Wishing For Things Quotes & Sayings

My life changed the day I moved beyond just wishing for things and I started earning them. That is the day I learned that we don't get what we wish for, we get what we work for. — Steve Maraboli

That's the really annoying thing about love. I probably would be happier if I didn't know it, but once you do know it, once you feel those things for someone, you can't make yourself really wish it away. It's like wishing away ... your soul.
- Jenny — Toni Blake

I used to lie here like this all summer long,' I tell her. 'I'd come up here and just stare at the sky.'
She rolls over on her back so she's staring up as well. 'Bet this view hasn't changed much, has it?'
What she says is so simple i almost laugh. She's right, of course. 'No. This looks exactly the same.'
I suppose that's the secret, If you're ever wishing for things to go back to the way they were. You just have to look up. — Lauren Oliver

He keeps wishing for impossible things to happen. Like to see the stars while it's raining and for the person he loves to love him back. — Anonymous

I didn't grow up dreaming or wishing for things, Grace. Then I saw this woman in this motherfucking picture, and I let myself dream, let myself wish. — Cat Porter

When we are young, we want to be old and for things to change.
When we are old, we want to be young and for things to go back to the way they were. — J.R. Rim

It's never gone so far as me wishing I'd never done 'Quadrophenia,' but there was a time when I wouldn't talk about it because I wanted people to be interested in me for other things as well. — Phil Daniels

While coming to grips with my new reality wasn't easy, and at times I couldn't help but wonder - why did this happen to me? - I had to take responsibility for getting my life back. Instead of complaining about how things should be, I embraced how things were. I stopped putting energy into wishing my life were any different - into wishing bad things didn't happen to me - and instead focused 100% on making the best of what I had. Since I couldn't change the past, I focused on moving forward. I dedicated my life to fulfilling my potential and achieving my dreams so I could discover how to empower others to do the same. — Hal Elrod

if someone would wish to see a city or a country, he would certainly go to that place for the sight; in the same way, one wishing to comprehend the mind of the theologians must first wash and cleanse his soul by his manner of life, and approach the saints themselves by the imitation of their works, so that being with them in the conduct of a common life, he may understand also the things revealed to them, and thenceforth, as joined to them, may escape the peril of the sinners and their fire on the day of judgment, but may receive what has been laid up for the saints in the kingdom of heaven, "which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man" (1 Cor 2.9), — Athanasius Of Alexandria

I must stop wishing for things to happen. Because something will happen eventually, and when it does, I'll be bound to wish it hadn't. — Kristin Cashore

Boobs are like boyfriends. You go around wishing for them and trying to figure out what you have to do to get them, and worrying about all the things you're probably doing wrong, and then one day, who knows why, you wake up and find you've got more than you wanted. — Pamela Todd

All pain in life comes from wishing things were different than they are. Conversely, peace and happiness must come from accepting life as it is and breaking through the barriers of illusion to do so ... All things that we label good or bad often hold in them surprises if we stay open. Each of us has choice in how we interpret life's events and in this way we are each responsible for our own reality. — Kristine Carlson

If I were a magician who could make things possible, I'd have lemonade always tasting as it did on the evening Francesco explained how right it was for the Italian moon to be a feminine moon. If I were a magician who could make things possible, we'd be able to understand all languages every evening between eight and nine. If I were a magician who could make things possible, all dams would keep their promises. If I were a magician who could make things possible, we'd be really brave. — Sasa Stanisic

Not a day goes by that I don't still need to remind myself that my life is not just what's handed to me, nor is it my list of obligations, my accomplishments or failures, or what my family is up to, but rather it is what I choose, day in and day out, to make of it all. When I am able simply to be with things as they are, able to accept the day's challenges without judging, reaching, or wishing for something else, I feel as if I am receiving the privilege, coming a step closer to being myself. It's when I get lost in the day's details, or so caught up in worries about what might be, that I miss the beauty of what is. — Katrina Kenison

Why did things have to get so backwards in our house? Since she couldn't be the adult, I knew that it had to be me. But that didn't stop me from hating it--from wishing it was just over. I'd give anything to be a kid again and not to be the responsible one in the house. It was like I was trapped in a horrible virtual-reality game, except there was no way for me to quit. — Elizabeth Langston

No one is entitled to anything. Everything we get in this life we have worked for. And sometimes we take on baggage we never even signed up for, but that dosen't mean you deserve it. I wake up everyday wishing I could change things, but I can't change past. All I can do is change the future. — E.M. Youman

Instead of wishing things would change, I'm asking God for His strength to make a change. — Lysa TerKeurst

And sometimes, sometimes, wanting things, wishing for, working for them, is a good thing. Otherwise, we become nothing but spoiled boys and girls frustrated that we don't get every new toy we see. — Lisa Tawn Bergren

Resist nothing. Like the Tibetan monk who once told me that he found peace by saying yes to all that happened. I met him again years later and reminded him of what he'd said. He laughed. "Perhaps," he said. "It does fit with my life philosophy." He had a lightness to him that is rare. His laugh, genuine. I almost expected him to levitate. If you think about it, how much time do we spend in our heads wishing things were another way, beating ourselves up, beating others up, crafting a different past, wishing for a different future? All of that is resistance. All of that is pain. Peace is letting it be. Letting life flow, letting emotions flow through you. If you don't fight them, they pass through quickly and you feel better. — Kamal Ravikant

Forgiveness is probably the most important self-esteem building process anyone can undertake. Forgiveness is an internal response to the fact that we cannot, under any circumstances, change the past. The only things we can change are our thoughts about the past. Forgiveness happens when we stop wishing for a better past and understand that we are carrying hatred, anger and resentment within us. — Gudjon Bergmann

Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past. You won't be able to forgive yourself for not doing things differently until you stop wishing things were different — Zoe York

I think my work is optimistic - as much as it is pathetic and funny and sad and ridiculous, at the end of the day it's about the hope that something will go right, and the constant wishing for a world where things might start to make sense. — Laurel Nakadate

I aim at being useful, and sincerity will render me unaffected; for, wishing rather to persuade by the force of my arguments, than dazzle by the elegance of my language, I shall not waste my time in rounding periods, nor in fabricating the turgid bombast of artificial feelings, which, coming from the head, never reach the heart. - I shall be employed about things, not words! — Mary Wollstonecraft

Everybody in the world has a different reason for wishing they could say things that most people know not to say. — Lisa Edelstein

Then he put in a call for Nicole in Zurich, remembering so many things as he waited, and wishing he had always been as good as he had intended to be. — F Scott Fitzgerald

And as far as wishing goes, I save my wishes for things that can still come true. There's no point in wasting them on the past. — G.A. McKevett

8But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and t a thousand years as one day. 9 u The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise v as some count slowness, but w is patient toward you, [1] x not wishing that any should perish, but y that all should reach repentance. 10But z the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then a the heavens will pass away with a roar, and b the heavenly bodies [2] will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. [3] 11Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, c what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 d waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and e the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13But according to his promise we are waiting for f new heavens and a new earth g in which righteousness dwells. — Anonymous

As sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we are capable of so much more. For that, good intentions are not enough. We must do. Even more important, we must become what Heavenly Father wants us to be.
Declaring our testimony of the gospel is good, but being a living example of the restored gospel is better. Wishing to be more faithful to our covenants is good; actually being faithful to sacred covenants - including living a virtuous life, paying our tithes and offerings, keeping the Word of Wisdom, and serving those in need - is much better. Announcing that we will dedicate more time for family prayer, scripture study, and wholesome family activities is good; but actually doing all these things steadily will bring heavenly blessings to our lives. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I don't believe that wishing works. I think we get the things we work for. — Brendan Fraser

That's the fix for all of this? Eat Kisses?" I laugh, wishing life were just that easy: all things fixable with chocolate. — K. Bromberg

The whole point of wishing is not to focus on what you don't have it's to show you what could be. Once you know what you want then you know what to reach for what to dream about. It's how you change things. — Lisa Mangum

People are like stars in the Milky Way. There are millions of them. There are big, small, dead, and dying stars out there. Hindi ikaw ang nag-iisang bituin d'yan sa langit, kaya hindi sa'yo umiikot ang mundo. Puweding makinang ka ngayon, pero asahan mong parating may darating na mas makinang pa sa'yo. Malaki ang posibilidad na mawala sa'yo ang atensiyon ng iba, pero tandaan mo ang isang bagay.

"Whatever happens, you're still a star. There will still be people looking at you, admiring your beauty, and wishing for great things to happen to them with your help. You can't let them down, so you have to continue shining for them. You have to show them directions. That's what stars are for. — Luna King

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are still alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them. — George Eliot

Serenity. Now you could wish for that, naming no conditions: a permanent inner vacation, escape made good. To somehow have this motionlessness that he drew in with the sweet air he inhaled for his inward weather always.
But there were problems too with wishing for moral qualities, serenity, large-mindedness. The interdiction (which Pierce thought obvious) against wishing for such things as artistic abilities
sit down at the piano, the Appassionata flows suddenly from your fingertips
applied in a way to wisdom too, to enlightenment, to heart-knowledge, useless unless earned, the earning of it being no doubt all that it consisted of. — John Crowley

Mellas knew that Hawke was letting him squirm. Then, without looking up, Hawke said, 'Look, Mellas, in the Navy or Air Force they give you a medal for what the Marines call just doing their job. In the Marines you only get a medal for being braver than just doing your job. Then he looked at Mellas. 'You get in fixes where medals are handed out because you were unlucky and had to fix things, or because you were stupid and had to fix things. Be carful what you're wishing for. — Karl Marlantes

If a nurse declines to do these kinds of things for her patient, "because it is not her business," I should say that nursing was not her calling. I have seen surgical "sisters," women whose hands were worth to them two or three guineas a-week, down upon their knees scouring a room or hut, because they thought it otherwise not fit for their patients to go into. I am far from wishing nurses to scour. It is a waste of power. But I do say that these women had the true nurse-calling - the good of their sick first, and second only the consideration what it was their "place" to do - and that women who wait for the housemaid to do this, or for the charwoman to do that, when their patients are suffering, have not the making of a nurse in them. — Florence Nightingale

I'm just not the same. Half of me is out there looking for you and the other half is wishing i didn't have to. I don't want to live - I want to love first, And live incidentally. Don't-don't ever think of the things you can't give me-You've trusted me with the dearest heart of all-and it's so damn much more than anybody else in all the world has ever had. — Zelda Fitzgerald

Back in the car, I sit for a long time, breathing. I'll remember this, what just happened, for a very long time. I'll be on my own deathbed someday, replaying this in my head, wishing it had gone differently. We hold on to the shitty things the tightest, for some reason. And this is the shittiest thing ever. Are — Matthew Norman

When you live a hard life, you spend years wishing for the easy stuff, but then when you get it, it never feels right. You get used to having to fight and claw for the things you want, and when you don't have to do that anymore, everything feels a little bit muted. — Cora Carmack

Many of us spend half our time wishing for things we could have if we didn't spend half our time wishing. — Alexander Woollcott

As he made his morning coffee, Tengo found himself silently wishing that this peaceful time could go on forever. If he said it aloud, some keen-eared demon somewhere might overhear him. And so he kept his wish for continued tranquility to himself. But things never go the way you want them to, and this was no exception. The world seemed to have a better sense of how you wanted things not to go. — Haruki Murakami

At lilac evening I walked with every muscle aching among the lights of 27th and Welton in the Denver colored section, wishing I were a Negro, feeling that the best the white world had offered was not enough ecstasy for me, not enough life, joy, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night ... I wished I were a Denver Mexican, or even a poor overworked Jap, anything but what I was so drearily, a "white man" disillusioned. All my life I'd had white ambitions; that was why I'd abandoned a good woman like Terry in the San Joaquin Valley I passed the dark porches of Mexican and Negro homes. — Jack Kerouac

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for. — Tom Bodett

The most wonderful of all things in life is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a growing depth, beauty and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life. — Hugh Walpole

I suppose that's the secret, if you're ever wishing for things to go back to the way they were. You just have to look up. THROUGH — Lauren Oliver

Do you know the myth, that one should never eat the food of faery, or be forever trapped. That is true, in its way. To eat or drink of the things of faery is to taste of something so uncommon, so blessed and lovely, that one is forever spoiled. Mortals who taste us either stay with us forever, or spend their lives wishing for what they'd experienced. They search for the taste, the feeling, the joy, but find them not in human things. Some are fortunate enough to find one of us who will take them into service, but most of them pine away, unable to enjoy what they have for the longing of what they do not. — Cindy Lynn Speer

The human species was given dominion over the earth and took the opportunity to exterminate other species and warm the atmosphere and generally ruin things in its own image, but it paid this price for its privileges: that the finite and specific animal body of this species contained a brain capable of conceiving the infinite and wishing to be infinite itself. — Jonathan Franzen

If you can't put magnolia on a wall then there are always a million other colors you can use, if you can't pay your phone bill then just write letters telling them. I'm not playing down the importance of these things, yes you need money for food, yes you need food to survive, but you also need sleep to have energy, to smile to be happy, and to be happy so you can laugh, just so you don't keel over with a heart attack. People forget they have options. And they forget that those things really don't matter. They should concentrate on what they have and not what they don't have. And by the way, wishing and dreaming doesn't mean concentrating on what you don't have, it's positive thinking that encourages hoping and believing, not whining and moaning. — Cecelia Ahern

At the beginning of the month I wrote a letter to Santa - I know, childish - but I needed something to hope for, even if it felt silly."
He smiled and shifted to sit by my side, winding his arm around my wait. "Wishing and hoping is never silly, Harper," he whispered, nipping my jaw.
I leaned into his hold and twined our fingers. "I had two things on it: you, and to be accepted." I stared at the black ink marking my letter in my messy handwriting.
He pressed his forehead against my temple. "You were on mine too, only, I didn't send it to Santa. — Shaye Evans

Personally, I was never more passionate about manga than when preparing for my college entrance exams. It's a period of life when young people appear to have a great deal of freedom, but are in many ways actually opressed. Just when they find themselves powerfully attracted to members of opposite sex, they have to really crack the books. To escape from this depressing situation, they often find themselves wishing they could live in a world of their own - a world they can say is truly theirs, a world unknown even to their parents. To young people, anime is something they incorporate into this private world.
I often refer to this feeling as one yearning for a lost world. It's a sense that although you may currently be living in a world of constraints, if you were free from those constraints, you would be able to do all sorts of things. And it's that feeling, I believe, that makes mid-teens so passionate about anime. — Hayao Miyazaki

Wishing is for things you can't get on your own. Wanting is for things you can. — Abbie Zanders

Stop wishing for things you complain you have not, and start making the best of all that you've got. — Helen Steiner Rice

The same things are done by us, over and over, with terrible predictability. One may be forgiven, in view of this, for wishing at least to associate with beauty. — Saul Bellow

Too many things have changed. Too much time has passed. I'm different now, a man with a pocketful of unconnected but terribly vivid memories. I was looking to dredge up what I'd long forgotten. Most of all, I am wishing for something to fasten all these gems, maybe something to hold them in a continuity that I can comprehend. — Andrew X. Pham

Just friends, she reminded herself. They were only friends, and would only be friends from here on out. It was a friendship that was to be cherished, as she cherished all the friendships she'd made aboard this ship. She wouldn't ruin it by wishing things could be more. She would be grateful for what affection she did have. — Marissa Meyer

Maybe that's just the nature of us, ever wishing for things that were and could be rather than things that are and will be. — Pierce Brown

I certainly do believe that a lot of comedy comes from awkwardness and embarrassment - pointing out the ways things are uncomfortable. Definitely the stuff that interests me. I don't necessarily think that comedy comes from a dark place, like you have to be a strung-out heroin addict. But I don't think it comes from happiness, that's for sure. It comes from frustration and suppressed rage, and wishing the world were different. — Christian Finnegan

There must be a season for everything that measures what success means to you, there must be a deliberately scheduled time slot for the things that are important to you. Wishing is not enough, deliberate plans followed by deliberate actions make it possible. — Archibald Marwizi

Wishing you a happy birthday with all those special things, the things which make memories and for all the happiness it brings. — Susan Smith

Suddenly, the voice of Yahweh broke Joshua out of his weeping. "Get up, Joshua. You sound more like the pathetic Israelites wishing they could go back to Egypt than their leader Moses in pleading for them." Joshua was terrified. He did not get up. "Joshua, get up, will you." Joshua got up. "Israel has sinned. They have violated my covenant and taken some of the devoted things of herem from Jericho. They have lied and taken them for their own possession. Therefore the people of Israel have become herem, and devoted to destruction. I will be with you no more unless you destroy the devoted things in your midst." "Who, my lord and god?" said Joshua. "Who is it who has taken these devoted items? — Brian Godawa

My paintings are well-painted, not nimbly but patiently. My painting contains in it the message of pain. I think that at least a few people are interested in it. It's not revolutionary. Why keep wishing for it to be belligerent? I can't. Painting completed my life. I lost three children and a series of other things that would have fulfilled my horrible life. My painting took the place of all of this. I think work is the best. — Frida Kahlo

There is (as I now find) no remorse for time long past, even for what may have mortified us or made us ashamed of ourselves when it was happening: there is a pleasant panoramic sense of what it all was and how it all had to be. Why, if we are not vain or snobbish, need we desire that it should have been different? The better things we missed may yet be enjoyed or attained by someone else somewhere: why isn't that just as good? And there is no regret, either, in the sense of wishing the past to return, or missing it: it is quite real enough as it is, there at its own date and place — George Santayana

It seems to me there are things we should have talked about. Like, what happens if you think you've found the love of your life, but you notice, whenever you go into the city together, that he walks ahead of you in the subway station, and doesn't look behind for you until after he's gotten on the subway? And what if you find yourself wishing you did not have to tell him to wait for you? What if being with him starts to mean having to say those things..."Honey, what for me?" And you start to resent him making you do that in order to keep him walking by your side? — Emily Arsenault

All men are brothers, we like to say, half-wishing sometimes in secret it were to true. But perhaps it is true. And is the evolutionary line from protozoan to Spinoza any less certain? That also may be true. We are obliged, therefore, to spread the news, painful and bitter though it may be for some to hear, that all living things on earth are kindred. — Edward Abbey

The sun will rise tomorrow. It always does, and all the wishing in the world for the way things were, or for what they could have been, won't change that. It won't change how things are. — Elizabeth Scott

The beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things' selves for a second finding, to lose
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder. — Richard Wilbur

Wishing for things could sometimes call them forth. Wishing to study could incite a desire to do so, stimulate an interest. Reading about a region could pique interest in it, make you want to travel there and experience it. But passion could not be piped forth, could not be lured from its den by any known device or trick. It seemed to have a stubborn, independent life of its own, slumbering when it would be convenient for it to dance, springing forth when there was no reason for it, nowhere for it to spend itself. — Margaret George

- Now my father had a way, a little like that of Job's (in case there ever was such a man - if not, there's an end of the matter.
Though, by the bye, because your learned men find some difficulty in fixing the precise aera in which so great a man lived; - whether, for instance, before or after the patriarchs, &c. - to vote, therefore, that he never lived at all, is a little cruel, - 'tis not doing as they would be done by - happen that as it - My father, I say, had a way, when things went extremely wrong with him, especially upon the first sally of his impatience - of wondering why he was begot, - wishing himself dead; - sometimes worse: - — Laurence Sterne

I stood there and stared, into the sky and at the city around me. I stood, hands at my side, and I saw what had happened to me and who I was and the way things would always be for me. Truth. There was no more wishing, or wondering. I knew who I was, and what I would always do. I believed it, as my teeth touched and my eyes were overrun. — Markus Zusak

Everything,' his father said, 'comes down to time in the end
to the passing of time, to changing. Ever thought of that? Anything that makes you happy or sad, isn't it all based on minutes going by? Isn't sadness wishing time back again? Even big things
even mourning a death: aren't you really just wishing to have the time back when that person was alive? Or photos
ever notice old photographs? How wistful they make you feel? ... Isn't it just that time for once is stopped that makes you wistful? If only you could turn it back again, you think. If only you could change this or that, undo what you have done, if only you could roll the minutes the other way, for once. — Anne Tyler

Shhh. Just listen. You, of all people. Listen to what Im saying. This ... tonight ... is the most wonderful thing you could have done for me. What you have told me, what you have done in bringing me here ... knowing that, somehow, from that complete arse, I was at the start of this, you managed to salvage something to love is astonishing to me. But ... I need it to end here. No more chair. No more pneumonia. No more burning limbs. No more pain and tiredness and waking up every morning already wishing it was over. When we get back, I am still going to go to Switzerland. And if you do love me, Clark, as you say you do, the thing that would make me happier than anything is if you would come with me. So I'm asking you - if you feel the things you say you feel - then do it. Be with me. Give me the end I'm hoping for. — Jojo Moyes

Sounds to me like you're praying Violet, not wishing. When we wish, it's usually for something frivolous...Something not serious. Like what you want for your birthday. Prayers are for more serious things." -Mom — Brenda Woods

After that he would leave for a while, breaking things as he went, slamming doors to kick them open, picking up decanters to hurl at mirrors, detouring by way of chairs to smash them against the floor. Always when he came back he would sleep in their room, shutting the door against her. Rigid with self-pity she would lie in another room, wishing for the will to leave. Each believed the other a murderer of time, a destroyer of life itself. — Joan Didion

When do you quit wishing for things to be different? Months? Years? Decades? You think that if a sufficient amount of time goes by, it should be enough to help you stop caring anymore. But it doesn't. Ever. — T. Torrest

It must be one of life's little jokes... how we take everything, even life itself, for granted. We waste our childhoods wishing for what we don't have, longing for the future, dreaming of ways to speed the time so we can hurry up and see the world. And in our later years, we'd give anything just to slow things down and go back to what we once had. — James Michael Rice