Quotes About Regret

Love and regret go hand in hand in this world of changes swifter than the shifting of the clouds reflected in the mirror of the sea.

He sighed with content, with regret as well at having to part from the serenity which fostered the adventurous freedom of his thoughts.

I have attempted to tear asunder the veil you have hung to conceal from us the pain of life, and I have been wounded by the mystery...Oedipus, half way to finding the word of the enigma, young Faust, regretting already the simple life, the life of the heart, I come back to you repentant, reconciled, O gentle deceiver!

O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! To me she was not an old rattle-trap carting about the world a lot of coal for a freight--to me she was the endeavour, the test, the trial of life. I think of her with pleasure, with affection, with regret--as you would think of someone dead you have loved. I shall never forget her. . . . Pass the bottle.

There is something in a treasure that fastens upon a man's mind. He will pray and blaspheme, and will curse the day he ever heard of it, and will let his last hour come upon him unawares, still believing that he missed it only by a foot. He will see it every time he closes his eyes. He will never forget it till he is dead—and even then Doctor, did you ever hear of the miserable gringos on Azuera, that cannot die?

Brutus and Cassius howl in Hell together

If you want to know the age of the Earth—look upon the sea in a storm. But what storm can fully reveal the heart of a man? Between Suez and the China Sea are many nameless men who prefer to live and die unknown. This is the story of one such man. Among the great gallery of rogues and heroes thrown up on the beaches and ports—no man was more respected or more damned than—Lord Jim.

There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination--you know. Imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.

To think that I have wasted years of my life, that I have longed for death, that the greatest love that I have ever known has been for a woman who did not please me, who was not in my style! Part 4

He was most alive at his business. He loved his wife, or thought he did. But did he miss Miriam? At first, yes, a lot, but by now days, whole weeks, went by when he didn't think about her.

No deed is good that one regrets having done.

He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret

I lost my balls! Aarfy, I lost my balls!

He was genuinely sorry for Yossarian; when Yossarian realized that, he was genuinely sorry for Rogoff.

Polish sausage is going for peanuts in Cracow,' Milo informed him. 'polish sausage', sighed the general nostalgically. 'You know, I'd give just about anything for a good hunk of Polish sausage. Just about anything.

I have often thought how much happier I should have been if, instead of accepting a command under such Circumstances, I should have taken my musket upon my Shoulder & entered the Ranks or Ã¢â'¬Â¦ had retir'd to the back country & lived in a Wig-wam. —GEORGE WASHINGTON

How the right hand became disabled would be a long story for the left to tell," he wrote to William Stephens Smith. "It was by one of those follies from which good cannot come, but ill may.

When we mourn those who die young – those who have been robbed of time – we weep for lost joys. We weep for opportunities and pleasure we ourselves have never known. We feel sure that somehow that young body would have known the yearning delight for which we searched in vain all our lives. We believe that the untried soul, trapped in its young prison, might have flown free and known the joy that we still seek.

I do remember what I said. The promise. To protect her. If I'd done that ... even if I didn't make it, you wouldn't've had to jump. I want you to know I did save you. Not when it counted, of course. But after that. Every night after that. I'd see it all again, do something different. Faster or more clever, you know? Dozens of times, lots of different ways ...Every night I save you.

I mean, I knew I wasn't a nice person, but what did I do in my past life to deserve this? I must have hit a bus full of nuns while driving a stolen car on my way to selling drugs to schoolchildren!

WASHING MY MOTHER'S BODY I never got to wash my mother's body when she died. I return to take care of her in memory. That's how I make peace when things are left undone. I go back and open the door. I step in to make my ritual. To do what should have been done, what needs to be fixed so that my spirit can move on, So that the children and grandchildren are not caught in a knot Of regret they do not understand.

Great handfuls of her life were being stolen from her and she would never be able to retrieve them.

That I was sleeping at a time when my husband was dying is so horrible a thought, I can't confront it.

It is a terrible thing to feel that you might break down, you might utter a confession that could not then be retrieved.