Quotes About Desire

When I was a kid, the idea of why I wanted acting to be the thing I do for the rest of my life was different. It was, Oh yeah, I'll get girls and be famous.

I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being.

Riding sidesaddle with envy is a dangerous practice: I would be happy if I had what he or she possesses. By contrast, giving thanks constantly and in all circumstances liberates us from envy.

Every poem is shadowed by desire, but it is also shadowed by the problem of rendering desire in language. There is a place where similitude seems to break down because experience itself seems beyond compare.

Maybe I am not very human - all I ever wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.

BY ALL ACCOUNTS, HOWEVER, Washington did not want the presidency.

Frankly, I don't mind not being President. I just mind that someone else is.

In the case of many Kennedys," Neubauer continued, "their drive for power is often supported by good deeds, by a desire to help the poor and disenfranchised, by humanitarian goals. They describe what they do not merely as 'politics' but as the much more lofty-sounding 'public service.' All this reduces the need for them to feel guilty about their single-minded pursuit of power.

Give the people what they want" is only half sound. What they want and what they get are fused by some mysterious alchemy. The press, the lecturer, the screen and the public lead and are led by each other.

The search for Eden always ends in tears.

I am rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

Freud said that once we have the basic necessities of food, clothing, shelter, and health, then what we seek is wealth, power, honor, and the love of men and women. For financial titans who aggressively continue to seek tens of millions, hundreds of millions, and sometimes billions, you can ask, "Is the winner really the one who dies with the most toys?" How much is enough? When will you be done? Often the answer is "Never.

If you do this, what do you want to happen? and If you do this, what do you think will happen?

The longing for odysseys and faraway adventure is in our genes.

Our desire for alcohol is not an evolutionary mistake. There are good reasons for why we get drunk.

She was a great actress, and dammit—I want to see her on a goddam postage stamp!!

He found her pretty in a bewildered, washed-out way, but it was her restlessness that aroused him, the quiet exasperation of a woman who longs to throw herself into something significant, but cannot find what it is.

The simple lack of her is more to me than others' presence.

But it is hard to make anything like a truce between these two incompatible desires, the one for going on and on over the earth, the other that would settle for ever, in one place as in a grave and have nothing to do with change. Suppose a man to receive notice of death, it would be hard to decide whether to walk or sail until the end, seeing no man, or none but strangers; or to sit - alone - and by thinking or not thinking to make the change to come as little as is permitted. (pp 161)

Life has no purpose. It just 'is.' This is the 'secret' children know and adults forget as they launch head first into a life of compulsion and bondage as they pursue the world. Children do not appropriate and are free. Adults desire the wrong things and throw themselves into exile.

Giving life 'purpose' is anthropomorphism. It is our own desire for ends or completion. The door is already open. There is nothing to complete, only to know. Heaven on Earth is here.

A feast is set before you. It offers all you could ever want. But you must want it above all else. Here is the secret that isn't so secret to the learned. They place God before everything else and are rewarded with a blessed life.

Everything belongs to God. Here is the wisdom children already know and adults struggle to remember. Nothing is ours. A bitter pill for those who pursue the world, but a sweet remedy for those who desire freedom above all else.

The world is the great temptation. The great test. Those who chase the world have the world, but those who desire God above all else have peace of spirit. They made the choice to be free rather than happy.