Wish I Had You In My Life Quotes & Sayings

Zakhar Georgiyevich Travkin could have stopped right there! But no! Continuing his attempt to expunge his part in this and to stand erect before his own conscience, he rose from behind his desk--he had never stood up in my presence in my former life--and reached across the quarantine line that separated us and gave me his hand, although he would never have reached out his hand to me had I remained a free man. And pressing my hand, while his whole suite stood there in mute horror, showing that warmth that may appear in an habitually severe face, he said fearlessly and precisely:
'I wish you happiness, Captain! — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

My chest tightens: seeing him so upset breaks my own heart. 'Don't you ever wish you could make that bit go away?" I say, feeling angry at the past. 'That you could erase those painful memories, forget they every happened, just remember the happy times you had together?'
'You must never say that,' he reprimands sternly.
'But why not?' I look at him in surprise.
'Because it's the bad memories that makes you appreciate the good ones. Don't ever wish them away. it's like your nan always used to say, "You need both the sun and the rain to make a rainbow". — Alexandra Potter

Calm now," I said with my lips to his ear and my hand to the side of his face. I knew he was thinking of Bad Axe, straining against a distant memory. In a lucid instant, he gripped my hand and searched my face. I felt him fighting to hold to this life, at great sufferance to himself.
I whispered, "Don't struggle for me, Henry, not if you are tired and wish to go."
I pressed my lips to his cheek, touched my finger to the corners of his eyes to brush away the moisture there.
"Husband?" I asked, searching his face, wondering why, suddenly, it had changed so.
All that night, I kept watch over him.
Even though he had gone, I did not want him to believe that such a small thing as the end of living could ever separate the two of us. — Micaela Gilchrist

I wish I were a poet. I've never confessed that to anyone, and I'm confessing it to you, because you've given me reason to feel that I can trust you. I've spent my life observing the universe, mostly in my mind's eye. It's been a tremendously rewarding life, a wonderful life. I've been able to explore the origins of time and space with some of the great living thinkers. But I wish I were a poet.
Albert Einstein, a hero of mine, once wrote, 'Our situation is the following. We are standing in front of a closed box which we cannot open.'
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the vast majority of the universe is composed of dark matter. The fragile balance depends on things we'll never be able to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Life itself depends on them. What's real? What isn't real? Maybe those aren't the right questions to be asking. What does life depend on?
I wish I had made things for life to depend on. — Jonathan Safran Foer

When I was excited about life, I didn't want to write at all. I've never written when I was happy. I didn't want to. But I've never had a long period of being happy, Do you think anyone has? I think you can be peaceful for a long time, When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write. You see, there's very little invention in my books. What came first with most of them was the wish to get rid of this awful sadness that weighed me down . I found when I was a child that if I could put the hurt into words, it would go. It leaves a sort of melancholy behind and then it goes. — Jean Rhys

That summer, maybe for the first time in my life, I existed wholly in the present moment, which is one of the liberating things about traveling to a place where no one knows you. I had no past or future, which suited me perfectly, since I did not wish to reckon with either. — Rachel Friedman

I can feel his presence here in every stone he has touched, every person he has lifted up, every street and alley and city that he has changed in the few years of his life, because he is the Republic, he is our light, and I love you, I love you, until the day we meet again I will hold you in my heart and protect you there, grieving what we never had, cherishing what we did. I wish you were here.
I love you, always. — Marie Lu

I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss: the fear that she would restrains me. And there you see the distinction between our feelings: had he been in my place and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I could have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till then - if you don't believe me, you don't know me - till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head! — Emily Bronte

A strange thing happened to me in my dream. I was rapt into the Seventh Heaven. There sat all the gods assembled. As a special dispensation I was granted the favor to have one wish. "Do you wish for youth," said Mercury, "or for beauty, or power, or a long life; or do you wish for the most beautiful woman, or any other of the many fine things we have in our treasure trove? Choose, but only one thing!" For a moment I was at a loss. Then I addressed the gods in this wise: "Most honorable contemporaries, I choose one thing - that I may always have the laughs on my side." Not one god made answer, but all began to laugh. From this I concluded that my wish had been granted and thought that the gods knew how to express themselves with good taste: for it would surely have been inappropriate to answer gravely: your wish has been granted. — Soren Kierkegaard

In all my life I'd never been approached this way, the car pulling up, the Where you going? It was something I wish had happened hundreds of times. I was a looker - someone who looked over at every car at every traffic light, hoping something would happen, and almost never finding anyone looking back - always everyone looking forwards, and every time I felt stupid. Why should people look at you? Why should they care? — Dave Eggers

I wish we had a donkey. The thing would be for us all to come on donkeys, Jane, Miss Bates, and me
and my caro sposo walking by. I really must talk to him about purchasing a donkey. In a country life I conceive it to be a sort of necessary; for, let a woman have ever so many resources, it is not possible for her to be always shut up at home;
and very long walks, you know
in summer there is dust, and in winter there is dirt. — Jane Austen

I never thought before, that there was a woman in the world who could affect me so much by saying so little. But don't be hard in your construction of me. You don't know what my state of mind towards you is. You don't know how you haunt and bewilder me. You don't know how the cursed carelessness that is over-officious in helping me at every other turning of my life WON'T help me here. You have struck it dead, I think, and I sometimes wish you had struck me dead along with it. — Charles Dickens

And to top everything he's got this problem he can't let her know how he feels: What-he's shy? Shy! Tell me who in this goddamn world is shy? Young, old, the lame and halt. Clobber you over the head with what they feel.
Oh Man I wish just once in my long fucked-up life someone had come up to me who was too shy to tell me what they thought of me ... — E.L. Doctorow

Don't worry, I can't be bothered! You're not worth the trouble it would take to hit you! You're not worth the powder it would take to blow you up. You are an empty, empty, hollow shell of a woman. I mean, what the hell are you doing in my house if you hate me so much? Why the hell are you married to me? What the hell are you doing carrying my child? I mean, why didn't you just get rid of it when you had the chance? Because listen to me, listen to me, I got news for you - I wish to God that you had! — Richard Yates

It is a great pity," she said, "a girl like you, that instead of teaching or doing needlework, you should not go to Vernon's, as you have a right to do, and work there." "I wish I could," Hester said, with eager eyes. "They tell me you wanted to do something like what I had done. Ah! you did not know it was all to be done over again. This life is full of repetitions. People think the same thing does not happen to you twice over, but it does in my experience, You would soon learn. A few years' work, and you would be an excellent man of business; but it can't be,"' "Why cannot it be? You did it. I should not be afraid - - " "I was old. I was past my youth. All that sort of thing was over for me. — Mrs. Oliphant

But you don"t get it. There are so many things I love about you. There's your tendency to hit me on my shoulder because you think I'm saying something stupid or annoying. When you argue with me instead of letting me have the last word. The way you love to play football and embrace it. Your love for your friends and family. Your ability to forgive is impeccable. I love how you like to read even if one of your favorite books is something my best friend had written. The way you are around me, acting like yourself without a care in the world. I could tell that when you were dating my brother, you hid yourself...I knew that and I know it wasn't you. I love how you must think that your violence can be categorized in type of real aggression disorder but it's just you. I love how you can basically eat the whole world in front of me and how you can stand by me even when I make the biggest mistakes. I wish I could spend my entire life telling you I love you because there's so many more reasons. — Nikki20038

You can't do this to me.You were the one who lectured me about living.You were the one who said I had to get out and see what was right in front of me and make the most of it and not wish my time away and find my mountain because my mountain was waiting, and all that adds up to life.But then you leave.You can't just do that. — Jennifer Niven

I had taken up my quill to begin writing many times before now, but I always abandoned it quickly: each time I was overcome with fear. Yes, may God forgive me, but the letters of the alphabet frighten me terribly. They are sly, shameless demons - and dangerous! You open the inkwell, release them: they run off - and how will you ever get control of them again! They come to life, join, separate, ignore your commands, arrange themselves as they like on the paper - black, with tails and horns. You scream at them and implore them in vain: they do as they please. Prancing, pairing up shamelessly before you, they deceitfully expose what you did not wish to reveal, and they refuse to give voice to what is struggling, deep within your bowels, to come forth and speak to mankind. — Nikos Kazantzakis

In my past, there's also an opportunity I could have taken advantage of that I didn't, and that I wish I had. There's a thing I got rid of that I really wish I'd kept. But the train never backs up. Never. I missed those things, and I will never get a second chance. Do yourself a favor, right now, and realize two things: 1. You will keep getting older, and then you will die. 2. Everything that's ever entered your experience has lasted and will continue to last for only a brief moment in the life of the universe. This is game time, champ. You're in. You're in, playing, right now, and the clock is ticking. So stop wondering what it all means and how you'll possibly ever do X and what people will think, and get on with your life already. Stop being a pussy and go do something amazing. *** DO EPIC SHIT. — Johnny B. Truant

There are words in my life that I wish I'd never said. I wish I'd never told my wife that I loved her, because then I had to line up all my actions with those words. I had to always act like that was true. And those three words, I love you, should never be used if you don't mean them. My lying has meant I will never get to use them on anyone else. I went against my own truth, my own heart, and there is really no coming back from that. — Helen Humphreys

Red seeped into Nick's face. "Elizabeth and I were married two weeks ago, " he explained to Samantha.
Laughter crinkled the skin around Wyatt's eyes. "Nick built her a house before the wedding. I never saw one go up so fast in my life."
Nick's flush deepened. "It's not completely finished yet. Elizabeth just refused to wait any longer."
There was a touch of wonder in his tone.
Emotion welled into Samantha's throat and she swallowed. She remembered how Juan Carlos had acted those first weeks they were married. Proud, happy as not quite believing his good fortune. What a special time that had been. How she missed him.
"I wish you happiness in your marriage, Mr. Sanders," she said.
"Call me, Nick, Ma'am." The red receded from his cheeks, leaving behind a glow. "Thank you, I'll pass your good wishes to Elizabeth. — Debra Holland

That goes for old wounds, too, you know. I really wish we'd had the chance to talk before this," he says, cracking the window so the smoke can escape. "There's a Longfellow quote I have stuck on my bulletin board at the church office- 'There is no grief like the grief that does not speak'- and it's true. I've found that keeping pain inside doesn't give it a chance to heal, but bringing it out into the light, holding it right there in your hands and trusting that you're strong enough to make it through, not hating the pain, not loving it, just seeing it for what it really is can change how you go on from there. Time alone doesn't heal emotional wounds, Sayre, and you don't want to live the rest of your life bottled up with anger and guilt and bitterness. That's how people self-destruct. — Laura Wiess

Do you remember the books from our childhood? Those were you could decide yourself what the character should do next?
I always loved those books, getting to decide what will happen, being responsible for it.
But did you ever decided for something, flipped to the page, read it and then thought: "No, I don't want this to happen!" And then you went back to where it all went wrong and just took a different path.
It was always so easy with those books, if you didn't like what was happening you just chose a different path, like pressing rewind till it makes sense again and then hit play.
It's not like I am always unhappy with my words, actions or decisions in a situation, but I can't stop wondering how everything would be right now if I had said something different at some point.
I guess I will never know but it makes me question my words, decisions and actions right now, because what if I chose wrong and then I don't get what I wish for because of one word or one step? — Lena Goetz

You don't like Talon, do you? (Sunshine) Wish him dead every time I see him. (Zarek) I can't tell if you mean that or not. (Sunshine) I mean it. (Zarek) Why? (Sunshine) He's an asshole and I've had enough assholes in my life. (Zarek) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

You were the biggest mistake of my life, Kellan. You were right - we're not friends, never were. I wish you would just go away.
I felt like she'd just reached into my chest and squeezed my heart until it burst open in her hands. Her words hurt me more than anything I'd ever heard before, and I'd heard some pretty shitty things in my lifetime. This was worse than anything my father had ever said or done to me. It was worse than hearing her have sex with Denny five seconds after me. This ... destroyed me. — S.C. Stephens

It is my wish that you may have at better and freer life than I have had. Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience; this was what upheld me in time of misery. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

For a good part of my life, I had a share in this idea that I have not yet quite abandoned. But there came a time when I could not protect myself, and indeed did not wish to protect myself, from the onslaught of reality. Marxism, I conceded, had its intellectual and philosophical and ethical glories, but they were in the past. Something of the heroic period might perhaps be retained, but the fact had to be faced: there was no longer any guide to the future. In addition, the very concept of a total solution had led to the most appalling human sacrifices, and to the invention of excuses for them. Those of us who had sought a rational alternative to religion had reached a terminus that was comparably dogmatic. What else was to be expected of something that was produced by the close cousins of chimpanzees? Infallibility? Thus, dear reader, if you have come this far and found your own faith undermined - as I hope - I am willing to say that to some extent I know what you are going through. — Christopher Hitchens

Claudia was either unaware of her expression, or didn't care that he knew of her interest in his nakedness. Once he had hoped to find a mistress who would look at him with such undisguised longing.
He had never dared hope to find lust in a wife. The perfect woman sat before him, and she was his. Life was very good indeed. He propped his hands behind his head. "I am at your mercy, my lady. Do with me as you will."
"You wish to be ravished, Baron?"
"'Tis my fondest desire. — Elizabeth Elliott

I wish you could see some of the girls I have genuinely had crushes on in my life. They're not the girls you would assume. — Chris Evans

Tirian, with his head against Jewel's flank, slept as soundly as if he were in his royal bed at Cair Paravel, till the sound of a gong beating awoke him and he sat up and saw that there was firelight on the far side of the stable and knew that the hour had come. "Kiss me, Jewel," he said. "For certainly this is our last night on earth. And if ever I offended against you in any matter great or small, forgive me now."
"Dear King," said the Unicorn, "I could almost wish you had, so that I might forgive it. Farewell. We have known great joys together. If Aslan gave me my choice I would choose no other life than the life I have had and no other death than the one we go to. — C.S. Lewis

Dammit that yodel of triumph of yours was the most beautiful thing I ever heard in my life. I wish I'd a had a tape recorder to take it down.'
'Those things aren't made to be heard by the people below,' says Japhy dead serious.
'By God you're right, all those sedentary bums sitting around on pillows hearing the cry of the triumphant mountain smasher, they don't deserve it. But when I looked up and saw you running down that mountain I suddenly understood everything. — Jack Kerouac

I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of Dublin. Never. And I don't know why I should be asked to explain your life to you. We have splendid writers to do that, but I am not one of them. It is that business of being universal, a word hopelessly stripped of meaning for me. Faulkner wrote what I suppose could be called regional literature and had it published all over the world. That's what I wish to do. If I tried to write a universal novel, it would be water. Behind this question is the suggestion that to write for black people is somehow to diminish the writing. From my perspective there are only black people. When I say 'people,' that's what I mean. — Toni Morrison

As an emerging photojournalist in the early 70s, my focus was on trying to create stories for magazines to the exclusion of almost everything else. I wish someone had told me then that the most personally important pictures you'll ever make are those about you and your life. I'm glad I had the chance to work for some great magazines, but I really miss those little everyday images, the ones that take place in and around your own life, which will never make the news. Don't sell yourself short: photograph your own life, not just everyone else's. — David

Long ago, returning from some turbulent sequence of misdeeds, the younger, beloved son of the house of Culter would rap at the door of his mother's chamber, and be admitted, and closing the door, would bend upon her the grave, sweet gaze, made of mischief and love, that melted the bones in her body. Then, sinking to one knee, he would kiss her hand, in obedience and humility.

Now he rapped, and she heard his voice speak her name and, rising, she faced him as the door opened and shut and he stood, his bearing and looks unlike anything she had ever seen in him before, in any extremity. He said, 'I have to find Philippa.' And then, walking into the room, he dropped on one knee and said, 'I will promise anything you wish, to the end of my life, if you will tell me the name of the house that you know of. — Dorothy Dunnett

The rival you both share is myself. I do not wish to marry ... First, because my past habituated me to loneliness. I had always thought I hated it. And now I have found I treasure it. I do not want to share my life. I wish to be what I am, not what a husband must expect me to become in marriage. My second reason is my present. I never expected to be happy in life. Yet I find myself happy where I am situated now. I have varied congenial work ... I am admitted to the daily conversation of genius. Such men have their faults. Their vices. But they are not those the world chooses to imagine. I have no genius myself, I have no more than the capacity to aid genius in very small and humble ways ... I believe I owe a debt to good fortune. I am not to seek it elsewhere. I am to see it as precarious, as a thing of which I must not allow myself to be bereft. — John Fowles

Frodo: 'It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill Gollum when he had the chance.'
Gandalf: 'Pity? It's a pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play in it, for good or evil, before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.' Frodo: 'I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.'
Gandalf: 'So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides that of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, in which case you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought. — J.R.R. Tolkien

It had been a damned nice thing - the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. (Waterloo 18 June 1815)

'I hope to God,' he said one day,'that I have fought my last battle.It is a bad thing to be always fighting.While in the thick of it,I am much too occupied to feel anything;but it is wretched just after.It is quite impossible to think of glory.Both mind and feeling are exhausted.I am wretched even at the moment of victory,and I always say that next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.Not only do you lose those dear friends with whom you have been living,but you are forced to leave the wounded behind you.To be sure one tries to do the best for them,but how little that is!At such moments every feeling in your breast is deadened.I am now just beginning to retain my natural spirits,but I never wish for any more fighting. — Arthur Wellesley

Just another day in my life. This was one of those days when I thought that maybe a new life, a different life, wouldn't be so bad. But where the hell had I put the receipt, and could you return something that was over twenty years old? Where do you go to get a new life when your old one has you so puzzled you don't know how to fix it? Wish I knew. — Laurell K. Hamilton

What a glorious night. Every face I see is a memory. It may not be a perfectly perfect memory. Sometimes we had our ups and downs. But we're all together and you're mine for a night. And I'm going to break precedent and tell you my one-candle wish ... that you would have a life as lucky as mine, where you can wake up one morning and say, 'I don't want anything more'. Sixty-five years. Don't they go by in a blink? — Anthony Hopkins

I wish I could say we all lived happily ever after. I can't. But I can say we lived. Our love for Nate lives, and he's left us this piece of himself in his art; it was his gift to us. We know him through his art, and I can take comfort in that.
I guess the thing about high school is, it's the moment when you start to cross from a being a kid to being an adult, and this journey to know yourself begins. Nate's journey ended to early, and I thought I had to run away to some far-off land to start mine. But, for now, it seems to me that I have enough to explore right here. There's a whole continent to discover in myself, and I know that it's love - love for my parents, my friends, my brother, and my art - that will guide me. Love will be my map. — Lisa Ann Sandell

What story will you tell me?" "What kind of story would you like?" "An exciting story. One with an exotic climate and mortal peril." He had to smile at the relish in her voice. "Do we have bloodthirsty warring factions in this story?" "No war, please." She'd lost a brother to the Corsican's armies. He'd forgotten that, though she never would. "You want a happy ending, then?" She studied her teacup for a thoughtful moment. "I don't admit to my family that I still want the happy endings and wishes to come true. A mature woman should just take life as it comes, and I do have a great deal to be grateful for." "But a mature woman should also be honest with herself, and with me. You're allowed to wish for the happy endings, Sophie. For yourself and for Kit too." When — Grace Burrowes