brazilian writer

Source: The Stream of Life

Sadness

“Somethings in life are out of your control. you can make it a party or a tragedy. Or, you could refuse to take the next step. You could refuse to take what you wanted most because you're afraid some day you might lose it.”

Nora Roberts Vision in White

Source: Vision in White

Life

“I want it said of me by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Recalled in a letter from Joshua Speed in Herndon's Lincoln (1890), p. 527 http://books.google.com/books?id=rywOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA527&dq=%22plucked+a+thistle+and+planted+a+flower%22 <br class="br">Posthumous attributions

Flowers

“Go anywhere you wish, talk to everyone. Ask any questions; you will be given answers. When you want to learn, you will be taught. Use the library. Open any book.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Books, Question, Learning