Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.… And one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby
The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.
—Anatole France
If my hands tremble with desire, they tremble likewise when I reach for the chalice on Sunday, and if lust makes me run and caper, it is no stronger a force than that which brings me to my knees to say thanksgivings and litanies. What can this capricious skin be but a blessing?
—John Cheever
It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear.
—Dick Cavett
Destiny has two ways of crushing us—by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Longing for something that you once had is a mistake because the pictures in your mind are never the same as whatever it is you are longing for.
—Jane Urquhart in Changing Heaven
Beware of getting what you want. It’s bound to disappoint you.
—Jodi Picoult in Sing You Home
You have to want to lose your appetite for violence or aggression. And to do that, you have to lose your self-righteousness.
—Pema Chödrön
Desire nothing, give up all desires and be happy.
—Swami Sivananda
I have many things I want out of life, but I’m practical. I know that I must wait to get what I want.
—Jude Deveraux in Counterfeit Lady
I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.
—Dorothy Parker
Man always gets less than he demands from life.
—Jack London
I gotta work out. I keep saying it all the time. I keep saying I gotta start working out. It's been about two months since I've worked out. And I just don't have the time. Which uh..is odd. Because I have the time to go out to dinner. And uh..and watch tv. And get a bone density test. And uh.. try to figure out what my phone number spells in words.
—Ellen DeGeneres
For a transitory enchanted moment, man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald
You can never get enough of what you don't really want.
—Eric Hoffer