Regret Quotes - Page 33

• Over the last couple of years, the photos of me when I was a kid... well, they've started to give me a little pang or something - not unhappiness, exactly, but some kind of quiet, deep regret... I keep wanting to apologize to the little guy: "I'm sorry, I've let you down. I was the person who was supposed to look after you, but I blew it: I made wrong decisions at bad times, and I turned you into me.

  Nick Hornby

  Sorry, Couple, Kids

  9 Copy quote

• Although I have been through all that I have, I do not regret the many hardships I met, because it was they who brought me to the place I wished to reach.

  Paulo Coelho

  Hardship, Mets, Has Beens

  4 Copy quote

• But as surely as the moon rises and the sun sets, depravity passes down through the ages, because there is always a gap between who we are and who we should be, and our parents, molested by regret, conceive us under the false hope that we will be better than them, and everything they do, every hug and blow, only makes certain that we never will be.

  Chris Adrian

  Blow, Moon, Parent

  Chris Adrian (2012). “The Children's Hospital”, p.241, Granta Books

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Bones mend. Regret stays with you forever.

  Patrick Rothfuss

  Forever, Bones, Name Of The Wind

  "The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicle". Book by Patrick Rothfuss, books.google.ru. April 22,2010.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• This was a lucky recollection -- it saved her from something like regret.

  Jane Austen

  Lucky, Recollection, Saved

  Jane Austen (1813). “Pride and Prejudice: A Novel. : In Three Volumes”, p.5

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.

  Geoff Dyer

  Writing, Desire, Fuel

  "Ten rules for writing fiction". The Guardian Interview, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2010.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• I must be without remorse or regrets as I am without excuse; for from the instant of my upsurge into being, I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Responsibility, Tears, World

  5 Copy quote

• Poor creatures. What did we do to you? With all our schemes and plans?

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Never Let Me Go, Poor, Schemes

  Kazuo Ishiguro (2009). “Never Let Me Go”, p.233, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing but Christianity will give you the victory. Until a man believes in his heart that Jesus Christ is his Lord and Master... his course through life will be neither safe nor pleasant. My only regret is that I was so long blinded by my pleasures, my vices and pursuits, and the examples of others that I was kept fr...om seeing, admiring, and adoring the marvelous light of the gospel.

  Francis Scott Key

  Jesus, Believe, Heart

  55 Copy quote

• Regrets are the most useless form of guilt. They always arrive too late to do any good.

  Eileen Wilks

  Guilt, Too Late, Useless

  Eileen Wilks (2004). “Tempting Danger”, p.30, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'll get angry in the same way with the coachman Ivan, argue in the same way, speak my mind inappropriately, there will be the same wall between my soul's holy of holies and other people, even my wife, I'll accuse her in the same way of my own fear and then regret it, I'll fail in the same way to understand with my reason why I pray, and yet I will pray--but my life now, my whole life, regardless of all that may happen to me, every minute of it, is not only not meaningless, as it was before, but has the unquestionable meaning of the good which it is in my power to put into it!

  Leo Tolstoy

  Wall, Wife, People

  4 Copy quote

• However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass. Do they know what they’re missing? Uh huh.

  Frank O'Hara

  New York, Past, Clouds

  Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.197, Univ of California Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wondered about the half-life of regret.

  Lorrie Moore

  Half, Half Life

  Lorrie Moore (2009). “A Gate at the Stairs”, p.124, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Words spoken cannot be recalled, and many a man and many a woman who has spoken a word at once regretted, are far too proud to express that regret.

  Anthony Trollope

  Men, Proud

  Anthony Trollope (1870). “He Knew He was Right”, p.5

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones--I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be for ever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant.

  Jean Webster

  Past, Daddy, Secret

  Jean Webster (2004). “Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy”, p.105, Penguin

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• A Strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sorrow. The idea of sorrow has always appealed to me but now I am almost ashamed of it's complete egoism. I have known boredom, regret, and occasionally remorse, but never sorrow. Today it envelops me like a silken web, enervating and soft, and sets me apart from everybody else.

  Francoise Sagan

  Sad, Beautiful, Names

  FRANCOISE SAGAN (1955). “BONOUR TRISTESSE”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions.

  Carlos Castaneda

  Decision, Doubt, Hunters

  CARLOS CASTANEDA (1972). “Journey to Ixtlan”

  100 Copy quote

  Show source

• My dad used to say that living with regrets was like driving a car that only moved in reverse.

  Jodi Picoult

  Dad, Car, Driving

  Jodi Picoult (2010). “House Rules: A Novel”, p.162, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I’m sick of being everyone’s regret. My mother died in shame because she’d borne me. My father and brother despise me and my sister can barely look me in the eye! (Acheron)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Mother, Brother, Father

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2008). “Acheron: A Dark-Hunter Novel”, p.235, Macmillan

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• We all have regrets, Urian. Nothing that lives is immune from that nasty emotion. (Acheron) So what? You want me to go kiss and make up? (Urian) Hardly. But I want you to set aside your own hurt and anger to see clearly for a minute. This isn’t about you and your father anymore than it’s about me and Nick hating each other over something we can’t change. This is about saving the lives of a million innocent people. People like Phoebe who don’t deserve to be hunted and killed. If I can stand at the side of my enemies for the greater good, so can you. (Acheron)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Hurt, Father, Hate

  4 Copy quote

• But then, life is a constant withering of possibilities. Some are stolen with the lives of people you love. Others are let go, with regret and reluctance and deep, deep sorrow. But there is compensation for lives unlived in the intoxicating joy of knowing that the life you have - right here, right now - if the one you have chosen. There is power in that, and hope.

  Emily Maguire

  Letting Go, Knowing, People

  46 Copy quote

• Regrets about the journey, maybe, but not the destination.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Journey, Destination

  Nicholas Sparks (2010). “Dear John”, p.55, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I tried. I tried to burn that memory of my regret. But I wasn’t dead yet, I was just on my way to dying, and it’s harder to burn memories when you’ve still got life left. When you’re alive you have to learn how to live with things like regret.

  Christopher Barzak

  Life, Memories, Dying

  Christopher Barzak (2007). “One For Sorrow”, p.69, Bantam

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A thousand times I was ready to regret and take back my rash statement - yet it had been the truth.

  Hermann Hesse

  Thousand, Ready, Statements

  7 Copy quote

• "I don't know," I said. "What else did you do for your first eighteen years?" "Like I said," he said as I unlocked the car, "I'm not so sure that you should go by my example." "Why not?" "Because I have my regrets," he said. "Also, I'm a guy. And guys do different stuff." "Like ride bikes?" I said. "No," he replied. "Like have food fights. And break stuff. And set off firecrackers on people's front porches. And..." "Girls can't set off firecrackers on people's front porches?" "They can," he said... "But they're smart enough not to. That's the difference."

  Sarah Dessen

  Girl, Smart, Fighting

  "Along for the Ride". Book by Sarah Dessen, June 16, 2009.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source