| | |

want quotes

edits filters

“How I feel is that if I wanted anything I'd take it. That's what I've always thought all my life. But it happens that I want you, and so I just haven't room for any other desires.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
“everything is dear if you don't want it.” James Joyce, Ulysses
“If you want anything just ask for it” F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“I wanted the whole world or nothing.” Charles Bukowski, Post Office
“When you get used to that kind of life—of never having anything you want—then you stop knowing what it is you want.” Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
“You are one of those things that are ever found when least wanted, and when you are wanted, never!” Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
“Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want. Shame is when you turn your head away from something you do not want.” Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
“to be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.” Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness
“people need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want.” Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“Anything we want, we're trained to want.” Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters
“Offer them what they secretly want and they of course immediately become panic-stricken.” Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“Love Jo all your days, if you choose, but don't let it spoil you, for it's wicked to throw away so many good gifts because you can't have the one you want.” Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
“In making even horizontal and clear inspections we colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in.” Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd
“In truth, it is not want, but rather abundance, that creates avarice.” Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
“She said she knew we were safe with you, and always would be, because once, when she asked you to, you'd given up the thing you most wanted.” Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
“Even if you don’t have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don’t have that you don’t want.” Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One
“We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.” Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“We knew exactly what we wanted in each other. And even so, it ended. One day it stopped, as if the film simply slipped off the reel.” Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance
“I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands. I want to leave a footprint on the sand of a desert island. I want to play football with people. I want . . . I want everything.” Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
“We were closely pinched to bring our wants within our means; but the jail stood over the way, and I had a wholesome dread of the consequences of running in debt.” Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom
“One of the most important questions a woman can ask herself: What do I really want—and what is my spirit telling me is the best way to proceed?” Oprah Winfrey, What I Know For Sure
“Are these things really better than the things I already have? Or am I just trained to be dissatisfied with what I have now? Am I just under a spell that says nothing is ever good enough?” Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby
“After the primary necessities of food and raiment, freedom is the first and strongest want of human nature.” John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women
“We are often unable to tell people what they NEED to know, because they WANT to know something else, and would therefore only misunderstand what we said.” George MacDonald, Lilith
“If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell.” Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
“You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.” John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
“The dominant myth of the day seemed to be that anybody could do anything, even go to the moon. You could do whatever you wanted — in the ads and in the articles, ignore your limitations, defy them.” Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One
“What others? I don't profess to be different from my kind. I'm consumed by the same wants and the same longings.” Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
“our labour preserves us from three great evils—weariness, vice, and want.” Voltaire, Candide

Related topics

desire need misunderstanding life love knowledge happiness freedom fear work evil woman society achievement value eyes ambition contradiction way sacrifice

Related authors

F. Scott Fitzgerald (2)
Haruki Murakami (2)
Chuck Palahniuk (2)
Bob Dylan (2)
Michel de Montaigne (1)
Paulo Coelho (1)
John Steinbeck (1)
Charles Bukowski (1)
Neil Gaiman (1)
Bertrand Russell (1)
James Joyce (1)
Milan Kundera (1)
Louisa May Alcott (1)
Thomas Hardy (1)
Voltaire (1)
Frederick Douglass (1)
Oprah Winfrey (1)
Edith Wharton (2)
George MacDonald (1)
Sylvia Plath (1)

Related sources

Chronicles, Volume One (2)
The Alchemist (1)
Post Office (1)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1)
The Conquest of Happiness (1)
Little Women (1)
The Winter of Our Discontent (1)
The Great Gatsby (1)
The Beautiful and Damned (1)
Wuthering Heights (1)
The Subjection of Women (1)
The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (1)
Ulysses (1)
Invisible Monsters (1)
What I Know For Sure (1)
Far from the Madding Crowd (1)
Lilith (1)
The Age of Innocence (2)
The Graveyard Book (1)
Candide (1)