Obsession The Quotes & Sayings

Have only this consolation
that he was never a fiend or even truly a madman, but only an eager, studious, and curious boy whose love of mystery and of the past was his undoing. He stumbled on things no mortal ought ever to know, and reached back through the years as no one ever should reach; and something came out of those years to engulf him. — H.P. Lovecraft

I would say that I quite consciously rely on my obsessions in all my work, that I deliberately set up an obsessional frame of mind. In a paradoxical way, this leaves one free of the subject of the obsession. — J.G. Ballard

Every human being who reaches the age of understanding of the purpose of money, wishes for it. Wishing will not bring riches. But desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsession, then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches, and backing those plans with persistence which does not recognize failure, will bring riches. — Napoleon Hill

The primary narrative that forms our ministry models draws from our evangelical success stories. We are presented with triumphalistic narratives that minimize stories of struggle. Our historical reflection reveals an obsession with success and celebration while stories of survival and suffering are ignored. History is often told by the victorious and therefore favors them. In — Soong-Chan Rah

The microscopic world became my obsession. — Willard Wigan

For those of us with a bookish bent, reading is a reflexive response to everything. This is how we deal with the world and anything that comes our way. We have always known that there is a book for every occasion and every obsession. When in doubt, we are always looking things up. — Diane Schoemperlen

You cannot have more love and desire; for someone, than you have for yourself, or it isn't love, it's obsession. People mistake one for the other all the time.
Stanley Christopher — Stanley Christopher

I wanted it for how it made me feel, regardless of how little it cared for me. Do whatever you want -- just give me the bliss. — C.M. McKenna

Were you in love with Emma?" I ask.
"I was hard-core obsessed," he says without thinking about it. "Not in love."
"What's the difference?"
He's about to throw a stone at ta yard light but stops. "Prison," he says, and puts the stone in his pocket. — Cath Crowley

That's the thing about success and happiness. Every time I fall in love I become absolutely, pathologically obsessed. The moment that you have what you want, and you're not totally ready for it, you become obsessed with the idea that you don't deserve it. — Sara Quin

From the confusion in his expression, she sensed it was a hopeless question. He did not know. Years of hate and obsession had twisted and poisoned him, had wrung from him every surviving drop of humanity. — Stephen Lloyd Jones

Forgiving someone doesn't mean pretending nothing happened. Rather, it means releasing the burden of anger and obsession so you can move on with your life. — Charles F. Glassman

Insecurity of the spirit demands completeness elsewhere. — Peter Ackroyd

Duty, the most indecent of all obsessions, was only another name for love. — Colleen McCullough

I want her to melt into me, like butter on toast. I want to absorb her and walk around for the rest of my days with her encased in my skin.
I want. — Sara Gruen

Growing up I was always prone to obsession, partly because of the way I am, but partly because after feeling so lonely for such a long time, when I found someone or something that I liked, I felt helplessly drawn to it. I suppose that accounts for some of the creepiness in my music. — Lana Del Rey

To be obsessed by the idea of freedom, for instance, is itself a form of slavery. Such people are in the chains of the hope of freedom, and are therefore able to do little else than struggle with them. — Idries Shah

... Any talent - whether to write songs or to write novels...came with the obligation to use it to the fullest of one's ability, with a fierce commitment barely distinguishable from neurotic obsession. ... In fact...commitment to the point of obsession wasn't merely an obligation but a necessity... — Dean Koontz

I've been through almost every type of obsession as far as music genres go, so I usually say I just like a good song, but the songs that are the most universal that a person on the other side of the world knows and can relate to is a very powerful entity. — Mark Salling

Owning things is an obsession in our culture. If we own it, we feel we can control it; and if we control it, we feel it will give us more pleasure. The idea is an illusion. — Richard J. Foster

I was ten years old when my first 'Vogue' cover sang me its siren call and dashed me against the treacherous rocks of fashion obsession. — Hamish Bowles

The 'good' mother, with her fixed smile, her rigidity, her goody-goody outlook, her obsession with unnecessary hygiene, is in fact a fool. It is the 'bad' mother, unafraid of a joke and a glass of wine, richly self-expressive, scornful of suburban values, who is, in reality, good. — Rachel Cusk

That is the future, and it is probably nearer than we think. But our primary problem as universities is not engineering that future. We must rise above the obsession with quantity of information and speed of transmission, and recognize that the key issue for us is our ability to organize this information once it has been amassed - to assimilate it, find meaning in it, and assure its survival for use by generations to come. — Vartan Gregorian

It's true that the French have a certain obsession with sex, but it's a particularly adult obsession. France is the thriftiest of all nations; to a Frenchman sex provides the most economical way to have fun. The French are a logical race. — Anita Loos

Figure out the WHY you want it and turn it into a desire and then and obsession! — Darren D.O. Connell

Several years ago, I began losing my hair, and like a lot of men, it was a major concern to me, in fact it was practically an obsession. But, also I'm an actor, so I'm in the public eye a lot and I really felt that my hair loss could affect my career prospects. — James Nesbitt

The obsession with instant gratification blinds us from our long-term potential. — Mike Dooley

This isn't a crush, it's obsession.You are never not in my thoughts. Your scent carries across a room and paralyzes me with longing. I don't want to hold your hand. Part of me wants to set you on fire and hold you while the flame consumes us both, to eat your heart so I know that only I possess it entirely. — Gwen Hayes

It's people with obsessions who do the real harm in the world. — Dick Francis

Obsession is so extreme and so hard to imagine with the rational mind that it has a science-fiction-like quality to it-it's almost as if the obsessed one has been taken over by a replica, a pod, a facsimile of the rational person. — Susan Cheever

The conquest of war and the pursuit of social justice ... must become our grand preoccupation and magnificent obsession. — Norman Cousins

She was a fever from which I will never recover. All heat and hunger. She inflamed my senses. And when she devoured my very soul, when I had nothing left to surrender, she abandoned me to the wreckage of my self, and smiled. In the kingdom of passion the ruler is obsession. — Calvin Klein

The top quark was discovered in 1995, and since then, the Higgs has become our obsession because the standard model was incomplete without it. — Fabiola Gianotti

Red is such an interesting color to correlate with emotion, because it's on both ends of the spectrum. On one end you have happiness, falling in love, infatuation with someone, passion, all that. On the other end, you've got obsession, jealousy, danger, fear, anger and frustration. — Taylor Swift

When I am fully immersed in my work of nourishing humanity, it fills my head with all kinds of feel-good chemicals, such as endorphins, serotonin and dopamine. Problems occur during the brief intervals between the finishing of one work and the beginning of another. During these intervals, my biology starts to get filled with stress hormones cortisol and adrenalin, that worsens my OCD. That is why, I can't sit still even a day after I finish writing a book. Because if I do, my OCD begins to suffocate me inside my head. Hence, as soon as I deliver a work, I have to start working on my next scientific literature. — Abhijit Naskar

Saint Paul lives in the Christian imagination as the chief sponsor of Christian contempt for Jews, the avatar of law versus grace, flesh versus spirit, works versus faith, Moses versus Jesus, the Old Covenant versus the New. This brutal dichotomizing was attributed to Paul most influentially by Martin Luther, who used a perceived Jewish legalism, materialism, and obsession with externals as stand-ins for the decadence of his nemesis, the pope. "Because the Papists, like the Jews," he wrote, "insist that anyone wishing to be saved must observe their ceremonies, they will perish like the Jews."39 After Luther, both Protestants and Catholics read Paul as the preeminent tribune of Jewish corruption - a misreading that had terrible consequences, especially in Luther's Germany, where the Volk were defined in ontological opposition to Juden. Paul's — James Carroll

The more you care, the more you fear. — Wayne Gerard Trotman

The Palestinian Arabs' obsession with the Jews and rejection of all political compromise was inspired by Islamic teachings as well as by European fascism. — Sol Stern

She was not suicidal; that is what people never managed to grasp. Cutting relieved the pressure and stood as some enduring demonstration of her emotion, some way to be in control of a body that could toss her about with seizures. It was borderline artistic to mark her body, chiaroscuro designs in blood. Dying is the last thing she would want, like any healthy organism. A little pain, a small invoked sting trailing her arm, brought her much closer to grounded when she could not keep her head from racing, her thoughts from consuming her with obsession. An ounce of liquid weight loss and she could go back to being herself again. Usually. — Thomm Quackenbush

Respect your soul: don't keep repeating "I'm going to make it". Your soul already knows that, what it needs is to use the long journey to be able to grow, stretch along the horizon, touch the sky. An obsession does not help you at all to reach your objective, and even ends up taking the pleasure out of the climb. But pay attention: also, don't keep saying "it's harder than I thought", because that will make you lose your inner strength. — Paulo Coelho

Ensor sees with his imagination, but his vision is perfectly accurate, of an almost geometric precision. He is one of the very few who can really see. Like you, he has an obsession with masks; he is a seer as you and I are. The common herd, of course thinks that he is mad.
*****************
You shall see what sort of man Ensor is, and what a marvellous insight he has into the invisible realm where our vices are created ... those vices for which our faces make masks. — Jean Lorrain

motivation for not eating meat and dairy is to maintain optimal health, not to rid myself of the obsession and compulsion that are the hallmark of addiction. If obsession and compulsion are the issue - smoking cigarettes, not being able to stop texting your toxic ex, self-harm - and you want to get past it, you need a Bright Line. If health is your objective, there is no evidence that perfect is better than "really good." Seriously. You can comply with a health goal 95 percent of the time, and it will benefit you as much as 100 percent perfection. — Susan Peirce Thompson

I found myself pondering the specific Christian American obsession with abortion and gay rights. For million of Americans, these are the great societal "sins" of the day. It isn't bogus wars, systemic poverty, failing schools, child abuse, domestic violence, health care for profit, poorly paid social workers, under-funded hospitals, gun saturation, or global warming that riles or worries the conservative, Bible-believers of America." pg33 — Phil Zuckerman

On both sides of the highway I could see the rows of little frame houses, all alike, as if there were only one architect in the city and he had a magnificent obsession. — Ross Macdonald

From almost the first day they got into office, they (President Bush and Vice President Cheney) were trying to figure out how to get rid of Saddam Hussein. I'm not a psychiatrist - I don't know all of the reasons behind their concern, some might say their obsession. — Hillary Clinton

Reality isn't the most pleasant of atmospheres, Lieutenant. But we like to think we're engineered for it. It's a pretty fine piece of engineering, the kind an engineer can respect. Drag in an obsession and reality can't tolerate it. Something has to give; if reality goes, your fine piece of engineering is left with nothing to operate on. Nothing it was designed to operate on. So it operates badly. So kick the obsession out; start functioning the way you were designed to function. — Theodore Sturgeon

Man's obsession to add to his wealth and honor is the chief source of his misery. — Maimonides

We had, I felt, bared small pieces of our symmetrical souls to each other, fast, as if playing one of those breathless card games, and I had pretended to be as moved as I had been the first time I uncovered it all myself, back in East Hampton. — Olivia Sudjic

Emotion is bad if it hinders the mind from thinking. An
emotion that opens the mind to contemplate several
aspects of things at once is better than one that fixes
thought to an obsession. — A.C. Grayling

I have mixed feelings about how fast things are changing as a result of technology. There's no denying that through technology there are amazing things being created that help people with diseases or help people's dreams come true. But there's also this obsession. Social media is the most dangerous of them all. — Amanda Crew

Pop stars are sending the message that their sexuality is the strongest thing they have to offer, and that's confusing and misleading to girls and women, especially since there's not enough of a counterbalance from those who rely on their other assets, like their music. Also, with the new obsession with all things "booty," it's important that women - and it's often women of color - aren't turned into mere caricatures. Right now it's: "Bend over." That's all people want to see. That's crazy. It's so far from where we should be. — Santigold

My whole artistic life has been devoted to battling myself and my ability to externalize my deepest emotions. As I have gotten older, the work has become more direct, perhaps reflecting the fact that for the first time in my life I feel really free. I have been fascinated with wings all my life. I have had an obsession with transcendence, the need to push forward and metaphorically fly. — Joyce Tenneson

Obsession is an addiction you may never shake free of. It just ... holds you and never gives anything in return. But love, you can give all you've got to love and it always gives you back more. That's how you can tell the difference between the two. I know that now.
Robyn Hannaford from The Great Northern Coven — Bruce Jenvey

The obsession was so real and so prolonged. Sleeping was kind of like taking breaks from continuing the obsession. — Jimenez Lai

The obsession with gold, actually and politically, occurs among those who regard economics as a branch of morality. Gold is solid, gold is durable, gold is rare, gold is even (in certain very peculiar circumstances) convertible. To believe in thrift, solidity and soundness is to believe in some way in the properties of gold. — Christopher Hitchens

My dad liked more macho adventure books like Shogun or spy novels. My mother reads murder mysteries. In fact, so does her mother, my grandma. That's where I trace the familial line of murder mystery obsession. — Christopher Bollen

The obsession with running is really an obsession with the potential for more and more life. — George A. Sheehan

The obsession with security at any price petrifies us, and we increase our fear by trying to eliminate risk. That is what is ridiculous about the great outcries in the media: we wake up in order to demand more passivity, a better protected life. The challenge is not only to decrease the amount of space the media devote to hazards but also to increase our ability to resist misfortunes. To augment our endurance rather than our panic. — Pascal Bruckner

It may be that you are settled in another place it may be that you are happy but the one who took your heart wields final power. — Jeanette Winterson

They begin the hard work of learning to love each other without the euphoria of the "in love" obsession. — Gary Chapman

I can't read all the books I want to read, I can't watch all the phenomena that interest me in the world. The work calls me, and sometimes I wonder whether this is an obsession and I should drop it, or it's a necessity I'm obliged to fulfill. — James Hillman

What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural loving and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? — Herman Melville

A society is patriarchal to the degree that it promotes male privilege by being male dominated, male identified, and male centered. It is also organized around an obsession with control and involves as one of its key aspects the oppression of women.... If men occupy superior positions, it's a short leap to the idea that men must be superior...[and that] whatever men do will tend to be seen as having greater value. — Allan G. Johnson

Right there, the Jew temple of Jerusalem beneath us, I swore to myself that I would finally enter him - the boy prophet, the ultimate challenge, my obsession. I would enter him the way I entered the Emperor's gates after a campaign: invincible, majestic. But hailed by his groans rather than by the cries of banner-waving masses. — Michael Schiefelbein

What big eyes you have. Eyes of an incomparable luminosity, the numinous phosphorescence of the eyes of lycanthropes. The gelid green of your eyes fixes my reflective face; It is a preservative, like a green liquid amber; it catches me. I am afraid I will be trapped in it for ever like the poor little ants and flies that stuck their feet in resin before the sea covered the Baltic. He winds me into the circle of his eye on a reel of birdsong. There is a black hole in the middle of both your eyes; it is their still centre, looking there makes me giddy, as if I might fall into it. — Angela Carter

Some dudes just know what they know, and they are fine with it. They might obsess with sex as much as you do, but never really explore some of the more advanced topics. These guys need their horizons expanded and you are just the girl to do it for him. — Roberto Hogue

You don't change the world out of obligation, but you will out of glorious obsession. — Brian Houston

My professional and human obsession is the nature of language, and my best relationships are with other writers. In many ways, I know George Eliot better than I know my husband. — A.S. Byatt

Obsession with conventional ideas of 'success' can be harmful enough, but compound that stress with relationships, family, financial woes and health concerns, and you find yourself in a constant state of fight or flight. This causes people to be more reactionary, which further perpetuates the cycle of stress. — Ariel Garten

All the great novels are about obsession and people who are obsessed. — Marty Rubin

A colleague once described political theorists as people who were obsessed with two dozen books; after half a century of grappling with Mill's essay On Liberty, or Hobbes's Leviathan, I have sometimes thought two dozen might be a little on the high side. — Alan Ryan

This connection we have isn't going away, it's only getting stronger. Because the more I spend time with her, the closer I want to be. — Simone Elkeles

I couldn't stand to be separated with my wife for months. It became quickly apparent to me that I needed to find a balance between my absolute work obsession and a private life that we could share without my disappearing all the time. — David Bowie

And they dare to rule the world! They have made it so ugly. Square houses! Their obsession with straight lines and right angles has ruined the earth! They consider all curves, all subtleties, all softness, all indefinites, female, and they shun them. They have poisoned and denatured everything they touch, and expect us to be grateful. — Lucy Ellmann

This is where our obsession with going fast and saving time leads. To road rage, air rage, shopping rage, relationship rage, office rage, vacation rage, gym rage. Thanks to speed, we live in the age of rage. — Carl Honore

I find it unnecessary, useless and frankly a bit unnecessary to get into all sorts of debates over President Obama's religion or the authenticity of his birth. I know for some people that it is an obsession. It is not with me. — Mike Huckabee

But does it make any sense at all to know that it ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end-and yet to know as well, despite all this, as cruelly as the game is stacked, that it's possible to play it with a kind of joy?
To try to make some meaning out of all this seems unbelievably quaint. Maybe I only see a pattern because I've been staring too long. But then again, to paraphrase Boris, maybe I see a pattern because it's there. — Donna Tartt

Every time feels like my first time. And I just find that the process of it feeds into one's own self-obsession. — Ben Harper

I was the fastest typist in my school, and I had an obsession with spelling and memorizing. — Shelley Hennig

Liz pasted on a smile, trying to appear normal in light of the fact that he had possibly incriminating knowledge on her from the background check. She hoped her application for a marriage license with Craig wasn't in the report. Or her long shopping record for organization systems from The Container Store. Or her many Internet searches for breeds of nonshedding dogs (she was waiting for the house with a yard before getting one). Or her long-time obsession with new cleaning products. — Kylie Gilmore

There's never been a culture that wasn't obsessed with food. The sort of sad thing is that our obsession is no longer with food, but with the price of food. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Naturally, etiquette books order handwashing before as well as after meals, but the practice also appears, with a frequency that borders on obsession, in poetry. Poets found it hard to describe a banquet or even a meal without affirming that everyone washed their hands. — Katherine Ashenburg

A true artist removes his heart willingly, allows constructive criticism to stomp it, then puts it back - bruised and aching - as he continues to strive for excellence due to the all-consuming obsession and love for his art. — H.G. Mewis

Do you have any idea how much I love you?" Jordan curled her hands around the lapel of his jacket and tugged him closer. In her heels, she was almost his height, and when she pressed her body against his, her mouth was a scant inch away. Jordan flicked her tongue over his lower lip and whispered. "It might even border on obsession. — Sara Humphreys

But isn't the whole idea of sanctification the fact that we're not really there yet? That we're still growing and becoming? Still learning how to live the gospel out? Then why this obsession with pretending to be something for other people, who are pretending to be something for us? It's madness. You see that, don't you? The cross of Jesus, while definitely meant to include us in the family of God, is also designed to out us as people who desperately need what its forgiveness and power provide. The — Matt Chandler

I think the camera was always my obsession, the camera movements. Because for me it's the most important thing in the move, the camera, because without the camera, film is just a stage or television - nothing. — Dario Argento

Perhaps the way with any obsession is to ignore it simply. Not to fight it, since it draws strength from any contact with us, whether hostile or friendly ... — Nan Fairbrother

Besides good schools, a good airport, and the Cowboys, Dallas had golf courses, and golf was fast becoming an obsession with me. — Charley Pride

My first obsession was actually sports. I was a very good handball goalkeeper. With special permission, I played in the premier league in Germany before I was even old enough. — Peter Lindbergh

Up until I became a father, it was all about self-obsession. But then I learned exactly what it's all about: the delight of being a servant. — Eric Clapton

Willpower and dedication are good words' Roland remarked 'There's a bad one, though, that means the same thing. That one is obsession — Stephen King

My obsession with pineapples nearly drove me mad. I dreamt of the days when I would be grown and able to buy a whole carton for myself alone. Although — Maya Angelou

To many an upright poor person, it seems needless to invent a god who will wash the feet of beggars and exalt those who do not care to labor. What is this but a denial of thrift and a sickly obsession with the victim? The so-called common people are quite able to penetrate this ruse ("The good lord must indeed love the poor, since he made so many of them"). Many decent people are made uneasy by the constant injunction to give alms and to dwell among those who have lost their self-respect. They can also see the hook sticking out of the bait: abandon this useless life, leave your family, and follow the prophet who says that the world is soon to pass away. Such an injunction coupled with an implicit or explicit "or else" is repulsive to many conservatives who believe in self-reliance and personal integrity, and who distrust "charity," just as it was repulsive to the early socialists who did not think that poverty was an ideal or romantic or ennobled state. — Christopher Hitchens

The danger to power is obsession - power junkies. You need a very strong mind and humor to balance yourself. If you don't, you will get shredded. — Frederick Lenz

Most people who fall obsessively in love claim that it happens precipitously, unexpectedly [ ... ]
But I believe there's almost always a prerequisite. Falling in love in this way will usually occur at a time of transition. We may not be conscious of it, but something has ended and something new must begin. Romantic obsession is like a cataclysm breaking up the empty landscape. Like a strange exotic plant, it grows in arid soil. (pp. 27-28) — Rosemary Sullivan

My obsessions tend to cluster, so I often have families of poems in which only a couple of them make it to the book. It can be satisfying to banish poems to my "crappy poems" file. — Anna Journey

I myself spent nine years in an insane asylum and I never had the obsession of suicide, but I know that each conversation with a psychiatrist, every morning at the time of his visit, made me want to hang myself, realizing that I would not be able to cut his throat. — Antonin Artaud

I can only imagine what goes on in that head of yours ... " he teased. "I assure you I haven't taken up black magic, ritualistic sacrifice, or - "
"Plushophilia?" I tagged on.
"Excuse me? ... " came his half-confused, half-intrigued reaction.
"An obsession with stuffed animals," I clarified. "I mean, you are a young one ... "
"Where did you come up with that?" He kept his hands firmly covering my eyes, but I could hear the amused smile in his voice. "Is that even a real word?"
"I'm a doctor, I know these things," I shrugged. — M.A. George

I think challenge for Facebook is to develop a culture that has the advertiser and the ad service be as strong a part of their culture as the user obsession is. — Jason Kilar

Dr. Buford's profession was medicine and his obsession was anything that grew in the ground, so he stayed poor. — Harper Lee