Quotes About Regret

She was too finely educated and clever to be anything but a fierce rebel and philosophical opponent and I had left her, stupidly, on that account.

Essere ateo è probabilmente il primo passo per giungere all'innocenza», continuò Marius. «Perdere il senso del peccato e della subordinazione e il falso rimpianto per le cose perdute.» «Quindi, per innocenza tu non intendi la mancanza di esperienza ma l'assenza di illusioni.» «L'assenza del bisogno di illusioni», rispose lui.

You are like an adult who, looking back on his childhood, realizes that he never appreciated it. You cannot, as a man, go back to the nursery and play with your toys, asking for the love and care

Oh, to think this burnt body had within it the blood of tears.

are immortal. And what we have before us are the rich feasts that conscience cannot appreciate and mortal men cannot know without regret. God kills, and so shall we; indiscriminately He takes the richest and the poorest, and so shall we; for no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves, dark angels not confined to the stinking limits of hell but wandering His earth and all its kingdoms.

Let me cry for it. It was all my doing. Because I didn't slay the one who despised me. And they have taken Amadeo prisoner. Me, they burnt because I was too strong for their designs, but Amadeo they took!

His dark-green eyes made me think of Merrick's, and for one moment I felt such a desire for her, such a horror of what I'd done, that I couldn't speak.

Such vows . . . strike one with a sort of horror at what happened afterwards.

To his distress, the Queen suddenly burst into a passion of weeping and said it was plain [she] was to be miserable as long as [she] lived, whatever [she] did.

You're probably right, he whispered. About what? He looked up at him and managed a brief, farewell smile. I rather think Emma did run off with my heart, he confessed.

Too bad he took a tumble out that window when he was too drunk to know what he was doing, she said, cheerfully callous. It'll be a cold day in hell before I ever let a man near me again.

Past is past... no it's not! People are always fond of saying that, but what's past is never past; not entirely.

He wanted to say, Muriel, forgive me, but since my son died, sex has... turned. (As milk turns; that was how he thought of it. As milk will alter its basic nature and turn sour.) I really don't think of it anymore. I honestly don't. I can't imagine anymore what all that fuss was about. Now it seems pathetic.

those who forget the past tend to regret the future

The trouble with dying is you don't get to stay around and see how everything turns out.

I liked to dwell on these shortcomings now. It wasn't only that I was wondering why they had ever annoyed me. I was hoping they would annoy me still, so that I could stop missing her.

Now look: Droplets of oil were dotted across the front of her best dress, over the mound of her stomach. She was clumsy and fat-stomached and she didn't even have the sense to wear an apron while she was cooking. Also she had paid way too much for this dress, sixty-four dollars at Hecht's, which would scandalize Ira if he knew. How could she have been so greedy? She dabbed at her nose with the back of her hand. Took a deep breath. Well. Anyhow.

The thing about old girlfriends, Micah reflected, is that each one subtracts something from

She felt guilty about Derek's death, too, because she should have known better than to bring up the sensitive subject of Ian while Derek was driving.

At night she still woke up, she still mulled and worried and reflected and regretted, but after an hour or so now she would drift back into sleep, and by morning she felt well rested. She felt more or less normal, in fact.

She didn't even know if she liked them, in fact, and perhaps she didn't like them, but by now it hardly mattered because how would she ever start over with somebody new, at this point?

He thought of how it would be if his father returned some time in he future, when Cody was a man. Look at what I've accomplished, Cody would tell him. Notice where I've got to, how far I've come without you. Was it something I said? Was it something I did? Was it something I didn't do, that made you go away?

Two losses, in fact. Two very dear children: Emily and Nicholas. It was true that these days there happened to be two very dear grown-ups who were also named Emily and Nicholas, but they weren't the same people. It was just as if those children had died. He'd been in mourning ever since. And now

God," he said. "I come here to say I feel bad about your husband, and listen to me, yakking about my own little troubles." "I wouldn't call divorce a little trouble," Willa said.