Quotes About Regret

I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilized. I wish it showed me in a better light, if not happier, then at least more active, less hesitant, less distracted by trivia. I wish it had more shape. I wish it were about love, or about sudden realizations important to one's life, or even about sunsets, birds, rainstorms, or snow.

Caught in the act, sinfully Scrabbling. Quick, eat those words.

Lighting a fire is an act of renewal, of beginning, and she doesn't want to begin, she wants to continue. No: she wants to go back.

We're ankle deep in blood, and all because we ate the birds, we ate them a long time ago, when we still had the power to say no.

I still have it in me to feel sorry for him. Moira is right, I am a wimp.

you can't change the past, Aunt Lou used to say. Oh, but I wanted to; that was the one thing I really wanted to do

It wasn't just the sex." A dark smile from her: that's better. "You know I love you. You're the only one." She isn't the first woman he's ever said that to. He shouldn't have used it up so much earlier in his life, he shouldn't have treated it like a tool, a wedge, a key to open women. By the time he got around to meaning it, the words had sounded fraudulent to him and he'd been ashamed to pronounce them.

I bet it's your mouldy socks," said Jimmy. "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten these little socks.

Not that it isn't great to see you. But it's not so great for you. What'd you do wrong? Laugh at his dick?

too many postponements & regrets

But sometimes I see instead the young girl's face I once spent so much time rearranging and deploring, drowned and floating just beneath my present face

But all my love ever came to was a bad end. Red-hot shoes, barrels studded with nails. That's what it feels like, unrequited love.

after the man had left, the mothers who had sold their children felt empty and sad. They felt as if this act, done freely by themselves (no one had forced them, no one had threatened them) had not been performed willingly. They felt cheated as well, as if the price had been too low. Why hadn't they demanded more?

That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You would look at the man one day and you would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done;

Does she ever see him watching her through the picture window? Most likely. Does she think he's a lecherous old man? Very probably. But he isn't exactly that. How to convey the mix of longing, wistfulness, and muted regret that he feels? His regret is that he isn't a lecherous old man, but he wishes he were. He wishes he still could be.

At the outset Verna had not intended to kill anyone.

Having long ago whispered I want to die , I now realize that this wish will indeed be fulfilled, and sooner rather than later. No matter that I've changed my mind about it.

But by that time Janine was like a puppy that's been kicked too often, by too many people, at random: she'd roll over for anyone, she'd tell anything, just for a moment of approbation. (...) Janine looked down at the floor. Whatever it was, she knew she would not be blamed for it, she was blameless. But what use had that been to her in the past, to be blameless? So at the same time she felt guilty, and as if she was about to be punished.

I'm sorry there is so much pain in this story. I'm sorry it's in fragments, like a body caught in crossfire or pulled apart by force. But there is nothing I can do to change it.

But unshed tears can turn you rancid. So can memory. So can biting your tongue.

it was at least three weeks before I got the telegram and could start regretting.

She was something of his own that he had lost.

If my eyes could shoot out fatal rays like the ones in comic books I would incinerate her on the spot. She is right, I am a heathen. I cannot forgive.

Their mother died early, and not in a good way. Not that anyone dies in a good way, Tin footnotes to himself, but there are degrees. Being hit by a truck after closing time while jaywalking blinded with mournful tears was not a good way. Though it was quick.