Regret Quotes - Page 29

• Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness", "joy", or "regret". Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that is oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions.

  Jeffrey Eugenides

  Believe, Sadness, Joy

  Jeffrey Eugenides (2003). “Middlesex”, p.217, A&C Black

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• It is strange,' pursued he, 'that while I love Rosomond Oliver so wildly-with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, and fascinating--I experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness, that she would not make me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months' rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Beautiful, Passion, Years

  Charlotte Bronte (2013). “Jane Eyre”, p.399, Simon and Schuster

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• The lovely flowers embarrass me. They make me regret I am not a bee.

  Emily Dickinson

  Flower, Lovely, Bees

  Emily Dickinson, Thomas Herbert Johnson, Theodora Ward (1986). “The Letters of Emily Dickinson”, p.907, Harvard University Press

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• A month's salary, deep regret, the telephone number of some foul rehab clinic and my lance was free.

  Stephen Fry

  Numbers, Salary, Rehab

  Stephen Fry (2014). “The Hippopotamus”, p.10, Soho Press

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• But the most dangerous thing in the world in the world is to run the risk of waking up one morning and realizing suddenly that all this time you've been living without really and truly living and by then it's too late. When you wake up to that kind of realization, it's too late for wishes and regrets. It's even too late to dream.

  Kinky Friedman

  Running, Dream, Morning

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• She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Leisel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist's suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers...She did not say goodbye. She was incapable, and after a few more minutes at his side, she was able to tear herself from the ground. It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on.

  Markus Zusak

  Love, Goodbye, Sweet

  "The Book Thief". Book by Markus Zusak, 2005.

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• There was no God in his heart, he knew; his ideas were still in riot; there was ever the pain of memory; the regret for his lost youth-yet the waters of disillusion had left a deposit on his soul, responsibility and a love of life, the faint stirring of old ambitions and unrealized dreams...... And he could not tell why the struggle was worth while, why he had determined to use to the utmost himself and his heritage from the personalities he had passed... He stretched out his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky. I know myself," he cried, "but that is all.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Dream, Pain, Memories

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2016). “This Side of Paradise”, p.222, Xist Publishing

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• True remorse is never just a regret over consequences; it is a regret over motive.

  Mignon McLaughlin

  Forgiveness, Im Sorry, Apology

  Mignon McLaughlin (2014). “Aperçus: The Aphorisms of Mignon McLaughlin”, p.59, BookBaby

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• I find C major to be the key of strength, but also the key of regret. E major is the key of confidence. A-flat major is the key of renunciation.

  Bob Dylan

  Keys, Flats, Renunciation

  Bob Dylan (2007). “Dylan on Dylan: The Essential Interviews”, Hodder & Stoughton

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• Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there's no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It's loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.

  Margaret Atwood

  Loss, Journey, Garden

  Margaret Atwood (2000). “The Blind Assassin”, Random House Large Print Publishing

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• How much I missed, simply because I was afraid of missing it.

  Paulo Coelho

  Life, Mistake, Opportunity

  FaceBook post by Paulo Coelho from May 04, 2014

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• I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  I Regret

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• I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know that I shall be horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to keep myself from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a pass; but I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Struggle, Hands, Soul

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• The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

  Philip K. Dick

  Trying, Cry, Should

  Philip K. Dick (2011). “The VALIS Trilogy”, p.136, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other path, no other way, no day but today.

  Jonathan Larson

  Motivational, Missing, Today

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• She wore a gown the color of storms, shadows, and rain and a necklace of broken promises and regrets.

  Susanna Clarke

  Rain, Color, Broken

  Susanna Clarke (2005). “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell”, p.162, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• People who feel any sort of regret where you are concerned will suppose you are angry, and they will see anger in what you do, even if you're just quietly going about a life of your own choosing. They will make you doubt yourself, which, depending on cases, can be a severe distraction and a waste of time. This is a thing I wish I had understood much earlier than I did.

  Marilynne Robinson

  People, Doubt, Wish

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• I am, now as before, of the opinion that I did the best that I could do for my nation. I therefore do not regret my conduct and will bear the consequences that result from my conduct.

  Sophie Scholl

  Bears, Opinion, Results

  Bundesarchiv Berlin, ZC 13267, Bd. 3, www.bpb.de. February 1943.

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• Anyone who can read history with both hemispheres of the brain knows that a world comes to an end every instant--the waves of time leave washed up behind themselves only dry memories of a closed & petrified past--imperfect memory, itself already dying & autumnal. And every instant also gives birth to a world--despite the cavillings of philosophers & scientists whose bodies have grown numb--a present in which all impossibilities are renewed, where regret & premonition fade to nothing in one presential hologrammatical psychomantric gesture.

  Hakim Bey

  Memories, Past, Giving

  Hakim Bey (2003). “T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism”, p.34, Autonomedia

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• Let me tell you a few things about regret...There is no end to it. You cannot find the beginning of the chain that brought us from there to here. Should you regret the whole chain, and the air in between, or each link separately as if you could uncouple them? Do you regret the beginning which ended so badly, or just the ending itself?

  Janet Fitch

  Air, Links, Oleanders

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• Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself -- that comes too late -- a crop of inextinguishable regrets.

  Joseph Conrad

  Life, Knowledge, Too Late

  Joseph Conrad (2006). “Heart of Darkness and Other Stories”, p.120, Collector's Library

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• Not everything's perfect, especially in the beginning. And its all right to have a little bit of regret every once in a while. It's when you feel it all the time and can't do anything about it... that's when you get into trouble

  Sarah Dessen

  Perfect, Littles, Trouble

  Sarah Dessen (2008). “Lock and Key”, p.114, Penguin

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• We all have to learn to live with our losses, and to use our regrets to spur us on in the future.

  John Christopher

  Loss, Spurs, Use

  John Christopher (2013). “The Pool of Fire”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

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• I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing for future tense, songs of regret for past tense, and songs of love for present tense.

  Mary Doria Russell

  Song, Past, Skeletons

  "The Sparrow". Book by Mary Doria Russell, 1996.

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• Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret.

  Jane Austen

  Littles, Bears, Youth

  Jane Austen (2005). “Pride and Prejudice”, p.204, Prestwick House Inc

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