Things We Want Most Quotes & Sayings

We all hold on to some image of the family we want, based one way or another on the family we had. Lots of people are thrilled about the families they came from, others couldn't get away fast enough. Most people fall into that vast middle ground: great affection mixed with a few ideas for improvement. A couple of things they wish could have perhaps been done differently. — Paul Reiser

Dear Tully
I know you won't be able to stand my fucking funeral. You're not the star. I hope you at least had the photos of me airbrushed. There are so many things I should say to you, but in our lifetime we've said them all.
Take care of Johnny and the kids for me, okay? Teach the boys how to be gentlemen and Marah how to be strong. When they're ready, give them my journal and tell them about me when they ask. The truth, too. I want them to know it all.
It's going to be hard on you, now. That's one of the things I regret the most. So, here's what I have to say in my beyond-the-grave letter (very dramatic, don't you think?):
I know you'll be thinking that I left you, but it's not true. All you have to do is remember Firefly Lane, and you'll find me.
There will always be a TullyandKate.
BFF <3
Kate — Kristin Hannah

A lot of people want to have market share numbers, lots of users, because that's how they view their self worth. For me, one of the most important things for Linux is having a big community that is actively testing new kernels; it's the only way to support the absolute insane amount of different hardware we deal with. — Linus Torvalds

Yes, and then it's these things that cause the whites to say we're not worthy of first-class citizenship." "Ah ... " He dropped his hands to his sides hard in frustration. "Isn't it so? They make it impossible for us to earn, to pay much in taxes because we haven't much in income, and then they say that because they pay most of the taxes, they have the right to have things like they want. It's a vicious circle, Mr. Griffin, and I don't know how we'll get out of it. They put us low, and then blame us for being down there and say that since we are low, we can't deserve our rights. — John Howard Griffin

Let it be..let it be..
Let the ppl think the way they want,
Live the life the way u want
Let it be..let it be..
Nothing is permanent then why to worry,
Live life condition free
Let it be..let it be..
Smile cost nothing..still u pay for it, why we live life in hurry when everthing is tempory..
Let it be..let it be..
Respect ur elders wether they scold u, love urslf wthr no1 else does, u r most beautiful creature.beleive and accept it nd..
Let it be..let it be..
U r the king, u r the ruler.. conquer urslf nd let things pass like water in the river..move with flow..live has no other flow..
So..let it be..let it be.. — Nitish Sharma

I think we'd all like to believe that after we shuffle off this mortal coil, that there's going to be something on the other side because for most of us, I know for me, life is so rich, so colorful and sensual and full of good things, things to read, things to eat, things to watch, places to go, new experiences, that I don't want to think that you just go to darkness. — Stephen King

Who gets to be the judge of reality? If it was deeply felt, believed, spoken about often or altered your life course, then it was real enough. Faith doesn't get the luxury of all those things one hundred percent of the time, but we call that normal behavior based on a gut feeling. I said. I looked at his wife and she busted out laughing. Her husband was trying to catch invisible butterflies above his head - dementia. My patients teach me the most sobering of truths: Why wreck his smile. If I could see them, I would want to catch them too. — Shannon L. Alder

We all want things that are not necessarily essential, but we always choose those actions which we think will best improve the situation from our viewpoint. This means that the ideas that men hold determine their choice of actions. This means that the most important thing in the world is ideas. — Percy L. Greaves Jr.

We speak often, and sentimentally, of being 'enchanted' by the natural world. But what if it's the other way around? What if we are enchanted, literally, by the human world we live in? That seems entirely more likely - that the consumer world amounts to a kind of lulling spell, chanted tunefully and eternally by the TV, the billboard, the suburb. A spell that convinces us that the things we want most from the world are comfort, convenience, security. A spell that by now we sing to each other. A spell that, should it start to weaken, we try to strengthen with medication, with consumption, with noise. A slight frantic enchantment, one that has to get louder all the time to block out the troubling question constantly forming in the back of our minds: 'Is this all there is? — Bill McKibben

When most people practice, they focus on the things they can do effortlessly," Ericsson has said. "Expert practice is different. It entails considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you can't do well - or even at all. Research across domains shows that it is only by working at what you can't do that you turn into the expert you want to become." So far the focus in this book has been on the quantity of practice required to reach the top, and we've seen that it's a staggering amount of time, stretching for a period of at least ten years. — Matthew Syed

Any idiot would know women's needs are simple. All we want is your basic millionaire brain surgeon criminal lawyer great dancer who pilots his own Lear Jet and owns seafront property. On the other hand, things being what they are today, most of us will settle for a guy who holds down a steady job and isn't carrying an infectious disease. — Linda Sunshine

Would you really fight for him?" I nod.
But the nod isn't enough, so I go on.
"In fact, I would tear through rubble with my bare hands to get to him. I would lift cars. I would wrestle down anyone who said we shouldn't be together. I would stare down life and kick it in the ass if I had to. Because if you want to know the truth
if you really want to know the truth
none of that could be nearly as hard as being in love with him and not being able to tell anyone about it. Including him. I have this thing inside me, and it's angry and it's scared and it's uncertain and most of all it's so completely in love with him, and it would do anything to keep him, even if it means things staying the way they are now. — Nina LaCour

The Poor Children

Take heed of this small child of earth;
He is great; he hath in him God most high.
Children before their fleshly birth
Are lights alive in the blue sky.

In our light bitter world of wrong
They come; God gives us them awhile.
His speech is in their stammering tongue,
And his forgiveness in their smile.

Their sweet light rests upon our eyes.
Alas! their right to joy is plain.
If they are hungry Paradise
Weeps, and, if cold, Heaven thrills with pain.

The want that saps their sinless flower
Speaks judgment on sin's ministers.
Man holds an angel in his power.
Ah! deep in Heaven what thunder stirs,

When God seeks out these tender things
Whom in the shadow where we sleep
He sends us clothed about with wings,
And finds them ragged babes that weep — Victor Hugo

Maybe money is unreal for most of us, easier to give away than things we want. — Lillian Hellman

We need to encourage each other to do what we want and not let it totally define us. You know? The things that people think define them aren't valid either. You could see a girl who's completely covered head-to-toe and who looks like the sweetest little thing in the world, and she could be the most horrendous human being on the planet inside. — Ariana Grande

In modern society most of us don't want to be in touch with ourselves; we want to be in touch with other things like religion, sports, politics, a book - we want to forget ourselves. Anytime we have leisure, we want to invite something else to enter us, opening ourselves to the television and telling the television to come and colonize us. — Thich Nhat Hanh

What is it? The ordinary is EXTRAORDINARY. The ordinary is extraordinary. The ordinary is the thing we want back when someone we love dies. When someone dies or leaves or falls out of love with us. We call it "little things". We say, "it's the little things I miss most." The ordinary things. It's the little thing that brings them back to us unexpectedly. We say "reminds us" but it is more than reminding-it's a conflagration-it's an inundation-Both fire and flood is memory. It's spark and breach so ordinary we do not question it. The atom split. The little thing. — Lynda Barry

Gandhi once said, you are the change you want to see in the world. But I have to ask, how do you bring about the change in you? Because it stands to reason, first you have to change before you can change the world. Your beliefs have to change, because your beliefs influence your behavior and your daily interactions with others. Changing oneself is not easy. First, you have to admit that there are parts of you which need changing. Many of us do not want to admit that we are less than perfect, that we might have facets of our personality which needs change. Change is hard, so most of us give up before we start. But if things aren't right in our lives, we need to look at what part of us we can change to make it right. — Cindy Vine

I have learned since that sometimes the things we want most are impossible for us. You may long to come home, yet wander forever. — Nadine Gordimer

Even if we're not doing anything wrong, there are certain things we want to do that we don't think can withstand the scrutinizing eye of other people. And those are often the most important things that we do. The things we do when other people are watching are things that are conformist, obedient, normal, and unnotable. — Glenn Greenwald

... I'm afraid of what the digital age will do to the world, to the things we think are important ... it's almost like people want to believe in some illusion that they're robots and forget altogether that they're real, living people ... but everything these days is disposable, even people themselves, and that's why I'm afraid for the world," Mandy confessed, looking depressed and worried.
"So am I ... but I'll still watch all of it as the world dooms itself, because I want to see how it ends, and whether or not they'll be intelligent enough to forget all of this digital illusion afterwards," Alecto explained. "I'm sure that they'll be able to realize how wrong it all is ... even though the idiots outnumber most people these days, there are still enough intelligent people to fight against it. — Rebecca McNutt

I have discovered something amazing: some people aren't just people, but a place - a whole world. Sometimes you find someone you could live in for the rest of your life. John Kite is like Narnia to me - I've pushed through his fur coat and into a land where I am Princess Duchess, High Chatter of Cair Paravel. In John Kite, people walk down the street holding pigs, and we walk onstage holding hands into the bright light, and I fly over tiny maps to great theories, and I sleep in the bathtub, still talking. I wish to be a citizen of John Kite forever - I want to move there immediately. I know he is the most amazing person in the world. Things happen with John Kite. — Caitlin Moran

The greatest way to overcome resentment of past is by gratitude of present. What you have, your friends your family, the things that you have overcome but most importantly what you plan to do now. Self Actualization states that we can have what ever we want in the future by acting as if we already have it now. — Matthew Donnelly

It's called being in love. It's more frightening than confronting your deepest fear and opens you to being hurt beyond the physical plane." He placed a hand over his heart. "It might seem as though it's a weakness to you but it is proof that we are more than numbers, experiments, or whatever else Mercile intended us to be. It takes bravery and strength to feel such strong emotions for one person when we were denied from birth the chance to ever care about anything or anyone. I'm not saying it's easy or painless. It is probably one of the most complex things I've experienced. Jessie is my life. My heart beats for her and I will admit to all that I wouldn't want to go on if I lost her. The unmated ones don't understand and are currently looking confused or horrified. I'm hopeful they'll know the ups and downs of falling in love one day. It's a gift and a curse at times but everyone should experience it. It's a part of life and we are survivors. — Laurann Dohner

The first step into getting in the zone is to turn off your judgment switch. Let go, and move away from a nagging inner voice, questions, or anything that prevents you from getting things done. Other negative thoughts might include not being productive out of fear that your work will turn out to be unacceptable. Don't worry about the quality of work you are creating. You have to keep your energy flowing and continue to contribute, that's the most important part, whether the work is good or not. We become stagnant and procrastinate because we want things to be just right; we want to feel inspired and good, before we start working. This is counter intuitive because once we start working, that is when we will begin to feel inspired from the creation of our own work. Get your dream energy rolling now. — Christian Cee

We all say we hate being misunderstood and how we desperately want to find people who understand us. But it is not lack of compatible people that keeps us lonely. There is no shortage of people on your journey. The real, secret obstacle that we have against finding authentic, genuine relationships with people is our subconscious fear of growth. If we stick around in the bin of broken toys playing the queen or the king, at least we get to feel some sense of accomplishment at being the most evolved person we know. To find our tribe means finding people we can learn from, people who are better at some things than we are, people who have something to teach. We say we want it, but how many of us fear being a beginner more than loneliness and much more than being in the wrong crowd? There is a strange comfort, a sense of safety, to suffering and loneliness. To be happy, to find our family, we must be willing to let that go. — Vironika Tugaleva

The craziest thing I've done is cut my hair blonde and short a couple of years ago. And people reached out to me saying, 'Celine, you're one of the most stable things we have in our lives, don't do that. We want you the way you are.' — Celine Dion

Most of us are quite selfish when it comes to our children, you know. We want things from them: love, the satisfaction of seeing them do well, and so on. Plenty of parents don't think just of their child's best interest. Oh, they may pay lip service to it, but they really think of themselves, of what they get from parenting. — Alexander McCall Smith

I can assure you that most of the drivers have a lot of things they'd like to do, but racing keeps them from doing that. We're so restricted because of our long season. We have a one-and-a-half-month period where we get to do what we want - that's shorter than any other sport. It makes it tough, for sure. — Denny Hamlin

You and me are real people, operating in a real world. We are not figments of each other's imagination. I am the architect of my own self, my own character and destiny. It is no use whingeing about what I might have been, I am the things I have done and nothing more. We are all free, completely free. We can each do any damn thing we want. Which is more than most of us dare to imagine. — Jean-Paul Sartre

People don't realize how easy they have it these days. Most kids have never known what it's like to go without anything. They want something, they get it. If there isn't enough money, they charge it. We never wanted anything because we never realized we could have anything. We never missed what we never had. Things were much simpler back then, and we were stronger for it. We worked together to keep the house in order, to put food on the table. We kept things going. — Clara Cannucciari

We talk about the American Dream, and want to tell the world about the American Dream, but what is that Dream, in most cases, but the dream of material things? I sometimes think that the United States for this reason is the greatest failure the world has ever seen. — Eugene O'Neill

On the other hand, when they get all sweet because they want it, that's called PEAK. PEAK is Pre-Ejaculation Ass Kissing. It's during PEAK that we have the most power. Take advantage of PEAK! PEAK makes men do cRaZZzY things! Just like PMS makes us do crazy shit. Hormones are a bitch. "The Talk" is basically your first round of PEAK with this man. You can get a lot of what you want during PEAK, so don't be afraid to tell a man what you want or expect. He's either going to say yes or no. If he denies you what you want, then — Kara King

If we seriously contemplate life it appears an agony too great to be supported, but for the most part our minds gloss such things over & until the ice finally lets us through we skate about merrily enough. Most people, I'm convinced, don't think about life at all. They grab what they think they want and the subsequent consequences keep them busy in an endless chain till they're carried out feet first. — Philip Larkin

Slavery has been outlawed in most arab countries for years now but there are villages in jordan made up entirely of descendants of runaway Saudi slaves. Abdulrahman knows he might be free, but hes still an arab. No one ever wants to be the arab - its too old and too tragic, too mysterious and too exasperating, and too lonely for anyone but an actual arab to put up with for very long. Essentially, its an image problem. Ask anyone, Persian, Turks, even Lebanese and Egyptians - none of them want to be the arab. They say things like, well, really we're indo-russian-asian european- chaldeans, so in the end the only one who gets to be the arab is the same little old bedouin with his goats and his sheep and his poetry about his goats and his sheep, because he doesnt know that he's the arab, and what he doesnt know wont hurt him. — Diana Abu-Jaber

Punish us because we are different. Because we have dared to dream, and to believe in those
things no one else any longer believes in.
"Punish us because we challenged what exists, what everyone else accepts, what most others
want to remain unchanged.
"Punish us because we speak of faith, and we feel hopeless. We speak of love, but we receive
neither the affection nor the comfort we feel we deserve. We speak of freedom, and we are
prisoners to our own guilt. — Paulo Coelho

Modern society has never been about finding contentment in the basics; modern society is founded on the principle that happiness lies in having more. We are bred to keep up with the Jones' because he who dies with the most toys wins. If I only work a little bit harder, a little bit longer, I'll be able to afford that boat and then I'll finally be happy. The illusive concept of finding happiness in things is the gerbil wheel that perpetually powers capitalism. I had hiked 2,283 miles and now my eyes were too wide opened to want to get on the wheel. But what was the alternative? Being homeless? — Erin Miller

Sometimes the things we want most are the hardest to get. That means you need to be even more determined to succeed. That's what it takes to be a winner. You have to want it bad enough to stick with it no matter how tough things get. — Chuck Norris

And these Things,
which live by perishing, know you are praising them; transient,
they look to us for deliverance: us, the most transient of all.
They want us to change them, utterly, in our invisible heart,
within - oh endlessly - within us! Whoever we may be at last.
Earth, isn't this what you want: to arise within us,
invisible? Isn't it your dream
to be wholly invisible someday? — Rainer Maria Rilke

Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature. Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality. The important thing is to teach a child that good can always triumph over evil. — Walt Disney Company

I have fought the long defeat and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I'm not going to stop because we keep losing. Now I actually think sometimes we may win. I don't dislike victory ... You know, people from our background-like you, like most PIH-ers, like me-we're used to being on a victory team, and actually what we're really trying to do in PIH is to make common cause with the losers. Those are two very different things. We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it's not worth it. So you fight the long defeat. — Tracy Kidder

When we think about a child, which things attracts more towards them. what is the most appealing things about children. Is their physical beauty, their openess and loving nature, their innate humour ? according to me its their innocence which we all lost.
This is the quality which attract most to love kids, their innocence. Innocence is like free from the hurdles of this world,do whatever you want to do, not giving attention on what people will think, enjoy life and etc. children are so innocent that they don't care about the world. — Joann Kinlaw

We work long hours, but we are laughing most of the time, and that's where my other valuable lesson came from: to feel blessed and recognize that working with people you like will make you want to work more! Everyone wears many hats and we all like to do many different things at our company. We all dream stuff up, but more important, we find ways to make it a reality. — Drew Barrymore

By all means, stay," Anne said. "Have a seat. We'll take care of you next."
"Yeah, see, I think someone else is going to be on trial next." Baring my teeth at her in a grin I pulled out my file folder. "I've got some interesting reading here. And I even brought copies for everyone so you don't have to share."
A distinguished-looking South American man on the end shook his head. "What is this? Another farce?"
"No, but bonus points for using a funny word. You really want to read what I have here. Anne, you'll be especially interested, since you have a starring role."
"Enough. Rhia - "
Reth quickly flicked his wrist at her; her mouth kept moving, but no sound came out. It was one of the most satisfying things I'd ever seen. Sure, that trick had sucked when he used it on me, but I wholly approved of it now. — Kiersten White

I think people are very brave and often are a lot more frightened than they're allowed to admit. Life is much harder to live for most people than we want to admit. And so many things take a summoning up of courage. It makes one's own life a little bit easier when you can acknowledge that.
-Ursula LeGuin, interviewed by — Brenda Peterson

So how can we determine what's real and what's not? We can't. We can just pick and choose what we want to believe and rationalize it as best we can. Reality, after all, is basically a movie projected inside our heads. It's based on the colors our senses permit us to see, the sounds they permit us to hear and whatever else our brains let slip through the gates. But outside our limited senses, surrounding us, there is, unquestionably, a much greater reality, a universe we live in but cannot see. Well, most of us, anyway. Out there, in the dark, All Things Are Possible. — Richard B. Spence

Most of the boys would come with bits of equipment that their fathers had given them from their war days - helmets, canteens, binoculars, these kinds of things - that leant a kind of authenticity to the games we were playing. But, of course, my father never gave me anything. So I began to question him. You know, Why don't you have anything from the war? And I think he was ... embarrassed to tell me he hadn't fought, because, you know, little boys want to turn their fathers into heroes, and he didn't want to be diminished in my eyes. — Paul Auster

It's amazing how we push against things, things that in our depths we know we want, we know are good for us, yet we continue to deny ourselves with a conviction unmatched. Maybe we do it because we don't think we deserve that one true, good thing. Are we worthy? It's the most extraordinary thing, to embrace the life you never saw yourself living." -Harley LeBeau, The Boots My Mother Gave Me — Brooklyn James

We live in a very special time right now. At no other time in history has there been such mass disillusionment in terms of reliance on governing functions. Most people don't want to come to terms with that. It's been proven over and over again that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes, but most people don't like to look at naked emperors. In the process of turning around to avert their eyes, they saw the discotheques and a few other things and latched onto them — Frank Zappa

Most people don't know what they want or feel. And for everyone, myself included, It's very difficult to say what you mean when what you mean is painful. The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to ... As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all, we must dare to fail. You must have the courage to be bad - to be willing to risk everything to really express it all. — John Cassavetes

Most life is spent doing things we don't want to do. — Laurie Halse Anderson

The social dimension of reticence and nonacknowledgment is most developed in forms of politeness and deference. We don't want to tell people what we think of them, and we don't want to hear from them what they think of us, though we are happy to surmise their thoughts and feelings, and to have them surmise ours, at least up to a point. We don't, if we are reasonable, worry too much what they may say about us behind our backs, just as we often say things about a third party that we wouldn't say to his face. Since everyone participates in these practices, they aren't, or shouldn't be, deceptive. Deception is another matter, and sometimes we have reason to object to it, though sometimes we have no business knowing the truth, even about how someone really feels about us. — Thomas Nagel

As far as I know, most organizations are avoiding population issues because they're politically frightened by the charge that comes from some proponents of immigration that if you oppose the immigration policy we have now, you're a racist.. There is no way in the world we can forge a sustainable society without stabilizing the population ... There's no practical way of stabilizing the population of the U.S. without reducing the immigration rate. When do we decide we have to do something, or do we wait until things are as bad here as they are in the countries people want to leave? — Gaylord Nelson

We eat pancakes to escape loneliness, yet within moments we want nothing more than our freedom from ever having so much as thought about pancakes. Nothing can prevent us, after eating pancakes, from feeling the most awful regret. After eating pancakes, our great mission in life becomes the repudiation of the pancakes and everything served along with them, the bacon and the syrup and the sausage and coffee and jellies and jams. But these things are beneath mention, compared with the pancakes themselves. It is the pancake
Pancakes! Pancakes!
that we never learn to respect. — Donald Antrim

The certain pathway to all things that you want is through the corridor of joy. Most of you say, 'When I get that I will be joyful.' And we say, until you are joyful, you will not get that. You must start with the decision-with the determination-with the insistence that, 'I will not settle for less than feeling good.' — Esther Hicks

This is one of the most serious problems with seeker-sensitive churches. I was talking to a pastor at a seeker-friendly church not long ago about his idea that prospective Christians needed to "feel welcome" and "accepted" before anything else: no "threats," no "judgmental baggage." I asked, "If you had a person living in sin come to your church, would you confront him?" He furrowed his brow and shook his head disapprovingly. "Oh, no! We'd want him to feel loved and welcome." My eyes widened. "How long would it be before you would actually say something about that?" "Maybe a year and a half, two years," he said, smiling. "Because then he would really feel a part of things." That was shocking to me. Is there some virtue in leaving a man in his sin for the sake of feeling accepted? "Well, that's the difference between your church and our church," I said finally. "Openly practicing sinners come to our church, and they either get saved or they don't come back. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

One of the most dangerous things about the Bible is that it is big enough to say whatever we want it to say if we are willing to remove the context. — Jefferson Bethke

I still work that expectation/disappointment cycle all the time. I think it is part of the human nature and I think the most important thing is not to judge it. We are human and we do have expectations and a lot of our expectations are often not met. It is a process of learning how to be kind and compassionate and loving to ourselves when we don't get the things we want when people, circumstances, and opportunities don't match our expectations. — Agapi Stassinopoulos

We so much want social connection that we become afraid to say something that might make another person reject us. And yet, being vulnerable and having empathy are the most connecting things we can practice. — Iben Dissing Sandahl

I'm going to guess Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, all want clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. I'm sure most people think women should be paid the same as men if they're doing the same job. I think we all want good schools for our kids. If we made that list, we actually are in agreement on more things. — Michael Moore

This is our one and only chance at mortal life-here and now. The longer we live, the greater is our realization that it is brief. Opportunities come, and then they are gone. I believe that among the greatest lessons we are to learn in this short sojourn upon the earth are lessons that help us distinguish between what is important and what is not. I plead with you not to let those most important things pass you by. As you plan for that illusive, nonexistent future when you will have time to do all that you want to do. Instead, find you in the journey now. — Thomas S. Monson

Jesus designed the Lord's prayer to reveal His desire to give us more fully, graciously, and suitably the very things we most want but seek elsewhere. He does not want to deny us our desires but helps remove the false objects of our affections so that we will have the greater blessings he longs to lavish on us. — Bryan Chapell

Magic is, in its core, introverted and closed; it's the most closed community ever, and I want to change all that and make it more open. If we want things to change, we have to be more open-minded. — Marco Tempest

Our system freed the individual genius of man. Released him to fly as high & as far as his own talent & energy would take him. We allocate resources not by government. decision but by the millions of decisions customers make when they go into the market. place to buy. If something seems too high-priced we buy something else. Thus resources are steered toward those things the people want most at the price they are willing to pay. It may not be a perfect system but it's better than any other that's ever been tried. — Ronald Reagan

We're dealing with sophisticated customers. What's most important to these women is individuality. I have to create things she'll want to wear, no matter who she is. — Oscar De La Renta

When rehabilitation works, there is no question that it is the best and most productive use of the correctional system. It stands to reason: if we can take a bad guy and turn him into a good guy and then let him out, then that's one fewer bad guy to harm us. . . .

Where I do not think there is much hope. . .is when we deal with serial killers and sexual predators, the people I have spent most of my career hunting and studying. These people do what they do. . .because it feels good, because they want to, because it gives
them satisfaction. You can certainly make the argument, and I will agree with you, that many of them are compensating for bad jobs, poor self-image, mistreatment by parents, any number of things. But that doesn't mean we're going to be able to rehabilitate them. — John E. Douglas

Libraries are where most of us really fall in love with books, where we can browse and choose on our own. Its really one of the first autonomous things we do, picking the books we want to read. — Kim Boykin

It's tough to change friends, and it's even tougher to admit when a friendship has run its course, but it can be an important part of growth, too. Friends come and go and, when you change, oftentimes the things you have in common are no longer in alignment, especially if those things are of a time-wasting or unhealthy nature. We have a finite amount of time - the most valuable resource on this planet - and you have 100 percent control over how that time gets spent. Surround yourself with people who want you to be better, and you will see yourself start to level up faster than ever before. — Steve Kamb

Most of the time, if you're not really paying attention, you're someplace else. So your child might say, "Daddy, I want this," and you might say, "Just a minute, I'm busy." Now that's no big deal-we all get busy, and kids frequently ask for attention. But over your child's entire youth, you may have an enormous number of such moments to be really, fully present, but because you thought you were busy, you didn't see the opportunities these moments presented ... People carry around an enormous amount of grief because they missed the little things. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

I wanted what most people wanted - love, companionship.
I wanted someone to touch. I wanted someone to touch me back.
I wanted someone to laugh with, someone who would laugh with me, laugh at me.
I wanted someone who looked and sawme . Not my power, not my position.
I wanted someone to say my name. To call out, "Merit," when it was time to go, or when we arrived.
Someone who wanted to say to someone else, with pride, "I'm here with her. With Merit."
I wanted all those things. Indivisibly.
But I didn't want them from Morgan. — Chloe Neill

I think the things we want most in life, the things we think will set us free, are not the thing we need. — Donald Miller

We may seem the weakest and most insignificant of all the Realms, but our strength comes in other ways. We have what no other race has: imagination. Any one of us, even the lowliest, can create worlds within ourselves; we can people them with the most extraordinary creatures, the most amazing inventions, the most incredible things. We can live in those worlds ourselves, if we choose; and in our own worlds, we can be as we want to be. Imagination is as close as we will ever be to godhead, Poison, for in imagination, we can create wonders. — Chris Wooding

Finally I had made that necessary imaginative leap - which is a real necessity, since most of us writers can't be out there living like crazy all the time. These days, very few are the writers whose book jackets list things like bush pilot, big game hunter, or exotic dancer. No, more often we are English teachers. We have children, we have mortgages, we have bills to pay. So we have to stop writing strictly about what we know, which is what they always told us to do in creative writing classes. Instead, we have to write about what we can learn, and what we can imagine, and thus we come to experience that great pleasure Anne Tyler noted when somebody asked her why she writes, and she answered, I write because I want more than one life. — Lee Smith

All that is great cannot be possessed - and that is one of the most foolish things man goes on doing. We want to possess. — Osho

It would be nice if life weren't so messy, but that's just not the nature of things; we want things to be perfect, but most of the time we just spend our existence cleaning up the messes we make - and sometimes the messes of other people, people about whom we care most in the world. — Craig Johnson

we do not ask. We want to be told. One of the most curious things in the structure of our psyche is that we all want to be told because we are the result of the propaganda of ten thousand years. We want to have our thinking confirmed and corroborated by another, whereas to ask a question is to ask it of yourself. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Physical strength is the most important thing in life. This is true whether we want it to be or not. — Mark Rippetoe

Thanks to the scientific method, most people in "developed" countries have an outlook of mild deism. We assume things like weather and disease operate according to fixed natural laws. Every so often, though, problems impinge on us so directly that we stretch beyond that mildly deistic stance and ask God to intervene. When a drought drags on too long, we pray for rain. When a young mother gets a diagnosis of cervical cancer, we solicit prayers for her healing. We beseech God as if trying to talk God into something God otherwise might not want to do. — Philip Yancey

We see what we want to see, what we expect to see, instead of what's really there. I don't think we do it on purpose, most of the time. We just get kind of stuck. We start thinking that the way things are is the way they'll always be. But that's not true. It can't be true. Because the world is never still. — Lauren Miller

Thanks to our artists, we pretend well, living under canopies of painted clouds and painted gods, in halls of marble floors across which the sung Masses paint hope in deep impatsi of echo. We make of the hollow world a fuller, messier, prettier place, but all our inventions can't create the one thing we require: to deserve any fond attention we might accidentally receive, to receive any fond attention we don't in the course of things deserve. We are never enough to ourselves because we can never be enough to another. Any one of us walks into any room and reminds its occupant that we are not the one they most want to see. We are never the one. We are never enough. — Gregory Maguire

It was one of those rare times of shared happiness, of perfect contentment. We had a feeling of expectation, that what was already wonderful would only get better and better as time went on. These moments are one of the rarest, most fragile things in the world. You have to seize the day; you have to recall all the rotten, dirty things you endured to earn this peace. You have to remember to enjoy each minute, each hour, because although you may feel like it's going to last forever, the world plans otherwise. You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can't do it. It's not in human nature to live life to the fullest. Haven't your ever noticed that equal amounts of pain and joy are not, in fact, equal in duration? Pain drags on until you wonder if life will ever be bearable again; pleasure, though, once it's reached its peak, fades faster than a trodden gardenia, and your memory searches in vain for the sweet scent. — George Alec Effinger

Soon you'll be ashes, or bones. A mere name, at most - and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, and trivial. Dogs snarling at each other. Quarreling children - laughing and then bursting into tears a moment later. — Anonymous

Partially satisfied by grazing on the first few pages of several books, and as a consequence, there are half-chewed novels lying all over the place. At least, I'm presuming they're lying all over the place; I seem to have temporarily lost most of them. When the World Cup is over, and we clear away the piles of betting slips and wall charts, some of them will, presumably, reappear. I wrote in this column recently about Muriel Spark's novels, their genius and their attractive brevity, but there is an obvious disadvantage to her concision: her books tend to get buried under things. I can put my hands on Dennis Lehane's historical novel The Given Day whenever I want, simply because it is seven hundred pages long. — Nick Hornby

There are certain delicate illusions that make life bearable. Love, in its most pure and pathetic form, the one before we get to genuinely know the person we love, is one of them. Ignorance is bliss, and the less you know, the more you love, the less you have, the more you want.
We all miss the most the things we never had. — Cristian Mihai

At a certain point we need to grow up; we need to look inside ourselves for our inner guidance. There are things most human beings know; they just don't want to know them. They know deep down that certain things in their lives are working or aren't working, that certain parts of their lives are functional and others are dysfunctional. But sometimes, as human beings, we don't want to know what's not convenient. So we pretend not to know. — Adyashanti

I will never forget, one day [when I] was six years old and I was playing beside the road and this plantation owner drove up to me and stopped and asked me, could I pick cotton.' I told him I didn't know and he said, Yes, you can. I will give you things that you want from the commissary store,' and he named things like crackerjacks and sardines--and it was a huge list that he called off. So I picked the 30 pounds of cotton that week, but I found out what actually happened was he was trapping me into beginning the work I was to keep doing and I never did get out of his debt again. My parents tried so hard to do what they could to keep us in school, but school didn't last four months out of the year and most of the time we didn't have clothes to wear. — Fannie Lou Hamer

Sometimes the things we want the most are bad for us - really bad for us - but sometimes what's bad for us sets us free. — Krystal McLean

For the rest of the earth's organisms, existence is relatively uncomplicated. Their lives are about three things: survival, reproduction, death - and nothing else. But we know too much to content ourselves with surviving, reproducing, dying - and nothing else. We know we are alive and know we will die. We also know we will suffer during our lives before suffering - slowly or quickly - as we draw near to death. This is the knowledge we "enjoy" as the most intelligent organisms to gush from the womb of nature. And being so, we feel shortchanged if there is nothing else for us than to survive, reproduce, and die. We want there to be more to it than that, or to think there is. This is the tragedy: Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are - hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones. — Thomas Ligotti

U.S. certainly are not warlike. We don't want that. We want to make money, which I always thought was one of the most admirable things about Americans. — Gore Vidal

In general, I'm pretty busy with the other things I charted ... I bought a piece of a sports-tech company. We do a lot of work with at the Clippers. I think that'll be great. We're really looking at the possibility of extending and building a real over-the-top distribution channel with value-added services for the Clippers, that could lead to other partnerships and investments. But most of the stuff I'm looking at isn't because I say, "Hey, I want to invest." It sort of comes around from the work we're doing with the Clippers. — Steve Ballmer

And that's the tricky thing about life, really, that the things we want most will kill us. — Donald Miller

Moral #1: "If you work hard, stay focused, and never give up, you will eventually get what you want in life."
Moral #2: Sometimes the things we want most in life are the things that will kill us. — Donald Miller

In any organization of which I have played a leadership role, our trump card has never been great numbers but the way we worked with neighborhood people in conjunction with professionals in suits and ties. I want the Obama generation to try to understand this concept, and use it as a real yardstick for their ability to make change. My life personifies the straddling of two cultures: the world of Amherst and Yale and the world of Newark, New Jersey. As you will see, it is the power of the streets combined with the power of the suites that is the most effective mix for making things happen. Anybody who comes to you and says "we want change," without addressing the intersection of these two powerful forces in combination, is just whistling status quo. — Junius Williams

To help our youth abide by the principles involved in temple marriage, we must help them to understand that temple marriage is more than just a place where the ceremony occurs; it is a whole orientation to life and marriage and home. It is a culmination of building attitudes toward the Church, chastity, and about our personal relationship with God
and many other things.
"Thus, simply preaching temple marriage is not enough. Our family home evenings, seminaries, institutes, and auxiliaries must build toward this goal, not by exhortation alone but by showing that the beliefs and attitudes involved in temple marriage are those which can bring the kind of life here and in eternity that most humans really want for themselves" (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, p. 244). — Harold B. Lee

Kathleen Norris' warning that "when we write from the center . . . when we write about what matters to us most, words will take us places we don't want to go. You begin to see that you will have to say things you don't want to say, that may even be dangerous to say, but are absolutely necessary."2 — Donald B. Cozzens

I laughed because he told me funny stories and it was so easy and light. I realized how long it has been since I've enjoyed that most simple of pleasures: company and conversation on a sunny afternoon. I am impatient for such pleasures, Katy. I am no longer a girl - I am a woman, and I want things, things that I will not have; but it is human, is it not, to long for that from which we are barred? What — Kate Morton

The vampires start to close in. "shouldn't we stand back to back or something?" Clary said.
"What? Why?"
"I don't know. In movies that's what they do in this kind of ... situation."
Jace laughs, "You, you are the most-"
The most what?" Clary demands indignantly.
Jace: Nothing. This isn't a situation okay? I save that word for when things get really bad."
"Really bad? This isn't really bad? What do you want, a nuclear-"
The windows exploded inward in a shower of broken glass. Through the shattered windows came dozens of sleek shapes, four footed and low to the ground, their coats scattering moonlight and broken bits of glass.
Wolves.
"Now, this," said Jace, "is a situation — Cassandra Clare

The way we're going about things and what we want to do, we feel it has to be a really pure essence of music. That's where you get the most out of it. — Chris Robinson

Having your cake and eating it too is how Life was meant to be. Everything is possible. And the things we want the most are not only possible, they're highly probable. — Debbianne DeRose

Mom was often asked to give speeches about why she felt so committed to the cause of refugees. She would say, "Just imagine that you are awakened tonight by someone in your family who says to you, 'Put the things you treasure most in one small bag that you can carry. And be ready in a few minutes. We have to leave our home and we will have to make it to the nearest border.' What mountains would you need to cross? How would you feel? How would you manage? Especially if across the border was a land where they didn't speak your language, where they didn't want you, where there was no work, and where you were confined to camps for months or years." And — Will Schwalbe