Wistful Quotes

1. "Soon or late, every dog's master's memory becomes a graveyard; peopled by wistful little furry ghosts that creep back unbidden, at times, to a semblance of their olden lives."
Author: Albert Payson Terhune

2. "For animals that are overworked, underfed, and cruelly treated; for all wistful creatures in captivity that beat their wings against bars; for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry; for all that must be put to death...and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words."
Author: Albert Schweitzer

3. "His father looked wistful. 'And you don't feel anticlimatic?'What's that?'Somewhat the opposite of elated.'What's elated again?'Good feelings. That is to say, very good. You can feel, can't you? That's what I'm driving at. You don't ever wonder... where feeling went?"
Author: Ali Shaw

4. "That you can look back fondly or even wistfully on pieces of your life and hound yourself with endless what-ifs, but nothing will change. The present will still be the present. The future will still unfold as it's meant to."
Author: Allison Winn Scotch

5. "No, Daemon," Jaenelle said gently, looking up at him with her ancient, wistful, haunted eyes. "Everyone knows I'm different. It just doesn't matter to some—and it matters a lot to others." A tear slipped down her cheek. "Why am I different?" Daemon looked away. Oh, child. How could he explain that she was dreams made flesh? That for some of them, she made the blood in their veins sing? That she was a kind of magic the Blood hadn't seen in so very, very long? "What does the Priest say?" Jaenelle sniffed. "He says growing up is hard work." Daemon smiled sympathetically. "It is that."
Author: Anne Bishop

6. "Everything,' his father said, 'comes down to time in the end--to the passing of time, to changing. Ever thought of that? Anything that makes you happy or sad, isn't it all based on minutes going by? Isn't sadness wishing time back again? Even big things--even mourning a death: aren't you really just wishing to have the time back when that person was alive? Or photos--ever notice old photographs? How wistful they make you feel? ... Isn't it just that time for once is stopped that makes you wistful? If only you could turn it back again, you think. If only you could change this or that, undo what you have done, if only you could roll the minutes the other way, for once."
Author: Anne Tyler

7. "The marquess held the weapon out, as formally as if he were passing a sword.Soberly, Ned accepted it. He placed the sacrificial citrus on the table in front of him, and then with one carefulincision, eviscerated it. He speared deep into its heart, hishands steady, and then cut it to pieces. Jenny allotted herself one short moment of wistful sorrow for her afterdinner treat gone awry as the juice ran everywhere."Enough." She reached out and covered his hand midstab."It's dead now," she explained gravely.He pulled his hand away and nodded. Lord Blakely took back his knife and cleaned it with a handkerchief.Jenny studied the corpse. It was orange. It was pulpy. Itwas going to be a mess to clean up. Most importantly, it gave her an excuse to sit and think of something mystical to say—the only reason for this exercise, really. Lord Blakelydemanded particulars. But in Jenny's profession, specifics were the enemy."
Author: Courtney Milan

8. "One watches them on the seashore, all the people, and there is something pathetic, almost wistful in them, as if they wished their lives did not add up to this scaly nullity of possession, but as if they could not escape. It is a dragon that has devoured us all: these obscene, scaly houses, this insatiable struggle and desire to possess, to possess always and in spite of everything, this need to be an owner, lest one be owned. It is too hideous and nauseating. Owners and owned, they are like the two sides of a ghastly disease. One feels a sort of madness come over one, as if the world had become hell. But it is only superimposed: it is only a temporary disease. It can be cleaned away."
Author: D.H. Lawrence

9. "I know it doesn't make noise," he explained. "Going through the motions is comforting to me. I wish I had a real piano." The wistfulness in his tone was aching to hear. "Did it used to have keys on it?" Livia asked."I did draw them once, but it was in pencil. No matter. My heart knows right where they are." He watched her as he tickled the pretend keys again."
Author: Debra Anastasia

10. "Out from the servient shoulders of some smooth-tongued Waiter it stares, into the scared dilating pupils of the White Satin Bride with her pledged hand clutching her Bridegroom's sleeve. Up from the gravelly, pick-and-shovel labor of the new-made grave it lifts its weirdly magnetic eyes to the Widow's tears. Down from some petted Princeling's silver-trimmed saddle horse it smiles its electrifying, wistful smile into the Peasant's sodden weariness. Across the slender white rail of an always out-going steamer it stings back into your gray, land-locked consciousness like the tang of a scarlet spray. And the secret of the face, of course, is "Lure"; but to save your soul you could not decide in any specific case whether the lure is the lure of personality, or the lure of physiognomy—a mere accidental, coincidental, haphazard harmony of forehead and cheek-bone and twittering facial muscles."
Author: Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

11. "April 19And now it is spring. Birds are singing. Wistful notes and jubilant. And bare streets and no need for coats, and skipping ropes and bicycles and a thin new moon."
Author: Elizabeth Smart

12. "But I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game"
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

13. "Wistfulness"
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

14. "The anger. The terror. The feeling of entrapment. the profound distrust of people.The wistful, plaintive conviction that a window, a thing, was more important than she. These feelings and attitudes, expressed in the course of this hour, were symptoms of some profound disturbance."
Author: Flora Rheta Schreiber

15. "When man does not have firm, calm lines on the horizon of his life- mountain and forest lines, as it were- then a man's innermost will becomes agitated, preoccupied, and wistful."
Author: Friedrich Nietzsche

16. "Clouds overlaid the sky as with a shroud of mist, and everything looked sad, rainy, and threatening under a fine drizzle which was beating against the window-panes, and streaking their dull, dark surfaces with runlets of cold, dirty moisture. Only a scanty modicum of daylight entered to war with the trembling rays of the ikon lamp. The dying man threw me a wistful look, and nodded. The next moment he had passed away."
Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

17. "A serious adult story must be true to something in life. Since marvel tales cannot be true to the events of life, they must shift their emphasis towards something to which they can be true; namely, certain wistful or restless moods of the human spirit, wherein it seeks to weave gossamer ladders of escape from the galling tyranny of time, space, and natural law."
Author: H.P. Lovecraft

18. "It's sad to see them staring wistfully through the window when the door isn't locked."
Author: Isaac Marion

19. "My mom always wanted a bunch of kids, but they stopped after me. I never understood why." His voice was wistful. Haven closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Maybe they realized they created perfection when they made you and didnt need anymore."
Author: J.M. Darhower

20. "Jerusha leaned forward watching with curiosity - and a touch of wistfulness - the stream of carriages and automobiles that rolled out of the asylum gates. In imagination she followed first one equipage, then another, to the big houses dotted along the hillside. She pictured herself in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers leaning back in the seat and nonchalantly murmuring "Home" to the driver. But on the door-sill of her home the picture grew blurred."
Author: Jean Webster

21. "I wonder what Proust would have made of our present-day locus of collective fantasy, the Internet. I'm guessing he would have seized on its wistful aspect, pointing out gently and with wry humor that much of what beguiles us is the act of reaching for what isn't there."
Author: Jennifer Egan

22. "He stared at me. "She liked you, boy." The intensity of his voice and eyes made me blink."Yes," I said."She did it for you, you know.""What?""Gave up her self, for a while there. She loved you that much. What an incredibly lucky kid you were."I could not look at him. "I know."He shook his head with a wistful sadness. "No, you don't. You can't know yet. Maybe someday..."I knew he was tempted to say more. Probably to tell me how stupid I was, how cowardly, that I blew the bestchance I would ever have. But his smile returned, and his eyes were tender again, and nothing harsherthan cherry smoke came out of his mouth."
Author: Jerry Spinelli

23. "McIntyre hesitated, and for a moment the tall, gray-haired man looked almost boyish. "After all this time...don't you think you could call me William?"Amy and Dan exchanged glances. As fond as they were of him, they couldn't imagine calling their lawyer by his first name.He saw the hesitation on their faces. "Will?"Amy cleared her throat. Dan fiddled with the new GPS."How about 'Mac'?""Mac," Dan said, trying out the name.Mr. McIntyre looked wistful. "I always wanted to be a Mac."
Author: Jude Watson

24. "He's so beautiful," she said wistfully. "He's like an angel." "Yep," I agreed flatly. "The one that fell."
Author: Karen Marie Moning

25. "?"Wouldn't it be lovely, Miss Shirley, if some one could just wave a wand and make everybody beautiful?" she said wistfully. "Just fancy my feelings, Miss Shirley, if I suddenly fould myself beautiful! But then"....with a sigh..."if we were all beauties who would do the work?" Anne of Windy Poplars"
Author: L.M. Montgomery

26. "It was somehow clear, even then, that the monster had been lonely. The folds above its eye made the old face look wistful, and it emanated such a strong sense of solitude that each human standing in the park that day felt miles from the others, though we were shoulder-to-shoulder, touching."
Author: Lauren Groff

27. "It takes so little to make a child happy, that it is a pity in a world full of sunshine and pleasant things, that there should be any wistful faces, empty hands, or lonely little hearts."
Author: Louisa May Alcott

28. "That's because they're of the past. All photos of the past look melancholy and wistful precisely because they capture something that's gone."
Author: Maggie O'Farrell

29. "Many, many readers have written asking me wistfully about the nature of Sam and Grace's relationship, and I can assure you, that sort is absolutely real. Mutual, respectful, enduring love is completely attainable as long as you swear you won't settle for less."
Author: Maggie Stiefvater

30. "She bit her lower lip hard and blinked her eyes. There was such wistfulness and longing in his voice. Oh, she was going to give him back his eyes, or the next best thing, if it took her the rest of her life to do it."
Author: Mary Balogh

31. "Women are like dogs really. They love like dogs, a little insistently. And they like to fetch and carry and come back wistfully after hard words, and learn rather easily to carry a basket."
Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart

32. "... Tom got to rattling off the pranks he and his school boy buddies pulled ... and what I saw wasn't an old man gone wistful but rather an old man still resonating to the glee of a young heart."
Author: Michael Perry

33. "We said together, wistfully, 'Life, eh?' It says everything without having to say anything: that we all experience moments of joyful or painful reflection, sometimes alone, sometimes sharing laughs and tears with others; that we all know and appreciate that however wonderful and precious life is, it can equally be a terribly confusing and mysterious beast. 'Life, eh?"
Author: Miranda Hart

34. "It's such a big world," She'd say wistfully. "Something is always happening somewhere."
Author: Mitch Albom

35. "He is Romeo, and he is heartbroken. Every word is wistful. When he says, 'O, teach me how I should forget to think!' I, for the first time, see what the big deal is about Shakespeare."
Author: Nina LaCour

36. "When your life is all taking, what need to learn courtship? Carcharos's passion for Jassi Belnarak deepened and darkened with every sleepless night, but it did not keep him from understanding that neither beneficence nor meek wistfulness would win her honestly. Power would have to do, after all; and I think that for the only time in that bad life, Carcharos may truly have regretted the necessity of forcing his will on another person. The moment can't have lasted long, but I think further that it may have been the closest Carcharos ever came to knowing love."
Author: Peter S. Beagle

37. "Man, that is so freaking yummy," Jen said, watching the exchange between Fane and Jacque along with everyone in the room. "I want one Sally, go find me one.""One hot, loving, passionate, furry werewolf coming up," Sally said sarcastically. "Would like fries or tots with that?""I prefer whipped cream actually," Jen said wistfully."
Author: Quinn Loftis

38. "The way to beat Luke," he said. "If I'm right, it's the only way you'll stand a chance."I took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm listening."Nico glanced inside my room. His eyebrows furrowed."Is that...is that blue birthday cake?"He sounded hungry, maybe a little wistful. I wondered if the poor kid had ever had a birthday party, or if he'd ever even been invited to one.:Come inside for cake and ice cream," I said. "It sounds like we've got a lot to talk about."
Author: Rick Riordan

39. "It was the tenderness mingled with melancholy which we bring to a time that belongs irrevocably to the past, when a pale, delicate shadow rises from it bearing the lilies of the dead, and in it we find a forgotten likeness to ourselves. And that faint, wistful shadow, that pale scent, seemed to vanish away into a wide, full, warm stream – the life that now lay open before him."
Author: Robert Musil

40. "The look of wistful passion in Kellan's eyes in that one brief glance almost had me running across the room to throw myself in his arms - Thoughtless"
Author: S.C. Stephens

41. "You are too kind, my lady. Indeed, you are the most amiable Englishwoman I have ever met."She laughed. The viscount was rapidly rising on her list. "Some people don't find me amiable." Like a certain unfeeling Bow Street Runner.He struck a hand to his chest. "I cannot believe that! You are such an alma brilhante...a bright soul. How can anyone not see it?"She grinned at him. "They must all be blind.""And deaf." He tapped his temple. "And not very right in the head.""Excellent, my lord," she said. "Your grasped that idiom quite well."He looked surprised by that, then smiled. "I have to learn if I am to impress the senhora."She cast him a coy glance. "And why would you want to impress me, sir?"Picking up her hand, he pressed a kiss to it again and this time didn't release it. "Why would I not?" His wistful expression tugged at her sympathies."You'd better eat your eggs before they get cold," she said, gently withdrawing her hand."
Author: Sabrina Jeffries

42. "Lately Mirabelle had reflected wistfully if people even noticed her – a smartly dressed woman who came and went along the Promenade, always alone."
Author: Sara Sheridan

43. "Talon glanced wistfully at his drink as he debated what should take priority. 'Coffee… Daimons… Coffee… Daimons…"
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

44. "Dance music is great, but it's not a time to be reflective or particularly wistful."
Author: Sophie Ellis Bextor

45. "An editorial in the Los Angeles Times [1923] wistfully asked, 'Will eating chestnuts by crackling log fires become one of the lost arts preserved by a devoted people only in poetry and romance?"
Author: Susan Freinkel

46. "You can't tell a little kid that you swear to God over something and then not do it. You may effectively ruin my childhood." He looks off into nothing, a wistful expression on his face. "Gosh, think of the therapy bills. Not to mention how I'll probably never be able to have a normal relationship when I'm an adult. I'll live with you forever and become a cat lady." I cock an eyebrow at him. "You hate cats." He rolls his eyes. "Well, yeah, now I do. But I won't have a choice. It'll be inevitable. And I'll probably have to throw birthday parties for my feline companions where I bake them cakes out of Fancy Feast. All because you went back on your God swear."
Author: T.J. Klune

47. "The girls I dream of are the gentle ones, wistful by high windows or singing sweet old songs at a piano, long hair drifting, tender as apple blossom. But a girl who goes into battle beside you and keeps your back is a different thing, a thing to make you shiver. Think of the first time you slept with someone, or the first time you fell in love: that blinding explosion that left you cracking to the fingertips with electricity, initiated and transformed. I tell you that was nothing, nothing at all, beside the power of putting your lives, simply and daily, into each other's hands."
Author: Tana French

48. "When the earliest Vikings started moving into the northern oceans, there's one story about finding this huge fuckin opening at the top of the world, this deep whirlpool that'd take you down and in, like a black hole, no way to escape. These days you look at the surface Web, all that yakking, all the goods for sale, the spammers and spielers and idle fingers, all in the same desperate scramble they like to call an economy. Meantime, down here, sooner or later someplace deep, there has to be a horizon between coded and codeless. An abyss.""That's what you're looking for?""Some of us are." Avatars do not do wistful, but Maxine catches something. "Others are trying to avoid it. Depends what you're into."
Author: Thomas Pynchon

49. "Yesterday's rain had left a bitter, springlike smell in the air; the vehemence that beat against her in the street and hummed above her had something a little wistful in it tonight, like a plaintive hand-organ tune. All the lovely things in the shop windows, the furs and jewels, roses and orchids, seemed to belong to her as she passed them. Not to have wrapped up and sent home, certainly; where would she put them? But they were hers to live among."
Author: Willa Cather

50. "So...Now that we got that over with, let's get back to love at first sight, Evan said. Not infatuation at first sight...Love. With a capital L, he clarified.Love? Heeb asked, playfully pretending not to know the concept.Yeah. The real thing. The conviction that if you had this one woman, all other women would become irrelevant. You'd never again be unhappy And you'd give up anything to have her and keep her.You've experienced that?Only once. And I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since.Tell me more.Sometimes I think that I still chase women just to forget about her. Because I know I can never have her. But I can't seem to forget about her, no matter what girl I'm chasing...No one can possibly compare....Who is she?Delilah, Evan said wistfully.Delilah?, asked Heeb, intriguedDelilah Nakova, Evan replied, with a hint of awe and reverence in his voice."
Author: Zack Love

Wistful Quotes Pictures