Jane Smiley Quotes

Most marriages recognize this paradox: Passion destroys passion; we want what puts an end to wanting what we want.

What appeals to you the most is the very thing that will drive you crazy

I just want some time, Mikhail, to think things through. It’s frightening, the way I am about you. I think about you every minute; I want to touch you, just to know I can, to feel you beneath my fingers. It’s as if you crawled into my head and my heart, even my body, and I can’t get you out.

My only love sprung from my only hate.

Only Thee That I want thee, only thee---let my heart repeat without end. All desires that distract me, day and night, are false and empty to the core. As the night keeps hidden in its gloom the petition for light, even thus in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry ---'I want thee, only thee'. As the storm still seeks its end in peace when it strikes against peace with all its might, even thus my rebellion strikes against thy love and still its cry is ---'I want thee, only thee'.

Thou art figured blind, and yet we borrow our best sight from thee.

I have to know" "What? What do you have to know?" "What you taste like." Another step. What happens when you know?" she rasped. "I stop wondering. Stop dreaming of you every night, thinking of you every minute of every day." Another step closer. "I think you wonder, too. I think you dream of me and wonder. You hate yourself for it. You hate me for it, but you cannot stop.

Love is when the desire to be desired takes you so badly that you feel you could die of it.

When that man wants something, he'll stop at nothing to get it. And I also believed in the good of him.

Love is the hardest habit to break, and the most difficult to satisfy.

I'm a hopeless romantic with a dirty mind.

What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air - you exist within it, almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all consuming - a physical pain.

We fear the thing we want the most.

The moment I first heard love I gave up my soul, my heart, and my eyes.

When I want a thing, I want it dreadfully.

Everybody knows someone like that: wonderful, attractive people full of passion and ideals. You envy them, but you know there's a dark side, which is brutal and cruel and violent. That dark side informs what's wonderful about them, and the passion and rage inform the darkness; they're inseparable.

I think about Milan from morning to night, and there is certainly no lack of effort and desire on my part.

An ambition is a little creeper that creeps and creeps in your heart night and day, singing a little song, "Come and find me, come and find me."

We are captives of what we love, what we desire, and what we are.

He was in my hair, my eyes, my fingers, my heart. I day-dreamed about what he was doing, thinking, seeing, smelling, feeling. I could not eat for thoughts of him.

It hurts to want everything and nothing at the same time.

What? do I love her, that I desire to hear her speak again, and feast upon her eyes

I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love...I sought what I might love, in love with loving.

Love, however, cannot be forbidden. The more that flame is covered up, the hotter it burns. Also love can always find a way. It was impossible that these two whose hearts were on fire should be kept apart. (Pyramus and Thisbe)