Quotes About Regret

Life isn't simply made of the things we do, but the things we don't do too.

My mum died on different dates in different lives. I'd like a life where she is still here. Does that life exist?' Mrs Elm's attention switched to Nora. 'Maybe it does.' 'Great.' 'But you can't get there.' 'Why not?' 'Because this library is about your decisions. There was no choice you could have made that led to her being alive beyond yesterday. I'm sorry.

This was the life she had been in mourning for. This was the life she had beaten herself up for not living. This was the timeline she thought she had regretted not existing in.

She remembered something Mrs Elm had told her in the Midnight Library. 'You see, doing one thing differently is very often the same as doing everything differently. Actions can't be reversed within a lifetime, however much we try .

Nora was only able to think of herself in terms of the things she wasn't. The things she hadn't been able to become. And there really were quite a lot of things she hadn't become. The regrets which were on permanent repeat in her mind.

It was pathetic really, the amount of possibilities she had squandered.

So, do you want to live a life you could be living? Do you want to do something differently? Is there anything you wish to change? Did you do anything wrong?' That was an easy one. 'Yes. Absolutely everything.

A human life is on average eighty Earth years or around thirty thousand Earth days. Which means they are born, they make some friends, eat a few meals, they get married or they don't get married, have a child or two, or not, drink a few thousand glasses of wine, have sexual intercourse a few times, discover a lump somewhere, feel a bit of regret, wonder where all the time went, know they should have done it differently, realize they would have done it the same, and then they die.

Now, consider this. A human life is on average 80 Earth years or around 30,000 Earth days. Which means they are born, they make some friends, eat a few meals, they get married, or they don't get married, have a child or two, or not, drink a few thousand glasses of wine, have sexual intercourse a few times, discover a lump somewhere, feel a bit of regret, wonder where all the time went, know they should have done it differently, realise they would have done it the same, and then they die.

This was the life she had been in mourning for. This was the life she had beaten herself up for not living.

So, you see? Sometimes regrets aren't based on fact at all. Sometimes regrets are just . . . A load of bullshit.

It can drive you insane thinking of all the other lives we don't live.

You gave up the universe for a life on the sofa?' 'I didn't realise that at the time.

But I still don't get why you let me go into that life if you knew Volts was going to be dead anyway. You could have told me. You could have just told me I wasn't a bad cat owner. Why didn't you?' 'Because, Nora, sometimes the only way to learn is to live.

Because life isn't simply made of the things we do, but the things we don't do too.

Pi?manl?klar?n? telafi etme ?ans?n olsayd?, baz? konularda farkl? davran?r m?yd?n?

It is not the lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.

It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.

I wanted to be dead. No. That's not quite right. I didn't want to be dead, I just didn't want to be alive. Death was something that scared me. And death only happens to people who have been living. There were infinitely more people who had never been alive. I wanted to be one of those people. That old classic wish. To never have been born. To have been one of the three hundred million sperm that hadn't made it.

All you can do with the past is carry it around, feeling its weight slowly increase, praying it never crushes you completely

Between life and death there is a library

I had all the chances to make something of my life, and I blew every one of them. Through my own carelessness and misfortune, the world has retreated from me, and so now it makes perfect sense that I should retreat from the world.

YaÅŸamla ölüm aras?nda bir kütüphane var dedi. Bu kütüphanedeki raflar sonsuza kadar gider. Her kitap yaÅŸam?? olabileceÄŸin baÅŸka bir hayat? yaÅŸama ÅŸans?n? sunar sana. Farkl? seçimler yapm?? olsan, ÅŸu an nas?l bir hayat?n olaca??n? görürsün... PiÅŸmanl?klar?n? telafi etme ÅŸans?n olsayd?, baz? konularda farkl? davran?r m?yd?n?

So, you see? Sometimes regrets aren't based on fact at all.