# Quotes about obsession - Quotes: 17 - Authors: 12 - Broader topic: [Quotes about psychology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/psychology.md) - Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession - JSON version (same data): https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.json ## Quotes > I didn't write them for money; I wrote them because it occurred to me to write them. I have a marketable obsession. There are madmen and madwomen in padded cells the world over who are not so lucky. [Stephen King](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king.md) · [Night Shift](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/night-shift.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/night-shift/i-didnt-write.md) Topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > The arts are obsessional, and obsession is dangerous. It's like a knife in the mind...Art is a localized illness, usually benign - creative people tend to live a long time - sometimes terribly malignant. You use the knife carefully, because you know it doesn't care who it cuts. And if you are wise you sift the sludge carefully...because some of that stuff may not be dead. [Stephen King](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king.md) · [Night Shift](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/night-shift.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/night-shift/the-arts-are.md) Topics: [art](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > It's what you want, he told himself. Don't obsess over it. Do it. [Robert S. Stone](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-s-stone.md) · [A Flag for Sunrise](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-s-stone/a-flag-for-sunrise.md) · p. 140 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-s-stone/a-flag-for-sunrise/its-what-you.md) Topics: [taking action](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/taking-action.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > I wondered, not for the first time, whether all farmers become obsessed or if only obsessive people become farmers. [Ben Aaronovitch](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch.md) · [Tales From The Folly](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/tales-from-the-folly.md) · p. 205 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/tales-from-the-folly/i-wondered-not.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > Obsession is just what those too timorous to follow an idea through to its logical conclusion call determination. [Iain M. Banks](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks.md) · [The Hydrogen Sonata](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata.md) · p. 308 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-hydrogen-sonata/obsession-is-just.md) Topics: [stubbornness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/stubbornness.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > I know what I am to him. A butterfly he has always wanted to catch. I remember (the very first time I met him) G.P. saying that collectors were the worst animals of all. He meant art collectors, of course. I didn’t really understand, I thought he was just trying to shock Caroline — and me. But of course, he is right. They’re anti-life, anti-art, anti-everything. [John Fowles](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles.md) · [The Collector](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles/the-collector.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles/the-collector/i-know-what.md) Topics: [art](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > She herself was a victim of that lust for books which rages in the breast like a demon, and which cannot be stilled save by the frequent and plentiful acquisition of books. This passion is more common, and more powerful, than most people suppose. Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. But there are others who will lie and scheme and steal to get books as wildly and unconscionably as the dope-taker in pursuit of his drug. They may not want the books to read immediately, or at all; they want them to possess, to range on their shelves, to have at command. They want books as a Turk is thought to want concubines -- not to be hastily deflowered, but to be kept at their master's call, and enjoyed more often in thought than in reality. Solly was in a measure a victim of this unscrupulous passion, but Freddy was wholly in the grip of it. [Robertson Davies](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robertson-davies.md) · [The Salterton Trilogy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robertson-davies/the-salterton-trilogy.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robertson-davies/the-salterton-trilogy/she-herself-was.md) Topics: [reading](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > ""You'll always be powerless to this girl. You'll never be in charge. There's something there," George told me, "that makes you crazy and always will. If you don't cut the connection for good, in the end that something will destroy you. You're no longer merely answering natural need with her. This is the pathology in its purest form. Look," he told me, "see it as a critic, see it from a professional point of view. You violated the law of aesthetic distance. You sentimentalized the aesthetic experience with this girl — you personalized it, you sentimentalized it, and you lost the sense of separation essential to your enjoyment. Do you know when that happened? … I'm not against it because it's disgusting. I'm against it because it's falling in love. The only obsession everyone wants: 'love.' People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open." [Philip Roth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-roth.md) · [The Dying Animal](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-roth/the-dying-animal.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-roth/the-dying-animal/youll-always-be-powerless.md) Topics: [falling in love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/falling-in-love.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > Reality isn’t the most pleasant of atmospheres, Lieutenant. But we like to think we’re engineered for it. It’s a pretty fine piece of engineering, the kind an engineer can respect. Drag in an obsession and reality can’t tolerate it. Something has to give; if reality goes, your fine piece of engineering is left with nothing to operate on. So it operates badly. So kick the obsession out; start functioning the way you were designed to function. [Theodore Sturgeon](https://www.leafyquotes.com/theodore-sturgeon.md) · [More Than Human](https://www.leafyquotes.com/theodore-sturgeon/more-than-human.md) · p. 146 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/theodore-sturgeon/more-than-human/reality-isnt-the.md) Topics: [reality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad. [Herman Melville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville.md) · [Moby-Dick](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick.md) · p. 205 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick/all-my-means.md) Topics: [madness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way! [Herman Melville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville.md) · [Moby-Dick](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick.md) · p. 186 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick/swerve-me-the.md) Topics: [purpose](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/purpose.md), [stubbornness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/stubbornness.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who's over me? Truth hath no confines. [Herman Melville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville.md) · [Moby-Dick](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick.md) · p. 181 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick/all-visible-objects.md) Topics: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md), [hatred](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hatred.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it. [Herman Melville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville.md) · [Moby-Dick](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick.md) · p. 203 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick/all-that-most.md) Topics: [evil](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evil.md), [hatred](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hatred.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates. [Herman Melville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville.md) · [Moby-Dick](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick.md) · p. 224 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick/god-help-thee.md) Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > So long as man is protected by madness he functions and flourishes, but when he frees himself from the fruitful tyranny of fixed ideas, he is lost, ruined. [Emil Cioran](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran.md) · [A Short History of Decay](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/a-short-history-of-decay.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/a-short-history-of-decay/so-long-as-man.md) Topics: [madness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > There are men who are possessed by an urge so strong to do some particular thing that they can't help themselves, they've got to do it. They're prepared to sacrifice everything to satisfy their yearning. [William Somerset Maugham](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-somerset-maugham.md) · [The Razor's Edge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-somerset-maugham/the-razors-edge.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-somerset-maugham/the-razors-edge/there-are-men.md) Topics: [sacrifice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/sacrifice.md), [passion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/passion-2.md), [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md) > I couldn’t bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn’t think about nothing else. [Mark Twain](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain.md) · [Adventures of Huckleberry Finn](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/adventures-of-huckleberry-finn.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/i-couldnt-bear.md) Topics: [obsession](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/obsession.md)