Creativity Quote by Irving Berlin

Desire is Berlin's real subject here, not romance. "After you get what you want you don't want it" lands like a lyric because it moves on a simple pivot: want becomes have, and the emotional engine stalls. It's a one-line diagnosis of the itch that keeps people dancing, dating, buying, chasing applause - and then looking around, slightly embarrassed, once the lights come up.

Berlin came up through Tin Pan Alley, a factory of longing disguised as entertainment. Popular song in his era sold fantasies with the efficiency of consumer goods: the perfect partner, the perfect night, the perfect version of yourself. This line quietly punctures that whole system. The subtext is not "be grateful" or "desire is bad". It's sharper: wanting is often more satisfying than owning because wanting keeps possibility alive. Having collapses possibility into reality, with all its limits.

There's also a performer-composer edge to it. Berlin spent a lifetime manufacturing "what you want" for mass audiences: tunes that promised happiness in three minutes. He knew the cycle: the hit you must have, the show you must see, the chorus you can't stop humming - until the next one arrives. The sentence carries a kind of weary professionalism: a man who understands that appetite is renewable, fulfillment isn't.

In modern terms, it anticipates dopamine economics: the chase is rewarded; the catch is quiet. Berlin makes it sound casual, almost tossed off, which is why it cuts. It's the truth you hum on the way to the next want.