Quotes About Yearning

Hanan Al-Shaykh

Desire, like the dead or an unpleasant meal, would keep returning--it was ultimately indigestible.

My guess is that she is uncomfortable in such an intransigent world but is unable to live accordingly to her own desire.

Sometimes I felt the whole world was converging on this little room. And as I became more intoxicated and frustrated I'd throw open the bedroom window as the dawn came up, and look across the gardens, lawns, greenhouses, sheds and curtained windows. I wanted my life to begin now, at this instant, just when I was ready for it.

Surely you've noticed that most people live without love, spending their lives trying to find people they're not turned on by.

Born for disappointment, she only wanted what I couldn't give.

The truth is,everything we really desire is either forbidden,immoral or unhealthy, and if you're lucky, all three at once.

I could have ripped at those pages with my fingernails in order to get all of the material inside me.

I love the razor's edge. I want to be cut open. My terror is of a bourgeois, ordinary life. I can't bear the everyday constraint. I believe that ordinariness would put out my spark, such as it is.

Erosova masinerija sastavlja i rastavlja, obnavlja u coveku zudnju za zivotom.

There may have been something identical about the way she fell prey to fear and to longing, namely, the act of falling prey to something, of being trapped in a craving--that fixation on a single thing, when the empty gaze forgets multiplicity or, taken over by craving and passion, considers nothing else. But that longing may also have opened up empires for her, strange, colorful empires she was at home in and could love with the living bliss that never changes.

He said her name like it was something he'd already left behind. She could feel her heart twisting inside the walls of her chest.

he tore at her clothing like he was searching for something she had stolen from him.

It was the last night that she would breathe the same air as he, or look out over the deep sea and up into the star-blue heaven. A dreamless, eternal night awaited her, for she had no soul and had not been able to win one.

Almighty God, thee only have I; thou steerest my fate, I must give myself up to thee! Give me a livelihood! Give me a bride! My blood wants love, as my heart does!

Donc, il faudra que je meure et flotte comme écume sur la mer et n'entende jamais plus la musique des vagues, ne voit plus les fleurs ravissantes et le rouge soleil. Ne puis-je rien faire pour gagner une vie éternelle?

Because she could not go near all these wonderful things, she longed for them all the more.

Now he is certainly sailing above, he on whom my wishes hang, and in whose hand I should like to lay my life's happiness. I will dare everything to win him and an immortal soul.

Do you believe in love at first sight? Neither do I. I do, however, believe in major, more-than-just-physical attraction at first sight. I believe that every once in a while—once, maybe twice in a lifetime—you are drawn to someone so deeply, so primordially, so immediately—a stronger-than-magnetic pull.

There are those rare moments in life- when you feel that jolt and it feels great and it hurts like hell, but you're feeling, really feeling and suddenly colors seem brighter and sounds have more clarity and foods taste better and you never, not even for a minute, stop thinking about him and you know, just know that he is feeling exactly the same way about you

I ran down the hill. I went to your place, afraid, I don't know. I just didn't know. But you were gone. I came here, to Lucy. I thought maybe you'd be hiding inside or something. I waited. But you never showed, of course. I searched for you.For years. I didn't know if you were dead or alive. I saw your face on every street, in every bar.

I remember everything about her. The way she looked. The way she smelled. The way she'd come home from her job so tired she could barely put her feet up. I don't think I've talked about her five times in the past twenty years. But I think about her every day. I think about why she gave me up. And I think about why I still miss her.

Friends and lovers were great, he thought, but sometimes a boy just wanted his mom and dad.

I remember reading the book in high school and always thinking of Gatsby as this strong, stoic, suave, mysterious man who had everything under control. But when I read it as an adult, I realised he is a hollow man, a shell of a person trying to find meaning, who is not completely in touch with reality.