Quotes About Longing

is surprising how soon a desire will die of inanition if it be never fed.

Waldenlust." This longing takes several forms: fantasies of the freedom that dispossession would bring; nostalgia for earlier, supposedly simpler times; and reverence for the primitive, which is assumed to be more authentic and closer to nature.

Hors d'oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me.… They remind me of one's childhood that one goes through, wondering what the next course is going to be like—and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more of the hors d'oeuvres.

Loss constitutes an odd kind of fullness; despair empties out into an unquenchable appetite for life.

Cabin and cosmos, sun and home, and a garden full of radishes and Swiss chard. So much I hadn't had for a long time, yet I missed Jens and the dogs and the feel of sea ice under me; I missed lions roaring and picking thorns from my feet in Africa. In both Africa and Greenland, I'd seen the two root causes of climate change: degraded and desertified earth caused by ineffectual rainfall, and the loss of albedo because of the disappearance of snow and ice.

He felt a wistfulness for things lost and irretrievable.

J'ai cueilli ce brin de bruyère L'automne est morte souviens-t'en Nous ne nous verrons plus sur terre Odeur du temps brin de bruyère Et souviens-toi que je t'attends

Oui je veux vous aimer mais vous aimer à peine Et mon mal est délicieux

Maybe its not a person we fall in love with so much as a distance, a depth , which that particular person happens to embody.

Your person, your slightest movements seemed to me to possess a superhuman importance in the world. My heart used to raise like the dust in your footsteps. The effect you had on me was that of a moonlit night in summer, when all is perfume, soft shadows, pale light, and infinite horizons. For me your name contained all the delights of flesh and spirit, and I repeated it again and again, trying to kiss it with my lips.

We think of women at every age: while still children, we fondle with a naïve sensuality the breasts of those grown-up girls kissing us and cuddling us in their arms; at the age of ten, we dream of love; at fifteen, love comes along; at sixty, it is still with us, and if dead men in their tombs have any thought in their heads, it is how to make their way underground to the nearby grave, lift the shroud of the dear departed women, and mingle with her in her sleep

Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.

Her heart remained empty once more, and the procession of days all alike began again. So they were going to follow one another, like this, in line, always identical, innumerable, bringing nothing!

Oh, if somewhere there were a being strong and handsome, a valiant heart, passionate and sensitive at once, a poet's spirit in an angel's form, a lyre with strings of steel, sounding sweet-sad epithalamiums to the heavens, then why should she not find that being?

He leaned against the writing desk and stayed there till nightfall, lost in sorrowful thoughts. After all, she had loved him.

Chaque sourire cachait un bâillement d'ennui, chaque joie une malédiction, tout plaisir son dégoût, et les meilleurs baisers ne vous laissaient sur la lèvre qu'une irréalisable envie d'une volupté plus haute.

Her great desire, in fact, was to have something more solid, more tangible than love to rely upon.

Remembering the ball became for Emma a daily occupation. Every time Wednesday came round, she told herself when she woke up: 'Ah! One week ago...two weeks ago...three weeks ago, I was there!' And, little by little, in her memory, the faces all blurred together; she forgot the tunes of the quadrilles; no longer could she so clearly picture the liveries and the rooms; some details disappeared, but the yearning remained.

In every parting there comes a moment when the beloved is already no longer with us.

Human Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when all the time we are longing to move the stars to pity.

How did you expect me to live without you? Once you've known happiness it's impossible to get used to not having it. I was desperate! I thought I should die! I'll tell you all about it, you'll see... And you-- you stayed away from me!' He had been carefully avoiding her for the past three years, out of that natural cowardice that characterises the stronger sex; and Emma went on, moving her head in winsome little gestures, more affectionate than an amorous cat.

Coming joys, like tropical shores, throw over the immensity before them their inborn softness, an odorous wind, and we are lulled by this intoxication without a thought of the horizon that we do not even know.

A memory is a beautiful thing, it's almost a desire that you miss.

Their separation was becoming intolerable. I would rather die! said Emma. She was writhing in his arms, weeping. Adieu! adieu! When shall I see you again?