Quotes About Regret

Too late, I thought. Too late for all the things I should have known. I had made so many mistakes that I could not find my way back through their tangle to the first one.

Then the best part of him died, and he was even more difficult after that. [...] "What was his best part?" "His lover, Patroclus. He didn't like me much, but then the good ones never do. Achilles went mad when he died; nearly mad, anyway.

I wish he had let you all die

As it turned out, I did kill pigs that night after all.

I sifted and resifted my memories of Aeëtes, all those hours we had leaned against each other. That old sickening feeling returned: that every moment of my life I had been a fool.

Are you sorry?'' ''I am not.'' The answer was sure, immediate. ''I am not either.'' I could never be sorry about this, I could never regret you. I never wish to be parted from you, ever. For all my life and beyond to the end of all the world, I will never be parted from your side again.

I could have stopped them," he said. The skin of his face was very pale; his voice was hoarse. "I was close enough. I could have saved her." I shook my head. "You could not have known." He buried his face in his hands and did not speak. I held him and whispered all the bits of broken comfort I could find.

For a hundred generations, I had walked the world drowsy and dull, idle and at my ease. I left no prints, I did no deeds. Even those who had loved me a little did not care to stay.

I failed him, yet he is a sweet wonder of this world.

So that is what I must hope for then? That one day I will see my father in the underworld and he will be sorry?" It is better than some of us get. But I held my peace. He had a right to his anger, and it was not my place to try to take it.

You cannot make that promise, I wanted to shout. You know nothing. But whose fault was that? I had kept the face of the world veiled from him. I had painted his history in bright, bold colors, and he had fallen in love with my art. And now it was too late to go back and change it. If I was so old, I should be wise. I should know better than to howl when the bird was already flown.

FOR THE FIRST TIME since my death, he falls into a fitful, trembling sleep. Achilles. I cannot bear to see you grieving. His limbs twitch and shudder. Give us both peace. Burn me and bury me. I will wait for you among the shades. I will— But already he is waking. "Patroclus! Wait! I am here!" He shakes the body beside him. When I do not answer, he weeps again.

I knew I was a fool. Even if he stayed past that spring to the next, such a man could never be happy closed up on my narrow shores.

I had made so many mistakes that I could not find my way back through their tangle to the first one.

I had painted his history in bright, bold colours and he had fallen in love with my art. And now it was too late to go back and change it.

They moaned and squealed, and pressed their snouts to the earth. We are sorry, we are sorry. Sorry you were caught, I said. Sorry that you thought I was weak, but you were wrong.

Later, Achilles sleeps next to me. Odysseus' storm has come, and the coarse fabric of the tent wall trembles with its force. I hear the stinging slap, over and over, of waves reproaching the shore. He stirs and the air stirs with him, bearing the musk-sweet smell of his body. I think: This is what I will miss. I think: I will kill myself rather than miss it. I think: How long do we have?

You have been tame your whole life, and now you will be sorry. Yes Father, yes Father—see what it gets you.

Sorry you were caught, I said. Sorry that you thought I was weak, but you were wrong.

As it turns out, I did kill pigs that night after all

I fear I have robbed them not only of their youth but their age as well.

If it were a man, I wondered if I would pity him. But it was not a man. When I passed back by the pen, his friends would stare at me with pleading faces. They moaned and squealed, and pressed their snouts to the earth. We are sorry, we are sorry. Sorry you were caught, I said. Sorry that you thought I was weak, but you were wrong

Patroclus" It was the name my father had given me, hopefully but injudiciously, at my birth, and it tasted of bitterness on my tonge. "Honor of the father," it meant. I waited for him to make a joke out of it, some witty jape about my disgrace. He did not. perhaps, I thought, he is too stupid to.

He thought, as the locked truck slid and hit: Too much time staring at the pretty girl, Cherrik. Too much dreaming. Too old, Cherrik. Too damn old.