Neediness Quotes

“Because introverts are typically good listeners and, at least, have the appearance of calmness, we are attractive to emotionally needy people. Introverts, gratified that other people are initiating with them, can easily get caught in these exhausting and unsatisfying relationships.”
― Adam S. McHugh

“We love being mentally strong, but we hate situations that allow us to put our mental strength to good use.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“When we give freely, we feel full and complete; when we withhold, we feel small, petty, impotent, and lacking. We are meant to learn this great truth, that giving fulfills us, while withholding and trying to get causes us to feel empty and even more needy. This truth runs counter to our programming, which drives us to try to get something from others to fulfill our neediness, only to end up even more needy, grasping, lacking, and unfulfilled.”
― Gina Lake, What About Now?: Reminders for Being in the Moment

“Don’t ever feel bad for making a decision about your own life that upsets other people. You are not responsible for their happiness. You’re responsible for your own happiness. Anyone who wants you to live in misery for their happiness should not be in your life anyway.”
― Isaiah Hankel

“Maybe [the ocean and I] were on the same side, comprised of the same things, water mostly, also mystery. The ocean swallowed things up--boats, people--but it didn't look outside itself for fulfillment. It could take whatever skimmed its surface or it could leave it. In its depths already lived a whole world of who-knows-what. It was self-sustaining. I should be like that. It made me wonder what was inside of me.”
― Melissa Broder, The Pisces

“when a child is ridiculed, shamed, hurt or ignored when she experiences and expresses a legitimate dependency need, she will later be inclined to attach those same affective tones to her dependency. Thus, she will experience her own (and perhaps others’) dependency as ridiculous, shameful, painful, or denied.
- Dependency in the Treatment of complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders 2001
Authors: Kathy Steele, Onno van der Hart, Ellert R. S. Nijenhuis”
― Kathy Steele

“We are unhappy because we think that love is something we require from someone else.”
― Arthur Japin, In Lucia's Eyes

“Women can invest a tremendous amount of care and devotion into others, but by becoming sometimes dependent on being needed, they simultaneously become self-destructive. By their self-imposed dependence on being considered necessary, they deny their own freedom and agency, sacrificing their individuality and autonomy. (" Sweet Smell of Submission")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Every action is a losing, a letting go, a passing away from oneself of some bit of one’s own reality into the existence of others and of the world. In Jesus Christ, this character of action is not resisted, by trying to use our action to assert ourselves, extend ourselves, to impose our will and being upon situations. In Jesus Christ, this self-expending character of action is joyfully affirmed. I receive myself constantly from God’s Parenting love. But so far as some aspects of myself are at my disposal, these I receive to give away. Those who would live as Jesus did—who would act and purpose themselves as Jesus did—mean to love, i.e., they mean to expend themselves for others unto death. Their being is meant to pass away from them to others, and they make that meaning the conscious direction of their existence.

Too often the love which is proclaimed in the churches suppresses this element of loss and need and death in activity. As a Christian, I often speak of love as helping others, but I ignore what this does to the person who loves. I ignore the fact that love is self-expenditure, a real expending and losing and deterioration of the self. I speak of love as if the person loving had no problems, no needs, no limits. In other words, I speak of love as if the affluent dream were true. This kind of proclamation is heard everywhere. We hear it said: 'Since you have no unanswered needs, why don’t you go out and help those other people who are in need?' But we never hear people go on and add: 'If you do this, you too will be driven into need.' And by not stating this conclusion, people give the childish impression that Christian love is some kind of cornucopia, where we can reach to everybody’s needs and problems and still have everything we need for ourselves. Believe me, there are grown-up persons who speak this kind of nonsense. And when people try to live out this illusory love, they become terrified when the self-expending begins to take its toll. Terror of relationship is [that] we eat each other.

But note this very carefully: like Jesus, we too can only live to give our received selves away freely because we know our being is not thereby ended, but still and always lies in the Parenting of our God....

Those who love in the name of Jesus Christ... serve the needs of others willingly, even to the point of being exposed in their own neediness.... They do not cope with their own needs. They do not anguish over how their own needs may be met by the twists and turns of their circumstances, by the whims of their society, or by the strategies of their own egos. At the center of their life—the very innermost center—they are grateful to God, because... they do not fear neediness. That is what frees them to serve the needy, to companion the needy, to become and be one of the needy.”
― Arthur C. McGill, Dying Unto Life

“When "caregivers" become addicted to the neediness of others, their needs may become destructive or exploitative. If women give up their empowerment, they abandon their potential for freedom and personal growth and lose their own sense of self. (" Sweet smell of Submission")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“I want to give you affirmation. But if I don't give you enough, you should ask for it."
"Isn't asking for affirmation — I don't know — needy?"
He looked perplexed. "Isn't the point of something like this that the other person tries to meet your needs, and you try to meet theirs?"
I was quiet for a few seconds before saying, "Is this what they teach in therapy? Because it's blowing my mind.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Romantic Comedy

“They say that people are innately afraid of those who need them, they say that people are afraid of "clingy-ness", afraid of attachment, afraid of being needed by another. But I beg to disagree. I believe that people, when looking at someone who is needy of them, see themselves and see their own fears and they go away because they can't handle those fears; it's their own neediness that they're afraid of! They're afraid to want and to need, because they're afraid of loss and of losing, so when they see these things in another, that's when they run away. Nobody is actually running away from other people; everybody is really running away from themselves!”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Any man's measure is determined by what he will do when he is faced with his own deep need. Not how high he may reach but how low he may kneel.”
― J. Otis Yoder, When You Pray

“In an "open 24-7" reality, want is King. We serve it, live it, breath it. But what does the king give you in exchange? Debt, neediness, addiction, and suffering. There is an alternative. JOY. Joy is created in simplicity.”
― Deborah Bravandt

“When you don't feel loved, you will settle for feeling needed. The source of love is within you. Let it blossom. With every breath, you have everything you need.”
― Michele Savauanah Zirkle

“Life is a delicate balance between the idea that we need others for almost everything and the striking reality that nobody owes you anything!”
― Curtis Tyrone Jones

“Kindness comes from your need of being needed. If you are kind, you are attracting people or animals that need you.

Compassion is different. Compassion comes from your soul and first heals your own mind and your need of being needed.”
― Shunya

“Don't be so obsessed with stardom that you miss out on success”
― Rasheed Ogunlaru

“Boy craziness is really just girl neediness.”
― Paula Hendricks

“You would not believe what skill, power and ability your total intelligence possesses until you are in desperate need.”
― Bryant McGill

“Want is small and will make you small. Want is needy and will make you needy.”
― Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life

“When all seems hopeless, cross your fingers and stick with the secular prayer.”
― Brian Spellman

“Many a rich man’s bed is bigger than many a poor woman’s bedroom; his bedroom, her house.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Und wandelte Magdalena im finsteren Tal, zwischen den Wesen, die schauten sie an, streckten die Hände aus nach ihr.

Was kann ich tun? sagte Magdalena. Da war ein Sturz aus fernen Höhlen, viele Tücher wurden zurückgeschlagen, und war Nacktheit in allen Öffnungen, die sprachen das Wort: Bedürftigkeit. War ausgestreckter Hände voll der Ort und suchender Augen, die wollten. Und Magdalena ging und sollte bringen, sie hatte aber nichts, war leer und arm.

Ich muss wandern, dachte sie, und demütig schlugen die Gestalten ihre Augen nieder, und blieben stehen am Wegrand, zurück, wie dunkle Pfähle, die Hände halb gestreckt aus den Gewändern, müde Geste, verzagte Forderung, so würden sie stehenbleiben, lange, oh, so lange, und würde in ihren Herzen schlummern der Gedanke: sie wird wiederkommen, sie wird wiederkommen, und sie würden stehen und warten, die Äonen würden niederfallen, und Schnee sinken im kalten Wind ...

Du bist die, die ihnen verheißen wurde, sagte die Stimme, und Magdalena floh, denn was konnte sie geben? Sie hatte nichts, leer waren ihre Gebärden. Und verzweigt waren die Täler, voll kühler Ungeduld.

Der Morgen floss von den Höhen, blasses Auge der Nebelsonne. Zurück sah Magdalena hinunter ins Tal, da standen die Tannen, die dunklen Hallen. Und Magdalena fühlte eine schwache Spur von Glück, ich bin nicht der Gärtner eures Unbehagens, sagte sie, und die Bäume rauschten im Wind. Entronnen, sagte Magdalena laut, entronnen ...”
― Peter von Mundenheim

“It's better to need someone because you love them than to love someone because you need them.”
― Darlene Lancer

“Can Fate be boring? Certainly; it sure was during life. Can it be needy, too? Yes; it’s nothing if not that—its raison d’être is to make sure what is meant to happen does.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“Generally, touching wasn’t something that she was a big fan of. She didn’t need it herself, and found that it was not necessarily helpful to other people, although most crave it. She touched little children, a lot, because they genuinely need it to grow and thrive. She touched lovers because lovers are like children. Well, not exactly. But, all going well, lovers do have the openness, vulnerability, and playfulness of children with each other and so touching is both good and helpful. She touched people in dancing because dancers can only talk through their bodies. They have no other language.”
― Donna Goddard, Purnima

“I found myself wanting to go to him and apologize for leaving him. I wanted to tell him I was there for him, ready to
listen or simply offer silent comfort. But I was too emotionally invested. I got wounded too easily. I was too afraid of rejection. And knowing he wouldn’t let me get too close only intensified that fear. Even if we did figure things out, I’d only tear myself apart trying to live with just the bits and pieces he decided to share with me.”
― Sylvia Day, Bared to You

“Algunas veces me decía a mí misma que tal vez se pasaba un día entero sin pensar ni un segundo en mí. Lo veía levantarse, tomarse el café, hablar, reír, como si yo no existiera. Ese desfase respecto a mi propia obsesión me llenaba de asombro.
¿Cómo era posible? Pero él mismo se habría quedado de una pieza al saber que yo no me lo quitaba de la cabeza en todo el día. No había motivo alguno para encontrar mi actitud más justa que la suya. En cierto sentido, yo tenía más suerte que él.
Cuando él telefoneaba para que nos viéramos, su tan esperada llamada no cambiaba nada, yo seguía con la misma dolorosa tensión de antes. Me hallaba en un estado en el que ni siquiera la realidad de su voz conseguía hacerme feliz. Todo era una carencia sin fin, salvo el momento en que estábamos juntos haciendo el amor. Y, aun así, me obsesionaba el momento que vendría a continuación, cuando se hubiera marchado. Vivía el placer como un dolor futuro.”
― Annie Ernaux

“The compassionate enjoy helping, and therefore love, the needy — which is one reason so many people seeking to be loved prefer to be needy.”
― George Hammond