Quotes about want
page 96

Benito Mussolini photo

“I want to make my own life a masterpiece.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Talks with Mussolini (1932), quoting earlier remarks
As quoted in " Duce (1922-42)" in TIME magazine (2 August 1943) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,777927-4,00.html
1930s
Variant: I shall make my own life a masterpiece.

Octavia E. Butler photo
Benvenuto Cellini photo

“I said, in response to his words, that men who wanted to do things in their own way had better make a world in their own way, because in this world things are not done like this.”

Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571) Florentine sculptor and goldsmith

Dissi, a quelle parole, che gli uomini che volevan fare a lor modo, bisognava che si facessino un mondo a lor modo, perché in questo non si usava cosí.
Autobiography, vol. 1, ch. 79 (1558-66); translation from Benvenuto Cellini (trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella) My Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) p. 132.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee photo

“I have a vision of India: an India free of hunger and fear, an India free of illiteracy and want. I dream of an India that is prosperous, strong and caring. An India, that regains a place of honour in the comity of great nations.”

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924–2018) 10th Prime Minister of India

Vajpayee during his 1999 Independence Day speech. Quoted from Vajpayee No More: Here Are His Five Most Powerful Quotes https://swarajyamag.com/insta/vajpayee-no-more-here-are-his-five-most-powerful-quotes Swaraja, Aug 16 2018

Laurie Penny photo
Paul Robeson photo
Gertrude Stein photo
Jared Diamond photo

“The world is changing…. I don't, as a consumer, want advertising that's not relevant. If we're going to take a side let's take the side of the consumer.”

Charlie Ergen (1953) American businessman

Interview with CNBC's Julia Boostin http://www.cnbc.com/id/100451269 (1995)

Aron Ra photo
Billy Corgan photo
Louisa May Alcott photo
Georgia Hopley photo
Mike Oldfield photo
Ada Leverson photo
Patrick Stump photo
Yousef Saanei photo

“Unfortunately, the source of all this conflict between the Sunnis and Shia is some major powers that do not want religious unity amongst Muslims.”

Yousef Saanei (1937) Iranian grand ayatollah

The Women’s Mufti: Interview with Grand Ayatollah Yousef Saanei http://www.aawsat.net/2007/04/article55263124, Asharq Alawsat, April 2007.
2007

Christopher Hitchens photo
Michelangelo Antonioni photo

“I always want to tell stories. But they must be stories that evolve, like our own lives. Perhaps what I seek is a new kind of story.”

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912–2007) Italian film director and screenwriter

Encountering Directors interview (1969)

Koenraad Elst photo
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo

“They want liberalization! I'll give them liberalization. I'll loosen the screws until the Americans beg me to tighten them again.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

As quoted in Marvin Zonis (1991), Majestic Failure: The Fall of the Shah, page 109
Attributed

Rufus Wainwright photo
Aaron Judge photo

“We didn’t win the World Series. How are we satisfied with that? That’s what we want. That’s why we work, that’s why we train, that’s why we do everything in the offseason, the cage work. Everything is to get an opportunity to win a World Series. We came up short.”

Aaron Judge (1992) American baseball player

quoted by Newsday https://www.newsday.com/sports/aaron-judge-makes-spectacular-catch-but-falls-short-at-the-plate-in-yankees-game-7-loss-1.14574441

Samuel R. Delany photo
August Spies photo

“We did not want bloodshed, for we are not bandits. We would not be socialists, if we were bandits. /…/ When the preacher of the truth meets the death penalty, well - proud and defiant, I will pay the price.”

August Spies (1855–1887) American upholsterer, radical labor activist, and newspaper editor

Translated from Swedish: http://www.kommunisterna.org/politik/texter/socialismens-lardomar/riv-galgarna

Glenn Beck photo

“I do not want other artists to imitate my work – they do even when I tell them not to – but only [ imitate] my example for freedom and independence from all external, decadent and corrupting influences..”

Clyfford Still (1904–1980) American artist

1960s
Source: 'A period of Exploration', McChesney, as quoted in The New York school – the painters & sculptors of the fifties, Irving Sandler, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1978, p 35

Donald Rumsfeld photo

“The natural state of man is to want to be free. To have opportunities. To have choices.”

Donald Rumsfeld (1932) U.S. Secretary of Defense

On Arab Spring, Rumsfeld, that he wasn't surprised by popular uprisings of Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/08/rumsfeld.interview/index.html March 9, 2011.
2010s

Tracey Ullman photo

“They hold onto a small child who's hungry, then go back to their homes and feel good about themselves. That's how I perceive actors getting involved in politics and charities. They want even more attention for themselves, it's in their nature.”

Tracey Ullman (1959) English-born actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, director, author and businesswoman

"Tracking Tracey" http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/ullman.htm (Interview, January 1989)

Michele Bachmann photo
Charles Stross photo
Stephen Colbert photo

“We decided that my character had a pre-show tradition, like a ritual, which was to sing the lyrics to "I Want You To Want Me" by Cheap Trick into the mirror. Because, more than anything else, as much as he says he's bringing the truth, he just wants to be liked.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Parade web exclusive interview http://www.parade.com/celebrity/articles/070923-stephen-colbert.html (19 September 2007)

Michael J. Behe photo

“Many people, including many important and well-respected scientists, just don’t want there to be anything beyond nature. They don’t want a supernatural being to affect nature.”

Michael J. Behe (1952) American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate

Source: Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (1996), p. (1996).

Baruch Ashlag photo
Morrissey photo
Glen Cook photo

“A teacher?”
“Yes. He argued that we are the gods, that we create our own destiny. That what we are determines what will become of us. In a peasantlike vernacular, we all paint ourselves into corners from which here is no escape simply by being ourselves and interacting with other selves.”
“Interesting.”
“Well. Yes. There is god of sorts, Croaker. Do you know? Not a mover and shaker, though. Simply a negator. An ender of tales. He has a hunger that cannot be sated. The universe itself will slide down his maw.”
“Death?”
“I do not want to die, Croaker. All that I am shrieks against the unrighteousness of death. All that I am, was, and probably will be, is shaped by my passion to evade the end of me.” She laughed quietly, but there was a thread of hysteria there. She gestured, indicating the shadowed killing ground below. “I would have built a world in which I was safe. And the cornerstone of my citadel would have been death.”
The end of the dream was drawing close. I could not imagine a world without me in it, either. And the inner me was outraged. Is outraged. I have no trouble imagining someone becoming obsessed with escaping death.
“I understand.”

“Maybe. We’re all equals at the dark gate, no? The sands run for us all. Life is but a flicker shouting into the jaws of eternity. But it seems so damned unfair!”
Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 39, “A Guest at Charm” (p. 625)

Muammar Gaddafi photo

“I want provocation. People should take to the streets. Smash those dogs, and tell them: "you traitors will bring us the British."”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Statement (8 March 2011), as quoted in "Libya on the Line: An interactive timeline Browse through a collection of conversations between Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam and other senior Libyan officials" at Aljazeera (11 May 2012) http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/spotlight/libyaontheline/2012/05/201251173614897923.html
Al Jazeera's mobile phone wiretaps

Mike Huckabee photo

“Hi, I'm Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, wanting to say "Congratulations, Canada, on preserving your national igloo."”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Talking to Americans - Capitol building is an igloo, Canadian Content, 2007-04-23 http://video.canadiancontent.net/16321139-talking-to-americans-capitol-building-is-an-igloo.html,

Antonin Scalia photo

“The Court's reliance upon stare decisis can best be described as contrived. It insists upon the necessity of adhering not to all of Roe, but only to what it calls the 'central holding.' It seems to me that stare decisis ought to be applied even to the doctrine of stare decisis, and I confess never to have heard of this new, keep-what-you-want-and-throw-away-the-rest version.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

On stare decisis (adhering to judicial precedent): Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=505&invol=833&friend=oyez (1992) (dissenting).
1990s

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Matthijs Maris photo

“Last year I asked too much of my strength. I can't go on like this. it was not possible for me, I had to step back, I didn't make anything but stones [about his paintings? ] … They wanted to see beautiful paintings but I still couldn't make them, one illusion disappears for the other. I have made Cold reality, and I have made Truth. Is there a truth, also the cold reality is a truth. What exists between them was [only] baroque convention. I threw away everything in the stove... I am messing up my time with them; what is nothing more than material is no art to me; I could not bring it out..”

Matthijs Maris (1839–1917) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van J. H. Weissenbruch, in het Nederlands: Ik heb verleden jaar een beetje te veel van mijn krachten gevergd, ik kan dat niet volhouden, het was mij niet mogelijk, ik moest weder terug, ik heb niets zitten maken als steenen [over zijn schilderijen?].. .Zij hebben van mij mooie schilderijen willen zien en ik heb ze nog niet kunnen maken, de eene illusie verdwijnt voor de andere, ik heb de koude werkelijkheid gemaakt, en ik heb de Waarheid gemaakt. Is er een waarheid, de koude werkelijkheid is ook een waarheid. Wat daartusschen ligt was baroque conventie. Ik heb alles in de kachel gestopt.. ..ik zit er mijn tijd op te verknoeien; wat materieel is, is voor mij geen kunst. Ik heb die er niet uit kunnen brengen.
in a letter to E. Goossens van Eijndhoven, c. 1886, published in Onze Kunst, 1918, p. 136; as cited in 'Matthijs Maris' in Palet serie; een reeks monografieën over Hollandsche en Vlaamsche schilders https://archive.org/details/paletserieeenree4amstuoft, dr. H. E. v. Gelder; H. J. W. Becht, Amsterdam, pp. 13-14
Matthijs was that year painting his famous work 'The Bride, or Novice taking the Veil / De Kerkbruid' https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Matthijs_Maris#/media/File:Matthijs_Maris_The_Bride,_or_Novice_taking_the_Veil,_c_1887.jpg

Elliott Smith photo

“Haven't laughed this hard in a long timeI better stop now before I start cryingGo off to sleep in the sunshineI don't want to see the day when its dying.”

Elliott Smith (1969–2003) American singer-songwriter

Twilight.
Lyrics, From a Basement on the Hill (posthumous, 2004)

Dave Barry photo

“I think Superman should go on the Larry King show and announce that he would come back to life if people in all 50 states wanted him to.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Columns and articles
Source: New York Times News Service article http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:AWNB:ORLB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0EB4F0B407FF900A&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=25BDDD9B91CF4278985B1339326C0BAB on reactions to the death of Superman, November 1992

Frans de Waal photo
Adrienne von Speyr photo

“Ultimate audacity: to want to love a person—to say nothing of one's neighbor!—as God loves him.”

Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) Swiss doctor and mystic

Source: Lumina and New Lumina (1969), p. 15

John Mayer photo

“I was smart enough to know it would probably make me a salable item for the paparazzi. I knew I’d have to move to a home that had a gate. But that pearl of possibility that lives in your heart when you meet somebody you want to know more about has such a different molecular density than everything else that you have to pursue it.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

On deciding to date Jennifer Aniston
(February 10, 2010), "John Mayer: Playboy Interview" http://www.playboy.com/articles/john-mayer-playboy-interview/index.html?page=1 Playboy. Retrieved February 10, 2010.

Georges St. Pierre photo
Russell Brand photo
R. Scott Bakker photo

“I wanted a literate, socially intricate, and cosmopolitan world - something I could have fun destroying.”

R. Scott Bakker (1967) Canadian writer

"Interview with R. Scott Bakker" http://www.sffworld.com/interview/7p0.html, SFFWorld.com, 2004-07-18 (accessed 2006-04-14)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Amitabh Bachchan photo
Barbara Bush photo
Kalle Lasn photo
Robert Fulghum photo
Richard Henry Dana Jr. photo
Benjamín Netanyahu photo

“In the Israeli democracy, we will continue to protect the rights of both the individual and the group, this is guaranteed. But the majority have rights too, and the majority rules, the vast majority of people want to preserve the Jewish character of our country for generations to come, this combination of individual rights and group rights are the definition of a Jewish and democratic state.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

As quoted in Defending controversial Jewish state bill, Netanyahu says ‘majority rules’ https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/pm-defends-controversial-jewish-state-bill-says-majority-have-rights-too/ (12 July 2018) by Tamar Pileggi, The Times of Israel.
2010s, 2018

Alison Bechdel photo
El Lissitsky photo
Neil Gaiman photo
A. P. Herbert photo
Timothy Ferriss photo
Terry Gilliam photo

“People in Hollywood are not showmen, they're maintenance men, pandering to what they think their audiences want.”

Terry Gilliam (1940) American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe

IMDB profile http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000416/bio#quotes

Anthony Wayne photo

“Forward, my brave fellows, forward! Carry me into the fort. If I am to die, I want to die at the head of the column!”

Anthony Wayne (1745–1796) Continental Army general

upon being wounded in the head at Stony Point
Attributed

Jack LaLanne photo

“That's what I wanted! I wanted to be an athlete, I wanted the girls to like me, and I wanted to be able to get good grades in school, and this man said I could do all that.”

Jack LaLanne (1914–2011) American exercise instructor

In "Jack LaLanne dies at 96; spiritual father of U.S. fitness movement, LosAngeles Times"

Gloria Estefan photo
Richard Feynman photo

“Perhaps you will not only have some appreciation of this culture; it is even possible that you may want to join in the greatest adventure that the human mind has ever begun.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

volume III, "Feynman's Epilogue", p. 21-19 (closing sentence)
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

Patton Oswalt photo
Roger Federer photo

“People sometimes miss it and sometimes they don't have it and they want it, and when they have it, they don't want it”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

On rivalries (while referring to his rivalry with Rafael Nadal http://www.asapsports.com/show_interview.php?id=36200 (July 9, 2006)

Clive Staples Lewis photo
Dennis Miller photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Adolf Hitler photo

“When our party had only seven men, it already had two principles. First, it wanted to be a party with a true ideology. And second, it wanted to be the one and only power in Germany.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

1930s, From the film Triumph of the Will (1935)

Glenn Beck photo

“And it was from America. Progressive movement in America. Eugenics. In case you don't know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. …. The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening. So I guess I have to put my name on yes, I hope Barack Obama fails. But I just want his policies to fail; I want America to wake up.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

Powers
Ryan
Beck: Stem-cell research will lead directly to the search for a new ‘master race.’
2009-03-09
ThinkProgress
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/09/beck-eugenics/
The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2009-03-09
on President Obama overturning the ban on federally funded stem cell research
2000s, 2009

Arlen Specter photo

“I didn't want to get into a political debate with him, but my patience was running thin…My shorts were getting a little tight.”

Arlen Specter (1930–2012) American politician; former United States Senator from Pennsylvania

About disagreeing with President Bush on Iraq (January 30, 2007) http://web.archive.org/web/20070224235858/http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/16587417.htm?source=rss&channel=inquirer_nation.

Manuel Castells photo

“If you do not care about networks, the networks will care about you, anyway. For as long as you want to live in society, at this time and in this place, you will have to deal with the network society.
Because we live in the Internet Galaxy.”

Manuel Castells (1942) Spanish sociologist (b.1942)

Source: The Internet Galaxy - Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society (2001), Conclusion, The Challenges of the Network Society, p. 282

Joseph Heller photo
Alexandra Kollontai photo

“I revolted against this marriage of convenience, this marriage for money and wanted to marry only for love, out of a great passion.”

Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) Soviet diplomat

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

Christopher Walken photo

“Everybody always wants to work with Christopher Walken. I think he's the most interesting actor working today. His choices are always dangerous, which makes for interesting work. You can watch him eat a bowl of cereal and you'd be riveted because he's just unpredictable.”

Christopher Walken (1943) American actor

Mars Callahan, interview in Bob Strauss (February 24, 2003) "Still racking them up - Christopher Walken, Oscar nominee and star of 'Poolhall Junkies,' has no intention of slowing his prolific career", The Whittier Daily News.
About

Winston S. Churchill photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
James Marsters photo

“I was uncomfortable with smoking too much because a lot of young kids watch and I didn't want to make that cool.”

James Marsters (1962) American actor

James Marsters on Life After Buffy

Isa Genzken photo
Anthony Watts photo

“Global warming had become essentially a business in its own right. There are NGOs, there are organizations, there are whole divisions of universities that have set up to study this, this factor, and so there's lots of money involved and then so I think that there's a tendency to want to keep that going and not really look at what might be different.”

Anthony Watts (1958) American television meteorologist

Climate Change Skeptic Says Global Warming Crowd Oversells Its Message http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/09/why-the-global-warming-crowd-oversells-its-message.html, pbs.org, September 17, 2012.
2012

Albert Camus photo
African Spir photo
Mickey Spillane photo

“I always wanted to have Mike Mazurki play Hammer… too bad he couldn't act.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

Crime Time interview (2001)

Mikhail Bulgakov photo
William Golding photo
James Hudson Taylor photo
David Lloyd George photo

“Do these things for the sake of your country during the war. Do them for the sake of your country after the war. When the smoke of this great conflict has been dissolved in the atmosphere we breathe there will reappear a new Britain. It will be the old country still, but it will be a new country. Its commerce will be new, its trade will be new, its industries will be new. There will be new conditions of life and of toil, for capital and for labour alike, and there will be new relations between both of them and for ever. (Cheers.) But there will be new ideas, there will be a new outlook, there will be a new character in the land. The men and women of this country will be burnt into fine building material for the new Britain in the fiery kilns of the war. It will not merely be the millions of men who, please God! will come back from the battlefield to enjoy the victory which they have won by their bravery—a finer foundation I would not want for the new country, but it will not be merely that—the Britain that is to be will depend also upon what will be done now by the many more millions who remain at home. There are rare epochs in the history of the world when in a few raging years the character, the destiny, of the whole race is determined for unknown ages. This is one. The winter wheat is being sown. It is better, it is surer, it is more bountiful in its harvest than when it is sown in the soft spring time. There are many storms to pass through, there are many frosts to endure, before the land brings forth its green promise. But let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Loud cheers.
Speech in his constituency of Carnavon Boroughs (3 February 1917), quoted in The Times (5 February 1917), p. 12
Prime Minister

Bill Clinton photo

“Webb, if I put you over at Justice I want you to find the answers to two questions for me. One, who killed JFK? And two, are there UFOs?”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

To Webster Hubbell during his interview for Attorney General, 1992, according to Hubbell's book Friends in High Places (1997) http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_n2_v22/ai_20562397/
Attributed

Margaret Thatcher photo