Quotes About Yearning

I looked at those patient huddlers on the [Embassy] benches who had hardly moved, and a horrible irony hit me: they wanted so badly to get into the States; I wanted so badly to stay out.

it is still the case that he "can look in her eyes and disappear." He may not know how to live with her, but he will always know he loves her

The unattainable was most desireable. The already attained was dull.

Potemkin suffered bitterly from having nothing left to want. For when dreams turn into reality, there is an empty spot where the dreams used to be, and Potemkin had no dreams left.

Every woman wants to be first to someone sometime in her life and that desire is the explanation for many strange things women do.

I miss you greatly dear. The nicest time of day is when I write to you. You have a stormier time than I do but I miss you as much, I think. . . . Please keep most of your heart in Washington as long as I'm here for most of mine is with you!

Stars have cried for a love like ours.

Once, she closed the book abruptly and said with annoyance, "That's enough." "Why?" "Because I've had it, it's always the same story: inside something small there's something even smaller that wants to leap out, and outside something large there's always someting larger that wants to keep it a prisoner.

I realized she wanted many things at the same time, and that kept her in a permanent state of dissatisfaction.

I recognized in them what I had never had and, I now knew, would always lack. What was it? I wasn't able to say precisely: the training, perhaps, to feel that the questions of the world were deeply connected to me; the capacity to feel them as crucial and not purely as information to display at an exam; a mental conformation that didn't reduce everything to my own individual battle, to the effort to be successful.

I feel ugly, like I'm a bad person, and yet I'd like to be loved.

I began to weep with loneliness. What was I, who was I? I felt pretty again, my pimples were gone, the sun and the sea had made me slimmer, and yet the person I liked and whom I wished to be liked by showed no interest in me.

Volví a sacar novelas de la biblioteca circulante, las leía una tras otra. Pero a la larga no me hicieron bien. Proponían vidas intensas, diálogos profundos, un fantasma de la realidad más apasionante que mi vida real. Así, para sentir

Lei insomma s'era meritata Nino perché riteneva che amarlo significasse provare ad averlo, non sperare che lui la volesse.

I wanted him to see in that plate of pasta everything that, by leaving, he would no longer be able to look at, or touch, or caress, listen to, smell: never again.

Ci salutammo alla funicolare e da allora non l'ho più rivisto. Non osai fare domande su Roberto, non chiesi se Vittoria gli aveva parlato di me, se gli aveva raccontato i fatti di casa mia. Dissi solo, vergognandomi: "Mi sento brutta, di cattivo carattere, e tuttavia vorrei essere amata". Ma lo dissi tardi, in un soffio, quando lui già mi dava le spalle.

My compliance without participation began to disorientate him. I thought, as always in those circumstances, that I should pretend a yearning and uncontrolled passion or push him away. But I didn't dare to either one or the other: I was afraid I would throw up, because the result would be earthquake-like waves. I had only to wait.

Para qué habrán servido entonces todas estas páginas. Me proponía aferrarla, tenerla otra vez a mi lado, y me moriré sin saber si lo he conseguido.

In a short while I wished I could talk every day to a boy on that level: how many mistakes I had made with him; what foolishness it had been to want him, love him, and yet always avoid him.

She deserved Nino, in other words, because she thought that to love him meant to try to have him, not to hope that he would want her.

We walked for a long time. We kissed, we embraced on the Lungarno, I asked him, half serious, half joking, if he wanted to sneak into my room. He shook his head, he went back to kissing me passionately. There were entire libraries separating him and Antonio, but they were similar.

Lila always knew what she wanted and got it; I don't want anything, I'm made of nothing. I hoped to wake in the morning without desires. Once I was emptied—I imagined—the affection of Antonio, my affection for him will be enough.

Acaso mantenía a raya mis sentimientos porque me espantaba la violencia con la que en mi fuero íntimo quería las cosas, a las personas, los elogios, los triunfos?

I don't want anything, I'm made of nothing. I hoped to wake in the morning without desires.