Not Getting What We Want Quotes & Sayings

What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we're truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it's bad enough not getting what you want, but it's even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along. — Alain De Botton

The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far ... — Paulo Coelho

Do you know what Krisnamurti says? Consciously or unconsciously we are all completely selfish, and as long as we get what we want, we believe everything is all right.
'Getting what we want ... but is that happiness ?'
'I don't know. I know that not getting what you want is certainly unhappiness — James Salter

According to psychologists Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson, we have an unfortunate tendency to "miswant" - to want things that we won't like once we get them. "In a perfect world," they observe, "wanting would cause trying, trying would cause getting, [and] getting would cause liking."20 But ours is not a perfect world. In particular, our predictions about what we will like tend to be mistaken, and as a result, we tend to want things that, when we get them, will make little difference to our level of happiness. (The — William B. Irvine

Thank you for getting me," I try to say. My lips are so tired they don't want to move.
"Anytime,Zara.Really.I mean it." He seems to be smelling my hair.
"I know you hate me and everything but we should be friends," I tell him, closing my eyes.
"I don't hate you," he says. "That's not it at all."
"What is it then? Are you a victim of parthenophobia?"
"Parthenophobia?"
"Fear of girls."
"You are so strange." He moves back even closer to me, this wicked glint in his eyes like he's trying hard not to snort-laugh at me. His hand presses against the side of my head. Nobody has ever touched me like this before, all gentle and romantic, but strong at the same time. "I'm not afraid of girls."
"Then why haven't you kissed any?"
For a second his eyes flash. "Maybe the right one hasn't come around yet. — Carrie Jones

Do you think you're walking out on me, on your life, because you defended yourself against a monster?"
"I killed my father."
"You killed a fucking monster. You were a child. Are you going to stand there, look me in the face, and tell me that child was to blame?"
She opened her mouth, closed it. "It's not a matter of how I see it, Roarke. The law
"
"The law should have protected you!" With visions dancing evilly in his head, he snapped. He could all but hear the tight wire of control break. "Goddamn the law. What good did it do either one of us when we needed it most? You want to chuck your badge because the law's too fucking weak to care for it's innocents, for it's children, be my guest. Throw your career away. But you're not getting rid of me. — J.D. Robb

What you don't ever catch a glimpse of on your wedding day - because how could you? - is that some days you will hate your spouse, that you will look at him and regret ever changing a word with him, let alone a ring and bodily fluids. And nor do you think about your husband waking up in the morning being someone you don't recognize. If anyone thought about any of these things, then no one would ever get married. In fact, the impulse to marry would come from the same place as the same impulse to drink a bottle of bleach, and those are the kind of impulses we try to ignore rather than celebrate.
So we can't afford to think of these things because getting married - or finding a partner whom we will want to spend our lives with and have children by - is on our agenda. It's something we know we will do one day, and if you take that away from us then we are left with promotions and work and the possibility of a winning lottery ticket, and it's not enough. — Nick Hornby

You interrogated a man at Hades's compound a year ago. I heard what you did to him. I can't have dead prisoners here; we have to be better than that." "I didn't kill him," I objected, remembering the murderous bastard who'd tried to kill Hades before he'd been caught. Unfortunately we hadn't stopped him from killing his own wife and children. "You took his hands. You know he killed himself in our jail?" "Yeah, well, I'm not going to kill anyone. Just talk. They wanted to kill me back in Southampton, now they want to take me to talk. I'd like to know why. And I heard your prisoner died by getting into a fight with another prisoner." "He walked up to a cave troll and kicked him. The troll tore his head off and threw it fifty feet away. What would you call that?" "Suicide by troll. That's new. — Steve McHugh

When you play a show or festival, people know what they're getting; they want it. Then you're thrown onto a show where people are watching TV in their houses, and whether they ask for it or not, we're being played in front of them. There's a lot of negative feedback. — Tyler Joseph

I'm fairly certain, Captain," she said, "that the more you discover about me, the more you will dislike me. Therefore, let's cut to the chase and acknowledge that we don't like each other. Then we won't have to bother with the in-between part."
She was so bloody frank and practical about the whole thing that Christopher couldn't help but be amused.
"I'm afraid I can't oblige you."
"Why not?"
"Because when you said that just now, I found myself starting to like you."
"You'll recover," she said.
Her decisive tone made him want to smile. "It's getting worse, actually," he told her. "Now I'm absolutely convinced that I like you."
Beatrix gave him a patently skeptical stare. "What about my hedgehog? Do you like her, too?"
Christopher considered that. "Affection for rodents can't be rushed."
"Medusa isn't a rodent. She's an erinaceid. — Lisa Kleypas

Life is not just about getting what we want as quickly and easily as we want it; we must also examine the potential side effects of every action we take. — Fadi Hattendorf

This objective of getting what we want from other people-or getting them to do what we want them to do-threatens the autonomy of people, their right to choose what they want to do. And whenever people feel that they're not free to choose what they want to do, they are likely to resist, even if they see the purpose in what we are asking and would ordinarily want to do it. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

Is it possible that
we 'hate' politics because we have forgotten its specifi c and limited
nature, its overwhelming value, and also its innate fragility? Could it be
that our expectations are so high that politics appears almost destined
to disappoint? Democratic politics cannot make 'every sad heart glad',
as Crick argued, nor did it ever promise to do so. But not always
getting what you want, an awareness that public governance is often
slow and bureaucratic, a frustration that some decisions are hard to
understand or have to be made in secret, disbelief and anger at the selfinterested
behaviour of a small number of politicians, and an acceptance
that some people will always take out more from the system than
they put in - these are the prices you pay for living in a democracy. — Matthew Flinders

I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can't have both. Not at the same time. Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it's having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage. A lot of cheap seats in the arena are filled with people who never venture onto the floor. They just hurl mean-spirited criticisms and put-downs from a safe distance. The problem is, when we stop caring what people think and stop feeling hurt by cruelty, we lose our ability to connect. But when we're defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable. Therefore, we need to be selective about the feedback we let into our lives. For me, if you're not in the arena getting your ass kicked, I'm not interested in your feedback. — Brene Brown

Mercenary now, is that it? Being paid to kill people?" "This is a special favour," the Warlock replied. "When it is over, when I am told my services are no longer required, I will return home." "What are you getting out of this? What is Dragonclaw doing for you in return? Or maybe it's not Dragonclaw. Maybe it's the Necromancers as a whole. What do they want?" "I can't see the point of telling you, seeing as how you will be dead soon." "What do you know of the Passage?" Skulduggery asked. The Warlock shook his head. "I don't know what that is, and we have talked enough." His hand bubbled and boiled, and — Derek Landy

When we love another, we never ever seek to limit or restrict them in any way whatsoever. Love says, "My will for you is your will for you." Love says, "I choose for you what you choose for you." When I say, "I choose for you what I choose for you," then I'm not loving you. I'm loving me through you, because I'm getting what I want, rather than seeing you get what you want. — Neale Donald Walsch

I made a vow to God [in 2010], after so many letdowns and the relationship with my ex, I knew I really didn't want to continue making the same mistakes anymore. Women nowadays, we connect physically too soon without actually getting to know the person. If you don't actually give this person your body and then they let you down, there really isn't a great disappointment; not like it would be if you have already connected physically. I started going on that journey, and I thought to myself, you know what, the next man that I give my body to will be the man that God brought into my life. — Jessica White

Not getting what we want can be getting what we need — S.E. Sever

Prayer is not a matter of getting what we want the most. Prayer is a matter of giving ourselves to God and learning His laws, so that He can do through us what He wants the most. — Agnes Sanford

Also, please don't think I've forgotten about your outstanding service record, or about all the invaluable contributions that you've made to the company. Fire, the wheel, agriculture..It's an impressive list, old timer. A jolly impressive list. Don't get me wrong.
But well ... to be frank, we've had our problems , too. There's no getting away from it. Do you know what I think? A lot of it stems from? I'll tell you ...
It's your basic unwillingness to get on with the company. You don't seem to want to face up to any real responsibility, or to be your own boss. Lord knows you've been given plenty of opportunities. We've offered you promotion time and time again, and each time you've turned us down ...
To be frank, you're not really trying are you? — Alan Moore

Many people know what they want to have, but have no idea of who they want to be. Getting 'things' simply will not fulfill you. Only living and doing what you believe is 'the right thing' will give you that sense of inner strength that we all deserve. — Tony Robbins

I was about to order Chinese when I looked out the window and saw you. Hey, do you two want to stay? We're getting moo shu."
It was so like Uncle Chris to go from wanting to beat John up one minute, to inviting him for moo shu the next.
"Uh, maybe," I said. I pointed to the French doors, looking questioningly at John. He nodded. "Let's see how it goes, okay, Uncle Chris?"
"That'd be good," Uncle Chris said. "We could talk all this out."
John followed me inside, Uncle Chris trailing behind us, his expression curious rather than suspicious.
"I hate it when families fight," Uncle Chris was saying. "It makes it so uncomfortable ... "
I suppose I should have counted it lucky that it had been Uncle Chris, and not some other adult, I'd run into first at home. I wasn't sure if it was because of all the years he'd sent out of mainstream society-he still had no idea how to text, or what Google was-or if his personality was really this childlike. — Meg Cabot

Silas nods toward the green crosswalk sign and lightly places his hand on the small of my back to urge me forward. The touch sends shivers up my spine and the woozy feeling takes over. Walk, Rosie, walk. Don't be stupid.
Silas points several blocks away as we arrive on the opposite curb. "I can give you a ride home, if you don't mind waiting for a few hours. I've got to go see the power company getting my lights turned back on."
"I, um ... " Sit with Silas for a few hours in the power company office? And then for another half hour on the ride home? I want to. I really, really want to. But what will we talk about? How long will it take me to start giggling like a moron? I can lure a Fenris - sway my hips, giggle lustily, bat my eyelashes - but I have no idea how not to look like a bumbling idiot in front of Silas Reynolds. — Jackson Pearce

I mean, I don't know how the world broke. And I don't know if there's a God who can help us fix it. But the fact that the world is broken - I absolutely believe that. Just look around us. Every minute - every single second - there are a million things you could be thinking about. A million things you could be worrying about. Our world - don't you just feel we're becoming more fragmented? I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You'd think we'd be getting better at it. But there's just more and more chaos. The pieces - they're everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it's right, but because it would mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe that. — Rachel Cohn

There is something sad about people going to bed. You can see they don't give a damn whether they're getting what they want out of life or not, you can see they don't ever try to understand what we're here for. They just don't care. Americans or not, they sleep no matter what, they're bloated mollusks, no sensibility, no trouble with their conscience.
I'd seen too many troubling things to be easy in my mind. I knew too much and not enough. I'd better go out, I said to myself, I'd better go out again. Maybe I'll meet Robinson. Naturally that was an idiotic idea, but I dreamed it up as an excuse for going out again, because no matter how I tossed and turned on my narrow bed, I couldn't snatch the tiniest scrap of sleep. Even masturbation, at times like that, provides neither comfort nor entertainment. Then you're really in despair. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I tell him getting stuck is the commonest trouble of all. Usually, I say, your mind gets stuck when you're trying to do too many things at once. What you have to do is try not to force words to com. That just gets you more stuck. What you have to do now is separate out the things and do them one at a time. You're trying to think of what to say and what to say first at the same time and that's too hard. So separate them out. Just make a list of all the things you want to say in any old order. Then later we'll figure out the right order. — Robert M. Pirsig

I've come to believe that the function of torture in our society is not about getting information, in spite of what we might want to believe. It is merely about power. It tells the world that there is now no limit to what we will do when we feel threatened. — Nick Flynn

When we don't get what we want, there's a legitimate grieving, and then the spiritual journey truly begins, because not getting what we want breaks our self-reference; and once that is broken, we are aware that we are a part of a larger whole. It changes everything. — Mark Nepo

In the end idealism annoyed Bouvard. 'I don't want any more of it: the famous cogito is a bore. The ideas of things are taken for the things themselves. What we barely understand is explained by means of words that we do not understand at all! Substance, extension, force, matter and soul, are all so many abstractions, figments of the imagination. As for God, it is impossible to know how he is, or even if he is! Once he was the cause of wind, thunder, revolutions. Now he is getting smaller. Besides, I don't see what use he is. — Gustave Flaubert

Odd: I wish I could believe in reincarnation.
Chief Porter: Not me. Once down the track is enough of a test. Pass me or fail me, Dear Lord, but don't make me go through high school again.
Odd: If there's something we want so bad in this life but we can't have it, maybe we could get it the next time around.
Chief Porter: Or maybe not getting it, accepting less without bitterness and being grateful for what we have is a part of what we're here to learn. — Dean Koontz

In the lower-brow selection of tabloids that report on the weight of celebrities, one statement that follows women struggling with their weight around more than any other is "She got her body back." Here you'll find near-constant Britney coverage. But barring any transcendent out-of-body experiences, these women were never separated from their bodies. They've occupied them across various weights. This phrase is not about a woman getting back something she lost as much as it as about our approval that she has returned to something we want her to be. What is meant by this phrase is "We got her body back." We got the body we felt entitled to. — Alana Massey

Our purpose (in relationship) is to get what we want but God's purpose is to give us what we really need. We think things are going well only if we are getting along with others. But God says that it is also when we are not getting along with others that he is accomplishing his purpose.
God has designed our relationship to function as both a diagnosis and a cure. — Paul David Tripp

The future rushes in and all we can do is take our memories and move forward with them. Memory keeps only what it wants. Images from memories are sprinkled throughout our lives, but that does not mean we must believe that our own or other people's memories are of things that really happened. When someone stubbornly insists that they saw something with their own eyes, I take it as a statement mixed with wishful thinking. As what they want to believe. Yet as imperfect as memories are, whenever I am faced with one, I cannot help getting lost in thought. Especially when that memory reminds me of what it felt like to be always out of place and always a step behind. Why was it so hard for me to open my eyes every morning, why was I so afraid to form a relationship with anyone, and why was I nevertheless able to break down my walls and find him? — Kyung-Sook Shin

Things I learned from a man called "The Nazarene"
1- Being poor does not equal being miserable.
2- People will judge you, but their judgment should not define who you are.
3- Going against what others hold as true is not necessarily a bad thing.
4- Everyone is sacred.
5- Life is sometimes a lonely and dry place, like desert, but those times are there to help us meditate on what is truly important in our lives.
6- Complaining or getting angry because there is a storm in our lives solves nothing; embrace the storm and keep calm.
7- Treasure and protect the children of the world, they hold the key of what is pure and innocent; they are the way to freedom.
8- We are free to be who we want to be, it is our choice to be slaves or kings.
9- Fear nothing.
10- The person you don't like is also your neighbor.
11- The words following "I AM" define who we are, we must choose wisely. — Martin Suarez

Are you seeking great things for yourself, instead of seeking to be a great person? God wants you to be in a much closer relationship with Himself than simply receiving His gifts - He wants you to get to know Him. Even some large thing we want is only incidental; it comes and it goes. But God never gives us anything incidental. There is nothing easier than getting into the right relationship with God, unless it is not God you seek, but only what He can give you. — Oswald Chambers

I won't share you, Dylan. I mean that. If you think for one second now that we're married, you can try and pull some kind of shit over on me, you'd better think again. I can take whatever you can dish out when it comes to pain, embarrassment and humiliation, and whatever else you have going on in that wicked mind of yours, but I'll be damned if I'll share you with another woman. Or man."
What the fuck? I almost laugh at her, but she's so serious she would probably slap the shit out of me. "Calm the hell down. I'm not trying to pull anything over on you, okay? And seriously, a man?"
"Well, I don't know. Maybe one of your secrets is that you like getting pegged in the ass or something."
This time I laugh out loud at her and she narrows her eyes at me.
"Don't ask me to peg you either, because it's never going to happen."
I laugh even louder. Good God this woman is funny. "I promise you that I don't want to be pegged, Isa. — Ella Dominguez

It turns out that what money buys has rapidly diminishing emotional returns ... As long as we're not destitute, happiness depends less on getting what we want than appreciating what we already have. — Robert B. Reich

This is why those with greater social sensitivity have stronger friendships, better marriages, and are happier with their lives in general. At work, leaders do better when they have some sense of whether or not their instructions are being understood. Managers motivate their employees when they have some sense of what their employees want and need. Salesmen close more deals when they have some ability to know what their customers want and can modify their pitch accordingly. Most of us avoid getting into fistfights or looking like complete idiots because we have a reasonable sense of what others think and feel, and thus can manage our relationships reasonably well. Being able to understand others — Nicholas Epley

There's something sad about people going to bed. You can see they don't give a damn whether they're getting what they want out of life or not, you can see they don't even try to understand what we're here for. They just don't care. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Sometimes, it's not getting what we want that offers us the most important Lessons — Joseph Boyden

I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You'd think we'd be getting better at it. But there's just more and more chaos. The pieces - they're everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it's right, but because it will mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe in that. — David Levithan

Undoubtedly, the most important thing to remember is your time is not your own. Yes, we live in a time when people believe that you can and you should do exactly what you want, but all time belongs to God. So make sure your time is first dedicated to getting His work accomplished. — Monica Johnson

Everyone has it in them to express themselves that fundamental thing that they know they are inside. That rather beautiful afraid person. Which might get translated into aggression, or silence, or shyness, or all kinds of other things. But inside we know that we are huggable and lovable, and we want to love and be loved. That person is yearning for fulfillment. To be the person they know they can be and that's a constant journey; that's a process. It's not acquiring about this thing and then that thing, getting to this place, learning this technique, and finding out how this works. It's about the fact that other people are always more interesting than oneself. Let's forget what successful people have in common, if there's a thing unsuccessful people have in common it's that they talk about themselves all the time. — Stephen Fry

No more tubs for me." I jumped off the bed and pulled on a pair of Pack sweats. "They make me lose all sense."
Curran sprawled on the bed with a big self-satisfied smile. "Want to know a secret?"
"Sure."
"It's not the bathtub, baby."
Well, aren't we smug. I picked up the corner of the lowest mattress and made a show of looking under it.
"What are you looking for?"
"A pea Your Majesty."
"What?"
"You heard me."
I jumped back as he lunged and his fingers missed me by an inch.
"Getting slow in your old age."
"I thought you liked it slow."
A flashback to last night mugged me and my mind executed a full stop.
He laughed. "Ran out of snappy comebacks?"
"Hush. I'm trying to think of one. — Ilona Andrews

You may not have signed up for a hero's journey, but the second you fell down, got your butt kicked, suffered a disappointment, screwed up, or felt your heart break, it started. It doesn't matter whether we are ready for an emotional adventure - hurt happens. And it happens to every single one of us. Without exception. The only decision we get to make is what role we'll play in our own lives: Do we want to write the story or do we want to hand that power over to someone else? Choosing to write our own story means getting uncomfortable; it's choosing courage over comfort. — Brene Brown

I'm gonna piss you off, honey, probably enough for you to want to leave. I've got a temper and so do you, we're gonna clash. It won't feel good, it'll feel not worth it sometimes but, you leave me, I'll wait for you to come back. And you'll come back because, something we've both learned, this, what we have is worth getting over it. Whatever it is that ticks us off of holds us back, we know it's worth fighting for. — Kristen Ashley

I told them we're tired of the culture wars, tired of Christianity getting entangled with party politics and power. Millennials want to be known by what we're for, I said, not just what we're against. We don't want to choose between science and religion or between our intellectual integrity and our faith. Instead, we long for our churches to be safe places to doubt, to ask questions, and to tell the truth, even when it's uncomfortable. We want to talk about the tough stuff - biblical interpretation, religious pluralism, sexuality, racial reconciliation, and social justice - but without predetermined conclusions or simplistic answers. We want to bring our whole selves through the church doors, without leaving our hearts and minds behind, without wearing a mask. — Rachel Held Evans

However, when we see the world through the eyes of desire, we are always hoping that it will somehow magically provide us only good things; there will be no bad things, no painful things. Although the world actually is magically providing, that does not mean there is no pain. Pain is not a sign of things gone wrong. Our lives are actually a constant succession of pleasure and pain, getting what we want, then losing it. We experience pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute, constantly changing out of our control. This is what the world is naturally providing, and still we can be happy. — Sharon Salzberg

I want to be clear that when I used terms such as "pretense" and "intellectual dishonesty" when we first met, I wasn't casting judgment on you personally. Simply living with the moderate's dilemma may be the only way forward, because the alternative would be to radically edit these books. I'm not such an idealist as to imagine that will happen. We can't say, "Listen, you barbarians: These holy books of yours are filled with murderous nonsense. In the interests of getting you to behave like civilized human beings, we're going to redact them and give you back something that reads like Kahlil Gibran. There you go ... Don't you feel better now that you no longer hate homosexuals?" However, that's really what one should be able to do in any intellectual tradition in the twenty-first century. Again, this problem confronts religious moderates everywhere, but it's an excruciating problem for Muslims. — Sam Harris

What happened?" I asked. "They shot you with a manticore spine. Who the fuck owns a manticore? Why would anyone actually decide they want to keep one of those ugly fuckers?" "I feel we're getting off topic here," I reminded him. "What. Happened?" "Right, well you went to sleep and they dragged us all down here, but Ellie here woke up. Tore some guy's arm off before they subdued her. By that point Alan and I had woken up, and they gave us all a kicking. Still, she tore some guy's arm off, which was pretty badass of her. If we find it, and then find him, can we beat him to death with it?" I stared at my fox friend for a moment. "I'd rather use something more . . . stable for bludgeoning someone to death, but sure, why not? — Steve McHugh

makes me more than sad, it makes my heart burn within me, to see that folk can make a jest of striving men; of chaps who comed to ask for a bit o' fire for th' old granny, as shivers i' th' cold; for a bit o' bedding, and some warm clothing to the poor wife who lies in labour on th' damp flags; and for victuals for the childer, whose little voices are getting too faint and weak to cry aloud wi' hunger. For, brothers, is not them the things we ask for when we ask for more wage? We donnot want dainties, we want bellyfuls; we donnot want gimcrack coats and waistcoats, we want warm clothes; and so that we get 'em, we'd not quarrel wi' what they're made on. We donnot want their grand houses, we want a roof to cover us from the rain, and the snow, and the storm; ay, and not alone to cover us, but the helpless ones that cling to us in the keen wind, and ask us with their eyes why we brought 'em into th' world to suffer?" He — Elizabeth Gaskell