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wishing Quotes

62 of the best book quotes about wishing
01
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“‘If only, if only,‘” the woodpecker sighs, ‘The bark on the tree was just a little bit softer.’ While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely, he cries to the moo-oo-oon, ‘If only, if only.‘”
Louis Sachar
author
Holes
book
Madame Zeroni
character
loneliness
moon
wishing
hunger
lullabies
woodpeckers
wolves
concepts
02
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“Sometimes he wished he had no ambitions—often wondered where they had come from in his life, because he remembered how satisfied he had been as a youngster, and that with the little he had—a dog, a stick, an aloneness he loved.”
03
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“I feel no malice toward this girl. I don’t even envy her. Watching, I am simply emptied, and in the dream I want to cry out, because she is something I can never be, some possibility in my life that can never be fulfilled.”
04
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“We even make ourselves up, fusing what we are with what we wish into what we must become. I’m not sure why it must be so, but it is. It helps to know this. Thinking about the grandfather I wish I had prepares me for the grandfather I wish to be, a way of using what I am to shape the best that is to come. It is a preparation.”
05
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“Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.”
06
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“For two bits I’d shove out of here. If we can get jus’ a few dollars in the poke we’ll shove off and go up the American River and pan gold. We can make maybe a couple of dollars a day there, and we might hit a pocket.”
07
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“Dobby does it all himself, sir, but Dobby does not mind, for he always hopes to meet Harry Potter and tonight, sir, he has got his wish!”
08
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“What had happened to T.J. in the night I did not understand, but I knew that it would not pass. And I cried for those things which had happened in the night and would not pass.”
09
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“But I don’t want him. I want someone else. It feels strange to have spent so much time wishing for something, for someone, and then one day, suddenly, to just stop.”
10
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″‘It is exactly like a fairy tale,’ said Earnest; ‘I had only to speak, and my wish was accomplished.‘”
11
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“It was my wish that our sons should cultivate a habit of bold independence, for I well knew that it might easily be the will of God to deprive them of their parents; when, without an enterprising spirit of self reliance, their position would be truly miserable.”
12
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“You wanted to look at life for yourself - but you were not allowed; you were punished for your wish. You were ground in the very mill of the conventional.”
13
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“And I wish I could do All these great things for you!”
14
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If the track is tough and the hill is rough, THINKING you can just ain’t enough!
15
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“He wasted his wishes on wishing.”
16
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“I clung to my rusted dreams during the times of silence. It was at gunpoint that I fell into every hope and allowed myself to wish from the deepest part of my heart. Komorov thought he was torturing us. But we were escaping into a stillness within ourselves. We found strength here.”
17
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“Your life is not going to be easy, little Melody . . . If I could switch places with you, I’d do it in a heartbeat. You know that, don’t you?”
18
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“Sometimes it feels like the more I wish for peace and quiet in my life, the more chaotic my life becomes.”
19
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“Watching the boys vanish away, Charles Halloway suppressed a sudden urge to run with them, make the pack. He knew what the wind was doing to them, where it was taking them, to all the secret places that were never so secret again in life.”
20
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“She’ll be struck by my good looks and charm and musical talent . . . Then she’ll give in and dance with me and follow me up to New York after graduation, to be my groupie.”
21
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“We’re not [supposed to be together]. You’re a Mortal. You can’t understand. I don’t want to see you get hurt, and that’s what will happen if you get too close to me.”
22
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“I wish to weep but sorrow is stupid. I wish to believe but belief is a graveyard.”
23
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“In a world of apples and kisses and shoes He wasted his wishes on wishing.”
24
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“Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.”
25
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“Son, that’s a pretty hard question to answer. But I do believe that any wish you make can come true if you help the wish. I don’t think that the Lord meant for our lives to be so simple and easy that every time we wanted something, all we had to do was wish for it and we’d get it. I don’t believe that at all. If that were true, there would be a lot of lazy people in this old world. No one would be working. Everyone would be wishing for what they needed or wanted. “Papa,” I asked, “how can you help a wish?” “Oh, there are a lot of ways,” Papa said. “Hard work, faith, patience, and determination. I think prayer and really believing in your wish can help more than anything else.”
26
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“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.”
27
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“I wish that everything was different. I wish that I was a part of something. I wish that anything I said mattered, to anyone. I mean, let’s face it: would anybody even notice if I disappeared tomorrow?”
28
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“You wish for something, you’ve wanted it for years, and you’re sure you want it, as long as you know you can’t have it. But if all at once it looks as though your wish might come true, you suddenly find yourself wishing you had never wished for any such thing.”
29
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“The stars were thinning out; the glare of the Milky Way was dimming into a pale ghost of the glory he had known—and, when he was ready, would know again. He was back, precisely where he wished to be, in the space that men called real.”
30
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“If I were a member of the class that rules, I would post men in all the neighborhoods of the nation, not to spy upon or club rebellious workers, not to break strikes or disrupt unions; but to ferret out those who no longer respond to the system in which they live.”
31
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“Maybe nothing was real not even himself . . . wouldn’t that be wonderful.”
32
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“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: We all want everything to be okay. We don’t even wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough.”
33
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“Wishing that a risk wasn’t yours to take won’t make it any easier. In fact, it might make it harder. Your attitude about it is your choice.”
34
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“I wish I could show you, When you are lonely or in darkness, The Astonishing Light Of your own being!”
35
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“It’s imaging things that you wish you couldn’t think up all by yourself.”
36
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“Mom opened her arms and Fudge jumped into them. He rested his head on Mom’s shoulder, shoved his fingers into his mouth, and slurped on them. I know it’s stupid, but just for a minute I wished I could be Mom’s baby again, too.”
37
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“It is no good wishing for what was not to be.”
38
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“Oh, the stuff that I could eat!”
39
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“He was frightened. If he hadn’t been so frightened, he could have made the lion disappear, or he could have wished himself at home with his father and mother. He could have wished the lion would turn into a butterfly or daisy or a gnat. He could have wished many things, but he panicked and couldn’t think carefully. ‘I wish I were a rock,’ he said, and he became a rock.”
40
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“His thoughts began to race like mad. He was scared and worried. Being helpless, he felt hopeless. He imagined all the possibilities, and eventually he realized that his only chance of becoming himself again was for someone to find the red pebble and to wish that the rock next to it would be a donkey.”
41
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“I thought how great it would be if we could trade in Fudge for a nice cocker spaniel. That would solve all my problems. I’d walk him and feed him and play with him. He could even sleep on the edge of my bed at night. But of course that was wishful thinking. My brother is here to stay. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”
42
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“That is very high, thought Little Nutbrown Hare. I wish I had arms like that.”
43
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″ ‘I can wish,’ sighed poor Katy, ‘What else can I do? If you wish hard enough then your wish might come true.’ ”
44
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“Often Katy would wish that she someday could be something quiet and simple like a lovely elm tree, or a ramshackle barn all alone on a hill where the noisiest thing was a squeaky windmill.”
45
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“What she wished most to be, much more than the rest, Was a cabin she’d seen on her trips through the west. A little log shack half-covered with vines Perched on a slope in a forest of pines.”
46
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“And the baby owls closed their eyes and wished their Owl Mother would come. AND SHE CAME.”
47
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Amy could do everything right, She never tied her shoelaces together, or forgot her umbrella. Amy showed Henry everything she knew, but deep down she wished she didn’t always have to be so perfect.
48
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“When the tourists had moved on, Gawain found himself wishing for his old way of life- swimming in his pond, tilling his bed of herbs, raising prize cabbages and string beans, and drafting plans for strikingly original buildings.”
49
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“The first time that any of the sisters had been allowed to swim to the surface, each had been delighted with her freedom and all she had seen. But now that they were grownups and could swim anywhere they wished, they lost interest in wandering away”
50
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“But it’s boring! It’s lonely! I miss her a lot. I wish she’d return to her usual spot.”
51
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“Betsy Bear wrote a letter to Grandma to wish her a Happy Birthday. She went to the post office to mail it. She bought an airmail stamp and stuck it on the envelope. She put the letter in the letter slot. ”
52
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“So she took out of her pocket the magic fish-bone that had been dried and rubbed and polished till it shone like mother-of-pearl; and gave it one little kiss and wished it was quarter day.”
53
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“I wish you would leave off mentioning my nose. It cannot matter to you what it is like. I am quite satisfied with it, and have no wish to have it shorter. One must take what is given one.”
54
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“I wish you’d stop wondering about things that can’t make any difference to us.”
55
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“Sometimes I wish that I had been born to the Men’s side; sometimes I grow weary of the spinning and the weaving and the grinding corn.”
56
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“Jonathan’s mother liked company but sometimes- oh, once in a while- she wished they did not have so much of it. Or that the aunts and uncles and cousins were not quite so hungry.”
57
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″ ‘But you mustn’t tell anybody your wish, or it won’t come true,’ cautioned her mother. ‘It’s supposed to be a secret wish.’ ”
58
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“But when your tooth does come out, you put it under your pillow and make a wish, and your wish is supposed to come true.”
59
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“I make no excuse for that. I will wear that shame all my life. I cannot undo it, but I will spend my days wishing I could.”
60
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“ ‘There is a lovely feeling about Christmas Eve,’ Pauline said. ‘My inside almost hurts being excited; I can’t sit still for wishing it was tomorrow.’ ”
61
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“When once before I wished myself dead, the wish was not strong enough. I can make myself die only by convincing myself that there is also a hope I shall not succeed.”
62
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“I wish we could solve a mystery on our own, though.”

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