825 Quotes About Longing

I lay down on one of [the rocks] in the fetal position. When I awoke it was after one a.m. and the tide was rising higher. My body was coated in salt and ocean foam. I felt like I was part of the rock and part of the ocean, and I wondered if this was how Sappho felt, even in her deepest desperation, part of the earth, like that desperation and longing or eternal cosmic want was something to be celebrated–something natural–holy even, or at least, not just something to be endured.

Everything in me wanted to go home. To fall on my dad, tell him about Jimmy, and tell him 'I'm sorry.' But there was another part of me that would not let me do that. And that part needed to make something of the mess that was me. To walk home with something more than scars and empty hands. To be something other than a failure. I was caught in the middle of that tug-of-war.

It was just the golden sunlight, ink-stain asphalt and the woman he’d always wished was his.

Although he longed to see Louise, and to see Aleph, he increasingly lacked the will to go.

He had a powerful kind of ache inside him, half joy, half terrible sadness.

The power of longing is the source of religion and art alike.

Bones was lost in the sweat on her exquisitely sweating body. He was jealous of her sweat. He wanted to be her sweat. Even through the viewfinder he could see her ribcage pressing against her leotard like a musical instrument. He wanted to play her long into the night.

   Hugo thought that it simply could not be otherwise; he would surely somewhere see that beautiful, beloved face that he had daily seen for so long!   But he did not see it.   After his search had gone on for some months, after winter had already cast its snowflakes and its blanket of ice over the city, he gave up his efforts. He sat in his room and held his lovely, weary head in both his hands.

He didn’t know what it was like, wanting something you could never have; how impossible it was to un-want it once you’d let the feeling in.