regrets Quotes

“I didn’t mean anything by it, but that was one of the last memories she had of me, and I wished I could take it back.”

“I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done in life, any choice that I’ve made. But I’m consumed with regret for the things I didn’t do, the choices I didn’t make, the things I didn’t say. We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to. ‘What if . . .’ ‘If only . . .’ ‘I wonder what would have . . .’ You will never, never know, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days.”

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

“I don’t want to get old. I have this very silly fear, dear friend, that one day I’ll be old, without ever having really been young.”

“You know how you finish a bag of chips and you hate yourself? You know you’ve done nothing good for yourself. That’s the same feeling, and you know it is, after some digital binge. You feel wasted and hollow and diminished.”

“Most of the time, everyone deserves more than one chance. We all do things we regret now and then. You just have to carry them with you.”

“I wish that I had not been acquainted with the future.”

″‘Fly you high, Gregor the Overlander,’ said Vikus. Gregor struggled with how to respond. Should he ignore Vikus? Let him know that none of them, not even an Overlander, could forgive him? Just as he had steeled himself against replying, Gregor thought of the last two years, seven months, and was it fifteen days now? There were so many things he wished he’d said to his dad when he’d had the chance. Things like how special it was when they went on the roof at night and tried to find the stars. Or how much he loved it when they took the subway out to the stadium to watch a baseball game. Or just that he felt lucky that out of all the people in the world, his dad was his dad. He didn’t have room inside him for any more unspoken words. The bats were rising into the air. He only had a second. ‘Fly you high, Vikus!’ he yelled. ‘Fly you high!’ Vikus turned back, and Gregor could see tears shining on his cheeks. He lifted up a hand to Gregor in thanks.” And then they were gone.”

“Living a life fully engaged and full of whimsy and the kind of things that love does is something most people plan to do, but along the way they just kind of forget. Their dreams become one of those “we’ll go there next time” deferrals. The sad thing is, for many there is no “next time” because passing on the chance to cross over is an overall attitude toward life rather than a single decision.”

“Oh, if I had only known that day so long ago when I stood outside the parsonage in the cold, aching to belong to that circle of girls who did not want me.[…] I close my eyes and tremble with the memory. Wishing I could bring it back. Wishing. For I remember just how it was, and where I was standing and what I was feeling in that moment it was given to me to decide what to do.”

“Uncertain as I was as I pushed forward, I felt right in my pushing, as if the effort itself meant something. That perhaps being amidst the undesecrated beauty of the wilderness meant I too could be undesecrated, regardless of the regrettable things I’d done to others or myself or the regrettable things that had been done to me. Of all the things I’d been skeptical about, I didn’t feel skeptical about this: the wilderness had a clarity that included me.”

“I’ve been thinking it over for years. While we loved each other we didn’t need words to make ourselves understood. But people don’t love forever. A time came when I should have found the words to keep her with me – only I couldn’t.”

“You can’t regret the life you didn’t lead.”

“When one door closes, another opens. But we often look and so regretfully upon the closed door that we fail to see the one that has opened for us.”

“Never regret your past. Rather, embrace it as the teacher that it is.”

“It was too late for me to regret what had occurred during the day.”

“I said that I was no good. That is true, but still I was not exactly a comic opera villain. I had led an easy-going reckless life, taking what invited me of pleasure, deploring and sometimes bitterly regretting consequences.”

“It took turns that people couldn’t foresee or even understand, leaving a long trail of regret in its wake. And almost always, those regrets led to the kinds of what if questions that could never be answered.”

“Such amusing fiction, these stories they tell. It always comes to this. If they really had a desire to live, they would’ve been more aware of how easy it is to die, would’ve chosen their actions more wisely. In these moments, you can tell they’re not regretting having hurt you, they regret doing it to your face.”

″‘Now that I think about it, I do have one regret.’ ‘Much better,’ he said. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’ He clicked his pen back open. ‘Let’s hear it.’ ‘Pencils... I regret not having more of them.‘”

“Regrets don’t leave. They weren’t mosquito bites. They itch for ever.”

“The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ is the first book in the Adrian Mole series of comedic fiction.The book is written in a diary style, and focuses on the worries and regrets of a teenager who believes himself to be an intellectual.”

“I’m horribly late. What will they think of me? It was awful of me to come with you. I’m always doing awful things. That’s a secret between you and me.”

“I lost the society and friendship of your brave father, whom I now desire more than my life once again to look upon.”

“My death would be regretted, yours would not.”

“I once asked her if she ever went to bed with any regrets. She quickly told me, ‘Every night, son. I just forget em by the time I wake up.”

Good heavens, what fools they had been!

There was a time when I hoped that there might be a happy future for me, not at the Red House, not alone. Perhaps it was never more than an idle day-dream, for I am no more worthy of her than Mark was.

“I believed you dead; why did I survive you? What good has it done me to mourn for you eternally in the secret recesses of my heart?”

“Great city,” murmured he, inclining his head, and joining his hands as if in prayer, “less than six months have elapsed since first I entered thy gates. I believe that the Spirit of God led my steps to thee and that he also enables me to quit thee in triumph; the secret cause of my presence within thy walls I have confided alone to him who only has had the power to read my heart. God only knows that I retire from thee without pride or hatred, but not without many regrets; he only knows that the power confided to me has never been made subservient to my personal good or to any useless cause. Oh, great city, it is in thy palpitating bosom that I have found that which I sought; like a patient miner, I have dug deep into thy very entrails to root out evil thence. Now my work is accomplished, my mission is terminated, now thou canst neither afford me pain nor pleasure. Adieu, Paris, adieu!”