Not The Life I Wanted Quotes & Sayings

But guys like Mason McCarthy stayed glued to your brain long after they had left you behind. They charmed their way into your heart and pants with their smooth words and sinister good looks and then ditched you the second you were deemed old news.

Still, I wanted him. That was the scariest part - not his assumed womanizing, not that he could disrupt my life and tear my heart into tiny pieces, but that I would let him. — Amanda McGee

I'm here because of a letter.
Not the kind with hearts and lipstick marks, but the kind that takes your breath away. I wanted it to have that effect on him, and so it was the story of how we fell in love told through our kisses. Both kisses we'd had and kisses I wanted to have, and places I wanted to kiss. Places like Paris and Amsterdam, along the river or by the canal, or Kauai under waterfalls.
It was an epic love letter, and it was all I'd ever wanted in my life-to feel that kind of epic love. — Lauren Blakely

... the matter was new to me, and I had no material for its treatment. But I got books, read up the facts, laboriously constructed a skeleton out of the dry bones of the real, and then clothed them, and tried to breathe into them life, and in this last aim I had pleasure. With me it was a difficult and anxious time till my facts were found, selected, and properly pointed; nor could I rest from research and effort till I was satisfied of correct anatomy; the strength of my inward repugnance to the idea of flaw or falsity sometimes enabled me to shun egregious blunders; but the knowledge was not there in my head, ready and mellow; it had not been down in Spring, grown in Summer, harvested in Autumn, and garnered through Winter; whatever I wanted I must go out and gather fresh; glean of wild herbs my lap full, and shred them green into the pot. — Charlotte Bronte

I noticed then that the red-haired woman was buying the food you eat when you live alone: a box of cereal, a few apples, a plastic container of plain yogurt ... With an abrupt clarity, I saw how I had been launched into another category. I had been the red-haired woman; for a decade of my adult life, I had bought cereal and yogurt, I'd stood near couples and watched them nuzzle, and now I was part of such a couple. And I would not be launched back, I was certain. But I recognized her life, I knew it so well! I wanted to clasp her freckled hand, to say to her
surely we understood some shared code (or surely not, surely she'd have thought me preposterous)
It's good on the other side, but it's good on your side too. Enjoy it there. The loneliness is harder and the loneliness is the biggest part; but some things are easier. — Curtis Sittenfeld

When there is a huge crack in your relationship with someone, you wonder what others do in similar situations. I realize I'm trying as hard as I can to present myself as the most unthreatening being in the world, like a small animal. I hunch into myself, avoiding going back to the same places I frequented with him. Obviously I don't eat the kind of food we ate or made together. But I don't think I'm going to move to a new house, because I have the kitchen and the large fridge that I'd wanted for so long. People say you can't possibly like your lover every single second of your life. But that's not true. I liked and looked to my lover every single second we were together. And I still can't admit that he's gone. True sorrow is when one person desires but the other doesn't. I don't know any better words to describe it, and I can't yet express this feeling through any kind of food. The one thing we know about sorrow is that it's a very personal, individual feeling. — Kyung-ran Jo

I'm not saying that you should deny the difficult events of your life. But the fact that you survived is also a wonderful story to tell. And that story, the story of the way you came through a difficult situation, found resources within yourself or outside of yourself, gleaned from that experience what you wanted and what you didn't want going forward - that is a story that can inspire you and others to heal and grow. — Golda Poretsky

Most teenage suicide attempts are cries for help; the teens survive, succeeding in bringing them the wanted attention. Mine was not a cry for help. I wanted to end my life and my misery. — Sharon E. Rainey

...And indeed it did take me a long time for me to find someone I wanted to marry. But I'm so glad I waited. What I know about Pete and me is that the flame will never go out. I do not look up from tossing the salad and think, Oh, God, how the hell did I ever get here? I do not look a the back of his head and think, I don't know you at all. I wake up with my pal, and go to sleep with my lover. He still thrills me, not only sexually but because of the way he regards the life that unfolds around him. I am interested in what he says about me and the children and our respective jobs, but I am also interested in what he says about the Middle East and the migratory patterns of monarchs and the amount of nutmeg that should be grated into the mashed potatoes and the impact that being a thwarted artist had on the life of Hitler. I believe he is a truly honest and awake and kind individual. If we live more than once, I want to find him again. — Elizabeth Berg

It wasn't that I wanted to know her now. I wanted to have already known her. I wanted her fears and her desires to have shaped my life. I know this is not love, of course. What it is is a queer feeling of nostalgia for an impossible future, for what can never be. That's fantasy. Love is different. — John Dufresne

All my life, you've been my Almost." He softened slightly, his gaze touching over the features of her face as if memorizing her. "I want you, Leah. I've always wanted you. But wanting isn't enough. You have to fight for it too, and you're not going to. — Jill Shalvis

I hadn't seen any novel make the statement that entering the workforce was like entering the grave. That from then on, nothing happens and you have to pretend to be interested in your work. And, furthermore, that some people have a sex life and others don't just because some are more attractive than others. I wanted to acknowledge that if people don't have a sex life, it's not for some moral reason, it's just because they're ugly. Once you've said it,
it sounds obvious, but I wanted to say it. — Michel Houellebecq

I have wanted to "make books" since around the sixth grade, and I published my first book when I was in my late thirties. My point is that the time in between was not wasted - submarine service, marriage, college, bringing up three kids, starting a school for them, and so forth. This kind of life experience is not distracting you from your appointed task of writing. It is, rather, the roundabout blessing of giving you something to say. — Douglas Wilson

I started producing in 1992 at the age of 15, when I found out music could be made with the help of a computer. I come from a musical family, but was always the family member not as good as the others. So once I found out I could release the music that was stuck inside my head through a computer, I knew I found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. — Laidback Luke

I realized I was afraid of living without him. How is it you have the right to destroy my life, I wanted to demand of him, but I'm not allowed a say in yours?
But I had promised. — Jojo Moyes

To answer your question as honestly as I can, I've wanted since I was very little to not have to worry about money. I've never been poverty-level poor (I mean, there's been years where I've been officially beneath the poverty line, but that wasn't poverty: that was being a student and living the Student Lifestyle), but I've been in a place where you know you can't afford a better-quality food, where you can't do certain things because of money, and I'd prefer not to have those problems if I can. I sort of have troubles with money in general, with how it determines so much of our lives but with how we all try to ignore it, but I would like to be (and stay) in a place where I can pick up some new comics and games and not worry about how much they cost.
This is terrible; you're asking me where I want to be in the future, what I want my life to be like, and the only thing I can tell you is Man, all I know is I don't want to be POOR. — Ryan North

I'm not the only one; most people's mothers are the most influential person in their life. But my mother survived the camps, and she was very strong. She made me strong, but she wanted me to be strong. That's more important. — Diane Von Furstenberg

The three of us do not go out very often as the three of us. I think Daniel is perfect for Jed, which is the highest compliment I can give. But my friendship isn't with him, and Jed understands that. When we hit the road, we hit it together alone.
We get to the bridge, out undestined destination. Even though there's no sign, no arrow, Jed turns at the last minute and parks us in a verge right before the bridge leaves the ground.
The trunk pops open, and Jed runs round back to retrieve a bag of oranges and a sweatshirt that fits me better.
Shall we make like lizards and leap? he asks.
I never felt the urge to jump off a bridge, but there are times I have wanted to jump out of my life, out of my skin.
Would you stroll me down the promenade instead? I ask back.
Most certainly, my splendid.
There is no word for our kind of friendship. Two people tho don't see each other a lot, but can make each other effortlessly happy. — David Levithan

I close my eyes at his intimate touch. It's a slow movement, not one meant to seduce. It's one to show how much he loves me, and I flatten my lips, fighting the urge to cry. Noah nudges me toward him and if it wasn't for his hold, I'd drop like a house of cards.
I fall into him, and Noah wraps me in his arms. "It's okay, baby. We're okay."
I cling tighter to him, because it doesn't feel okay. For the past two months, life was good and easy and everything I dreamed it could be. Despite my efforts, the muscles at the corner of my mouth tremble. I wanted to be done with tears and with whispered comments thrown in my direction like knives and with this overwhelming sense that I'm less and that I'll never belong. — Katie McGarry

I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, 'OK, I'm looking back on my life. I want to minimise the number of regrets I have.' And I knew that when I was 80, I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed, I wouldn't regret that. But I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day. — Jeff Bezos

For the first time in my life, I feel wanted... like I finally belong. There is nowhere on Earth I would rather be than here with you. You do not cage me, Styx. You make me soar. — Tillie Cole

I had wanted for so many years to feel that writing really was at the center of my life, not something I did in my spare time. So the writing and teaching feel in some way to be one thing - the personal engagement and the social engagement good partners. — Alison Hawthorne Deming

Toby, if I say challenging him is futile, that you'll change nothing and only grant the omen you saw this morning power over you ... if I say you can save your life and your heart by walking away from this, will it matter?" Part of me
most of me
wanted to say, "Yes, it would matter; please tell me to stay here. If you tell me, I'll stay." I didn't want to go. I'm not a hero; I never have been. I just do what has to be done. But when you get right down to it, isn't that the definition of hero? — Seanan McGuire

He settled in beside me, and I curled into him. Cocooned in Wes. God, it felt so good. "Thank you," I whispered. "I've never felt so amazing."

"I wanted you in my life from the beginning, Mal. Any way I could have you." He snuggled me closer. "Even if it meant just as friends."

I couldn't help snorting. "Thank God that's not the case."

He chuckled and gave me a squeeze. "Amen, my friend. — Missy Welsh

I arrived in Dallas two days before the party and planned on leaving the day after. I hated the city as much as I thought I would. All anyone could talk about were the Cowboys and their chances in the playoffs. Charlene was happy. Joe was not, or so it seemed to me, in spite of the fact that he had finally gotten exactly what he thought he wanted from a wife: she gave him an adorable boy, she did everything in their home including laundry, and most important, she did not embarrass him. Whenever I was alone with Joe during the two days I was there, Charlene would send her son into the room with us. The first time I carried him, Charlene made sure to mention how surprised she was that I had motherly instincts. She probably used the pronoun we more in one day than I have in my whole life. I did not blame her. Most plain women stake their claims clumsily. — Rabih Alameddine

Listen to me you piece of shit, if you ever give the press information about me, my parents or even breathe a word about me to anyone ever again, I swear to god I will make it my mission to make your life a living hell. And, believe me I'll do it with a smile on my face the whole time. You're a worthless excuse for a Detective and everyone here knows it. You've screwed your way to the top and backstabbed Gena to get into your Captain's good books. Well look around you honey, you're a real star. No one stopped Gena or me taking you on. I've currently got you in a hold, where I could snap your neck if I wanted to, and not one person is stepping forward to help you. Yeah, you've really made it. - Stephanie Carovella to Sandra Barton — Nina D'Angelo

The whole idea of WHAT HAPPENED WAS ... is not about dating. It is more about people who are not committed to who they are or are indifferent about their life in general, which is how I felt about myself when I wrote it. I had turned 40 and I was unhappy and I wanted to write about that. Dating just became the framework ... I like all those fringy, weird, nonverbal, quiet, tiny little things, those powerful interchanges between people, things that go unsaid, that people know are happening all the time but nobody wants to talk about. That's what I want to make movies about. — Tom Noonan

Before I sleep I normally lie awake and think of the future. I've resolved I can't understand life the way I can understand an equation or formula. For so long I've wanted to find concrete answers or die trying. It's hard at first to find comfort in not knowing or to make peace with it. But I think it is the only way to make it in this life. Getting stuck on a question only makes me estranged from the world. — Shane Crash

Making you believe what he wanted you to believe was his very reason for being. Maybe his only reason. I was intrigued by the way he turned events, or hints I had given him about people, into reality
that is, his kind of reality. This obsessive reinvention of the real never stopped, what-could-be having always to top what is.
...
I began to wonder which was real, the woman in the book or the one I was pretending to be upstairs. Neither of them was particularly "me." I was acting just as much upstairs; I was not myself just as much Maria in the book was not myself. Perhaps she was. I began not to know which was true and which was not, like a writer who comes to believe that he's imagined what he hasn't.
...
The book began living in me all the time, more than my everyday life. — Philip Roth

A lot of the commercials that I was doing were very slice-of-life, emotional, documentary-style, not big and cinematic and ultimately like the kind of movie I wanted to make. — Dan Trachtenberg

He continued. "So I shall simply tell you the truth. I have spent my entire life preparing for a cold, unfeeling, unimpassioned life - a life filled with pleasantries and simplicity. And then you came into it . . . you . . . the opposite of all that. You are beautiful and brilliant and bold and so very passionate about life and love and those things that you believe in. And you taught me that everything I believed, everything I thought I wanted, everything I had spent my life espousing - all of it . . . it is wrong. I want your version of life . . . vivid and emotional and messy and wonderful and filled with happiness. But I cannot have it without you.
"I love you, Juliana. I love the way you have turned my entire life upside down, and I am not certain I could live without you now that I have lived with you. — Sarah MacLean

It's really hard to deny a kid who's father has passed away. We all just wanted you to be happy so we messed that up. Your career wasn't about the money. Not at first. It gave you both something big to do so you could stay busy and forget how much you missed your dad." His heart twisted, and he whispered, "When I think of him ... I don't remember his face, but I do remember how much it hurt to have him simply there one day and gone the next ... just gone." Nan nodded. "Imagine how your mom felt. Your dad was the love of her life. — Anne Eliot

Liar! I know that you humans build your life in lies. It starts with your mortal lords and their fabricated gods. They use fictitious stories to impregnate the minds of people, and like herds of sheep they do as their told. With manipulation alone is enough to secure their reign. After all, is it not in your nature to be wanted and purposeful? It is such an easy game to play. I have observed this falsehood accepted by fathers and mothers over and over again. The idiocy becomes one with their children, and they become the infrastructure that not only sedates but corrodes the soul with instructed conformity. In the end, lies are all that you are. — H.S. Crow

I'm not a good man, Maddy. I'll never be a person worthy of you, of the beauty and light you provide to this world. I kill, I steal, I lie and I cheat. I take pleasure when I bathe in the blood of another man's demise, when I watch the life drain from their eyes as they die. I enjoyed you as well, Maddy, not when I had to hurt you, but when I took things from your body that weren't mine to take. I've done nothing for you, Mouse, nothing but what I wanted to do. — M.S. Willis

I never wanted to be the person who said, "I woulda, coulda, shoulda." Life is way too short, and you may not last that long. — Joy Bryant

I wanted a guy who made my stomach flutter, who was polite and respectful to everyone because he didn't think of anybody as beneath him, a man who did good things not because of what he'd gain but simply because it was the right thing to do. I wanted someone that cared about the injustices of the world and tried to help even if the issue didn't affect his life. — Skyla Madi

I stopped for a second. If you remember everything, I wanted to say, and if you are really like me, then before you leave tomorrow, or when you're just ready to shut the door of the taxi and have already said goodbye to everyone else and there's not a thing left to say in this life, then, just this once, turn to me, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name — Andre Aciman

Valerie, I love you so much. I wanted you to have a normal
childhood - so I lived a double life. Hiding in plain
sight. Living modestly." He began to pace the room, the
words tumbling out of him. "I tried to keep it up, but I've
been so disrespected. Even by my own wife. I couldn't do it
anymore. I've settled for far less than I deserved, and I just
couldn't do it anymore. I decided it was time to leave for
the city....For richer hunting grounds." Cesaire was snarling
now, a scary, powerful force. Valerie felt herself being
drawn to it....
She took a deep, steadying breath. It was not just fear
that she felt. What she felt was so much more complex
than that, something she couldn't understand. "Then why
didn't you just go?"
"Because I loved you girls, and I wanted you to come
with me. To share the wealth."
"But you had to wait until the blood moon. — Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

Darcy looked at her sister for a beat, deciding whether or not to tell her about her strange dream. Grace knew more than anyone about the dark secrets of Darcy's life, but not even her sister knew it all. And Darcy wanted to keep it that way. "I — K.J. Emrick

For the first time in years the tears were streaming down his face. But they were for himself now. He did not care about mouth and eyes and moving hands. He wanted to care, and he could not care. For he had gone away and he could never go back any more. The gates were closed, the sun was gone down, and there was no beauty but the gray beauty of steel that withstands all time. Even the grief he could have borne was left behind in the country of illusion, of youth, of the richness of life, where his winter dreams had flourished.
"Long ago," he said, "long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone. Now that thing is gone, that thing is gone. I cannot cry. I cannot care. That thing will come back no more. — F Scott Fitzgerald

I don't want my life to be like hers. I didn't even know her. I know this is terrible to say, but I don't think I miss her. I long for the idea of what could have been."
"And I'm telling you, sweet S....., that idea you are longing for would've just made you into me - a person who tried to be what their parents wanted but ended up like them, not closer to them — Alexa Riley

I do not need some guy around in order to get inspiration, in order to make a great record, in order to live my life, in order to feel okay about myself. And I wanted to show my fans the same thing. — Taylor Swift

What attracted me was less art itself than the artist's life and all that it meant for me: the idea of creativity and freedom of expression and action. I had been attracted to painting and drawing for a long time, but it was not an irresistible passion; what I wanted, at all costs, was to escape the monotony of life. — Pierre Bonnard

There's my life, why not, it is one, if you like, if you must, I don't say no, this evening. There has to be one, it seems, once there is speech, no need of a story, a story is not compulsory, just a life, that's the mistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself, whereas life alone is enough. — Samuel Beckett

I am not okay. Not at all and haven't been for some time. I did not tell her how discouraged I felt and that I was ashamed I was not more resilient and all the rest of it which included wanting a bigger life but that so far I had not been bold enough to make a bid for things I wanted to happen and I feared it was written in the stars that I might end up with a reduced life like hers... — Deborah Levy

Why books?"
Her brows rose. "I beg your pardon?"
"Why are they your vice?"
She set her plate down and wiped her hand on her skirts before reaching for the top volume on a stack of small, leather bound books nearby and extending it to him. "Go on."
He took it. "Now what?"
"Smell it." He tilted his head. She couldn't help but smile. "Do it."
He lifted it to his nose. Inhaled.
"Not like that," she said. "Really give it a smell."
He raised one brow but did as he was told.
"What do you smell?" Sophie asked.
"Leather and ink?"
She shook her head. "Happiness. That's what books smells like. Happiness. That's why I always wanted to have a book shop. What better life than to trade in happiness? — Sarah MacLean

But most important, I see me . . . or rather, the me I've become. Because I can finally see that all the terrible parts of my life, the embarrassing parts, the incidents I wanted to pretend never happened, and the things that make me "weird" and "different," were actually the most important parts of my life. They were the parts that made me me. And this was the very reason I decided to tell this story . . . to celebrate the strange, to give thanks for the bizarre, and to one day help my daughter understand that the reason her mother appeared mostly naked on Fox News (that's in book two, sorry) is probably the same reason her grandfather occasionally brings his pet donkey into bars: Because you are defined not by life's imperfect moments, but by your reaction to them. Because there is joy in embracing - rather than running screaming from - the utter absurdity of life. And because it's illegal to leave an unattended donkey in your car, even if you do live in Texas. — Anonymous

Because I'm not strong enough to survive seeing you with the League! I said. Because I wanted you, after everything you went through, to have a chance to find your parents and live your life. — Alexandra Bracken

I remember an insight that taught me much about life. One day I felt that I had everything that I really wanted in life. I had a creative and meaningful work as a therapist and course leader, I had a relationship with a beautiful woman, who I loved and who loved me, I had friend that I trusted and I had money to do what I wanted.
But in spite of all this, I still had a feeling that there was something missing in my life. I was not satisfied. The thirst and longing in my heart was still searching for something more. It made me realize that the deepest pain in my heart was that I was still separated from the Whole and that no outer things or relationships could ease this pain. — Swami Dhyan Giten

I know this is like the longest story ever, but I really just wanted you to know the other side. (And besides, Bendomolena's been on my lap this whole time and once Bendomolena decides to sit on you,get comfortable, because you're not going anywhere for awhile.) Anyway, James is coming over in fifteen minutes so we can go with Victoria and Jonah to see New Nostalgia, and I still have to figure out what I'm wearing.
Like the Beatles said, "O-bla-di, o-bla-da, life goes on."
And it does.
Rock on. — Robin Benway

I had been a writer all of my life, every waking second, and now that part of my life was over. I suppose the truth was that I had never put myself forward as a writer, I didn't like the idea of the 'professional writer'; I just wanted to write. But that was not how the world worked... — Bonnie Greer

My chest. All I'd wanted was for someone to be happy for me - happy with me, straight-up happy, not happy with questions, or happy with reservations, or happy but confused, or not happy at all ... and there was no one in my life, including my husband, who fit the bill. — Jennifer Weiner

I wanted the focus to be on my ability as a singer and as an entertainer - not on my private life. — Adam Lambert

There wasn't any single moment of bedazzling revelation, it was more of an education process. The more I learned about the nature of addiction, the more I was willing to look at my own behavior and history. And the more I was able to help the people I was in there with, the more it all made sense. A lot of this process came through witnessing the sickness of these people I was in rehab with, for me to see these people and care about them, and to know how slim their chances were of ever changing the demonic possession they had been living with. I realized this was not the jail I wanted to live my life in. — Anthony Kiedis

I went to my grandmother, your great-great-grandmother, and asked her to write a letter. She was my mother's mother. Your father's mother's mother's mother. I hardly knew her. I didn't have any interest in knowing her. I have no need for the past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me.
What kind of letter? my grandmother asked.
I told her to write whatever she wanted to write.
You want a letter from me? she asked.
I told her yes.
Oh, God bless you, she said.
The letter she gave me was sixty-seven pages long. It was the story of her life. She made my request into her own. Listen to me. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I always had pressure on myself through my life. I put pressure on myself and not from other people. I always wanted to be one of the hottest rappers. So the pressure comes from myself. — Meek Mill

There are so many comics about violence. I'm not entertained or amused by violence, and I'd rather not have it in my life. Sex, on the other hand, is something the vast majority of us enjoy, yet it rarely seems to be the subject of comics. Pornography is usually bland, repetitive and ugly, and, at most, 'does the job.' I always wanted to make a book that is pornographic, but is also, I hope, beautiful, and mysterious, and engages the mind. — Dave McKean

I would not have put it this way in those days, but because I was born a woman, I could never become an adult. I would always be a minor, my decisions made for me. I would always be
a unit in a vast beehive. I might have a decent life, but I would be dependent - always - on someone treating me well.
I knew that another kind of life was possible. I had read about it, and now I could see it, smell it in the air around me: the kind of life I had always wanted, with a real education, a real job, a real marriage. I wanted to make my own decisions. I wanted to become a person, an individual, with a life of my own. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I'm not sure I had a political career for the future anyway. I'm not sure that politics was what I wanted to spend my life doing. — John Edwards

I've calmed down. Looking back, I was engaged more in dramas than I was in relationships. I've spent a lot of my life being in it for the plot, and I don't do that anymore. I'm satisfied. I'm not competing with myself. I accomplished things I wanted to do, so everything I do now is because I want to, not because I'm trying to prove something. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

... and left decimated. Not for myself, but for all the single women out there trying to date. I wanted to run to the top of the Empire State Building and make an announcement to all of them to let them know they are worth so much more than this. That they don't need to wrangle some warm body to sit next to them just so they aren't alone on holidays. That they should never let a magazine or dating site or matchmaker monster tell them they're in a lower bracket of desirability because of their age or weight or face or sense of humor. — Amy Schumer

But I was living my life sideway. I did not act on what I wanted, I did not say the things I thought, and being so stifled and clamped all the time left me exhausted; no matter what I was doing, I was always imagining something else. — Curtis Sittenfeld

I had meant my promise to George. I had said that I was, before anything else, a Boleyn and a Howard through and through; but now, sitting in th shadowy room, looking out over the gray slates of the city, and up at the dark clouds leaning on the roof of Westminster Palace, I suddenly realized that George was wrong, and that my family was wrong, and that I had been wrong
for all my life. I was not a Howard before anything else. Before anything else I was a woman who was capable of passion and who had a great need and a great desire for love, I didn't want the rewards for which Anne had surrendered her youth. I didn' want the arid glamour of George's life, I wanted the heat and the sweat and the passion of a man that I could love and trust. And I wanted to give myself to him: not for advantage, but for desire. — Philippa Gregory

By the way," I said, "I wanted to tell you - about why I decided to hike the PCT? I got divorced. I was married and not long ago I got divorced, and also about four years ago my mom died - she was only forty-five and she got cancer suddenly and died. It's been a hard time in my life and I've sort of gotten offtrack. So I ... " He opened his eyes wider, looking at me. "I thought it would help me find my center, to come out here." I made a crumpled gesture with my hands, out of words, a bit surprised that I'd let so many tumble out. — Cheryl Strayed

Toward the end of her life a burglar broke into her house and pistol-whipped her. She was an elderly woman by then, and it sent her into a downward spiral. When she was in the hospital dying, I called, and she asked me not to come and see her; she wanted me to remember her as she was. I felt I had to honor her request. As we talked, she told me she was wearing the four-leaf clover necklace I had given her. Barbara [Stanwyck] was cremated wearing it, and her ashes were scattered over Lone Pine. The fact that a piece of me remained with her at the end was and is some consolation for her loss. — Robert Wagner

They have cast my life like dice, in a game that is not a game. The unusual erupted into my life like a storm; I mean unusual in my actual perception of things. Do not mistake me; I never desired things that are certainly harder to bear, and nobody asked me if I really wanted an extraordinary life. That is not entirely true; I was asked, in the way a child seeing a cake is asked if he really wants to eat it. — Florian Armas

I like the adventures because you know that when they say, "I've got a plan," and then they tell you, you know it's not going to work. And when they say, "I've got a plan," and they don't tell you, you know it is going to work, and it's all very exciting. I thought real life might be like that for a while, so I didn't tell anybody what I wanted to happen, but it didn't make any difference. I knew I was kiddin' meself. — Dave McKean

Nothing is working. Nothing in my life is working. Giants of literature, philosophy, and the arts have influenced my life, but what have I done with this life? I remain a speck in a tumultuous universe that has little concern for me. I am no more than dust, a mote - dust to dust. I am a blade of grass upon which the stormtrooper's boot stomps. I had dreams, and they were not about ending up a speck. I didn't dream of becoming a star, but I thought I might have a small nonspeaking role in a grand epic, an epic with a touch of artistic credentials. I didn't dream of becoming a giant - I wasn't that delusional or arrogant - but I wanted to be more than a speck, maybe a midget. I could have been a midget. All our dreams of glory are but manure in the end. — Rabih Alameddine

I'm not saying I'm glad it happened. Not exactly. But I'm not sorry to be the person I am today, and to have the life I have now. Even though it's not what I thought I wanted for my future, a year ago, it is what I want now ... — Nancy Werlin

Not sure of my place in the world (still up for debate) and not sure what I wanted to do with my life (not really up for debate). — Armie Hammer

From that point on, having also added the belief that affirmations really work, not only did my memory continue to improve, but I created affirmations for every area of my life that I wanted to advance I began using affirmations to improve my health, finances, relationships, overall happiness, confidence, as well as any and all beliefs, mindsets and habits that needed an upgrade. Nothing was off limits. There are no limits! — Hal Elrod

I drink because I don't stand a chance and I know it. I couldn't drive a truck and I couldn't get on the cops with my build. I got to sling beer and sing when I just want to sing. I drink because I got responsibilities that I can't handle ... I am not a happy man. I got a wife and children and I don't happen to be a hard-working man. I never wanted a family ... Yes, your mother works hard. I love my wife and I love my children. But shouldn't a man have a better life? Maybe someday it will be that the Unions will arrange for a man to work and to have time for himself too. But that won't be in my time. Now, it's work hard all the time or be a bum ... no in-between. When I die, nobody will remember me for long. No one will say, "He was a man who loved his family and believed in the Union." All they will say is," Too bad. But he was nothing but a drunk no matter which way you look at it." Yes they'll say that. — Betty Smith

I had wanted to kill myself, not because I hated living, but because I loved it.
And the truth of the matter is, I think that a lot of people who think about killing themselves feel the same way. They love live but it's all fucked up for them
We were up on that roof because we couldn't find a way back into life, and being shut out of it like that ... It just fucking destroys you, man. — Nick Hornby

I LOVE YOU SO MANY REASONS '

---
Before i met you
I spent a lot of time
meeting all kinds of people
i had a lot of fun
and learned a lot
Though each person I met
had great characteristics
something was missing
No one person
had all the qualities that
I had hoped a person could have-
someone whose every action
and thought I could respect
someone who was very intelligent
yet could also be fun-loving
someone who was sensitive, yet virile
exciting and sensuous
someone who knew what they wanted
out of life.
a beautiful person inside and out
I could not find a person like this
until i met you — Susan Polis Schutz

I believe in one thing: the human spirit is immortal and indestructible. In the beyond there could be anything, it is of no importance whatsoever. What we call death is not death. It's a rebirth. A caterpillar becomes a cocoon. I think there is a life after death and it is that that is unnerving. It would be so much simpler to conceive of oneself as a telephone cord that is unplugged. Then you could live any way that you wanted. God would have no importance of any kind. — Andrei Tarkovsky

The one thing that shaped my life was when I was 15 or 16: I knew I wanted to be a journalist. And not just a journalist, but a journalist in the Middle East, and to go back to the Arab world and try to understand what it meant to be Lebanese. — Anthony Shadid

I was always in complete control of everything in my life and I was just so tired of having to do that alone. Not that I wanted someone else to take over my life for me or tell me how to do things, but when you're the only one accountable for everything, that can get old. — Beth Harbison

It seems like many people think that if you drive yourself crazy, then you can write. I'm absolutely not interested in that. It made sense to me to be as whole and well as I could be, and as happy. I wanted to see what a fortunate life would produce. What writing would come out of a mind that didn't try to torment itself? What did I have to know? What did I have to do rather than what can I torment and bend myself into doing? What was the fruit on that tree? — Kay Ryan

I think of Jeremy telling me I had to be ruthless to be a writer. And I think how I did not go visit my brother and sister and my parents because I was always working on a story and there was never enough time. (But I didn't want to go either.) There never was enough time, and then later I knew if I stayed in my marriage I would not write another book, not the kind I wanted to, and there is that as well. But really, the ruthlessness, I think, comes in grabbing onto myself, in saying: This is me, and I will not go where I can't bear to go - to Amgash, Illinois - and I will not stay in a marriage when I don't want to, and I will grab myself and hurl onward through life, blind as a bat, but on I go! This is the ruthlessness, I think. — Elizabeth Strout

I don't believe in the Law of Attraction. There were things I wanted in my life that no amount of positive thinking was going to make it a reality for me. However, I have learned to believe in the Law of Tough Love. Life has thrown a dozen tragedies at me. I did what any Christian would do
prayed for the outcome I wanted, but God was tough and only gave me what I needed. I now realize that life is not about fulfilling a wish list; rather a need list. Good and bad experiences are on the horizon. How else does a person change, grow and evolve? And just like any warrior woman, I won't simply survive
but thrive! — Shannon L. Alder

You taught me what reality really is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in which I had always played. To-night, for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what I wanted to say. — Oscar Wilde

He sank more and more into apathy; little interested him apart from dolls and other children's toys. He still spoke occasionally, but mainly to produce stock sentences in the style of a brainwashed schoolboy. Franziska made a record of some of them: 'I translated much'. 'I lived in a good place called Naumburg'. 'I swam in the Saale'. 'I was very fine because I lived in a fine house'. 'I love Bismarck'. 'I don't like Friedrich Nietzsche'. It would be a mercy to think that he experienced at least a kind of vegetative contentment, but this seems not to have been the case. He suffered from his life-long curse of insomnia, and visitors downstairs were often disturbed by groans and howls coming from the upstairs bedroom. Towards the end of Franziska recorded him uttering 'More light!' (Goethe's dying words) and 'In short, dead!' suggesting that that is what he wanted to be. — Julian Young

What he had said to me a moment ago was true. I hadn't been listening to him, not for years. I'd wanted him to be better for so long that I had stopped hearing him tell me he was sick. For the first time I saw him now as a man, not a member of a family. A separate person, who had been trying as hard as he could for most of his life simply to get by. — Adam Haslett

I wanted to pull away, remind him that I was a big girl, a highly trained operative, a spy - that I'd been training for this mission my entire life, and I wasn't going to be left on the sidelines. But in the dim space with Zach pressed tightly against me, only one thought came to mind. I kissed him - longer and deeper than I ever had before. The school was not watching us this time. There was nothing playful in the tone. We were just two people kissing as if for the first time, as if it might be the last.
And then I broke away. "So," I asked, as if I got kissed like that all the time (which, believe me, I don't), "where is it you're taking me again?"
"The tombs. — Ally Carter

From this haunting feeling of being not wanted, which remained a recurrent haunt through life, I found two ways of escape, both of which in changing form also persisted. One was the invention of gods, the other was personal efficiency in work. — Anna Louise Strong

You and Nick are good together," Jake said. "Probably in more ways than you know."
"Let's not go there."
"You keep saying that to yourself, but maybe it's time for a rethink."
"Since when are you interested in my love life?"
"You don't have one. You're all about the job. With Bob, you can have both."
"You don't know anything about Bob."
"I know it's got to be Nick, because there isn't anybody else," Jake said. "Who could possibly compete?"
"Someone who isn't a criminal on the FBI's Most Wanted list for starters."
"How boring would that guy be? He couldn't match the excitement Nick brings to your life. — Janet Evanovich

I did not then understand that we - the women of that academic community - as in so many middle-class communities of the period - were expected to fill both the part of the Victorian Lady of Leisure, the Angel in the House, and also of the Victorian cook, scullery maid, laundress, governess, and nurse. I only sensed that there were false distractions sucking at me, and I wanted desperately to strip my life down to what was essential. June — Adrienne Rich

Then, as in the middle of the bridge, in the middle of a walk, in the middle always, whether of a book, a conversation, or making love, it was borne in on me again that I had never done what I wanted and out of not doing what I wanted to do there grew up inside me this creation which was nothing but an obsessional plant, a sort of coral growth, which was expropriating everything, including life itself, until life itself became this which was denied but which constantly asserted itself, making life and killing life at the same time. — Henry Miller

I spent the first 25 years of my life not knowing what I wanted to do. — Jack Dee

I am not given to making sense out of life - or coming up with some grand narrative on it - other than to measure it by what you think you want to do in life. As for me, I have done what I had wanted to, to the best of my ability. I am satisfied. — Lee Kuan Yew

If we want to understand the actions of a man in the early 1860's, put yourself back there in his shoes. As a young man he began piloting steamboats on the Mississippi, a job he loved and wanted to do the rest of his life, he said. The Civil War ended traffic on the River and his job. He wrote about it in A History of A Campaign That Failed. He said: "I joined the Confederacy, served for two weeks, deserted, and the Confederacy fell." His attachment to the Southern ideal of slavery does not appear very sturdy. — Hal Holbrook

Have you ever really wanted to be able to do something, but you came across a roadblock of some kind?
You have a difficult choice. I made that choice once and it changed my whole life, by giving me experiences I never would have had if I took the easy street and had not tried. — Deanie Humphrys-Dunne

One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me. "You'd be destroying what makes it special," she said. "It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty. — Jeannette Walls

When I woke up later, I had established all these businesses and we were growing and everything was going well and I was miserable because I was chasing money and not happiness. I decided that day in August that I would quit chasing money and start chasing passion and allow the money to grow around me ... I wanted to have passion in my life to show my girls to live by passion. — Drew Waters

Caine wanted to be a doctor," Serena recalled with an innocent smile. "At least,that's what he told all the little girls."
"It was a natural aspiration," Caine defended himself, lifting his hand to his mother's knee while his arm held Diana firmly against him.
"Grant used a different approach," Shelby recalled. "I think he was fourteen when he talked Dee-Dee O'Brian into modeling for him-in the nude."
"That was strictly for the purpose of art," he countered when Gennie lifted a brow at him. "And I was fifteen."
"Life studies are an essential part of any art course," Gennie said as she started to draw again. "I remember one male model in particular-" She broke off as Grant's eyes narrowed. "Ah,that scowl's very natural,Grant,try not to lose it. — Nora Roberts

I wanted dad's life to be seen in that perspective, not the closeup, not the man children feared and who later drank himself to death, but the broad view, a human who was born on earth, pure and innocent, as all are at birth, and who lived a life as all humans do and died his death. — Karl Ove Knausgard

I loved the stage not because it provided an escape from myself or my humdrum life but because when the curtain went up I could be whoever I wanted to be, and that was true freedom - to be myself. — Suzanne Farrell

In retrospect I must confess that I do not know, or no longer know, what I wanted to achieve with my words. I only know that without this testimony, my life as a writer - or my life, period - would not have become what it is: that of a witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory. — Elie Wiesel

Another page turns on the calendar, April now, not March.
...
I am spinning the silk threads of my story, weaving the fabric of my world ... I spun out of control. Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.
I wanted to swallow the bitter seeds of forgetfulness ... Somehow, I dragged myself out of the dark and asked for help.
I spin and weave and knit my words and visions until a life starts to take shape.
There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.
I am thawing. — Laurie Halse Anderson

So this," she said, "what's happening and what's going to happen, this isn't your fault. You can't control everything and not everything is your responsibility. At Croke Park you said something about how you don't want to drag me around after you so I can die beside you. I wanted to tell you then, but I didn't have the words and I didn't have the time. I'm here because I choose to be. You save my life. I save yours. That's how we work."
"Until the end."
"Until the end. — Derek Landy

Success to me is self-determined, the life I live today, to come from a kid strung out on angel dust, homeless, at some points sleeping in the street. No money, not knowing where the next meal was coming from. No sex, no relationships, people that didn't love me, didn't care about me, to where I am today ... that's successful. When I signed my record deal I always wanted to be respected by my peers for my ability and my skill level. — Joe Budden