Quotes About Regret

All I could hold but in the end not save. Of course I lost everything. I lost her number, I lost her, and then in a fugue of erasure, I lost the memory of her, so that by the time she called she was gone along with the kisses and the promise and all that hope.

I should have turned around right then. I should have known something was up, at the very least sensed the consequence lingering in the air, in the hour, in Lude's stare, in all of it, and fuck, I must have been some kind of moron to have been so oblivious to all those signs.

for some reason, dying men always ask the question they know the answer to. perhaps it's so they can die being right.

He killed himself for wanting to live.

July 24, 6:03 A.M. The laundry was warm and the rafters were firm, and Michael Holzapfel jumped from the chair as if it were a cliff... Michael Holzapfel knew what he was doing. He killed himself for wanting to live.

Rudy Steiner temía el beso de la ladrona de libros. Debía de haberlo deseado con todas sus fuerzas. Debió de haberla querido con todo su corazón. Tanto, que nunca más volvería a pedírselo y se iría a la tumba sin él.

I want to talk to him. I want to ask him about that girl and if he loved her and still misses her.

Of course I told him about you, Liesel said. She was saying goodbye and she didn't even know it

He left Himmel Street wearing his hangover and a suit.

For some reason, dying men always ask questions they know the answer to. Perhaps it's so they can die being right.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't be asking such things...' She let the sentence die its own death

When Liesel left that day, she said something with great uneasiness. In translation, two giant words were struggled with, carried on her shoulder, and dropped as a bungling pair at Ilsa Hermann's feet. They fell off sideways as the girl veered with them and could no longer sustain their weight. Together, they sat on the floor, large and loud and clumsy. Two giant words...I'm sorry.

Thank you. For Max Vandenburg, those were the two most pitiful words he could possibly say, rivaled only by I'm sorry. There was a constant urge to speak both expressions, spurred on by the affliction of guilt.

The Proclaimers thunder through my head. Imagine it. Imagine killing someone to the tune of two Scottish nerds wearing glasses and flattop haircuts. How will I ever listen to that song again? What will I do if it comes on the radio? I'll think of the night I murdered another man and stole his life with my own hands.

It was then that he also took the opportunity to say he was sorry that the Hubermann's son had not come home, In response, Papa told him that such things were out of their control. After all, he said, you should know it yourself--a young man is still a boy, and a boy sometimes has the right to be stubborn.

There was guilt for enjoying anything. Especially the joy of forgetting.

In the darkness of my dark-beating heart, I know. He'd have loved it, all right.

God damn, you were so beautiful, Mama.

Did you learn? The face in the corner watched the flames. I did. There was a considerable pause. Until I was nine. At that age, my mother sold the music studio and stopped teaching. SHe kept only the one instrument but gave up on me not long after I resisted the learning. I was foolish. No, Papa said. You were a boy.

Liesel was sure her mother carried the memory of him, slung over her shoulder. She dropped him. She saw his feet and legs and body slap the platform.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Papa's hands tightened on the splintery wood. I'm an idiot. No, Papa. You're just a man.

He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist's suit collection.

For a good ten minutes or so we stand there with the flashlight burning the grave with light. The whole time, I'm trying to guess where and exactly how he died and, more to the point, realizing that poor old Milla's been without him for sixty-years. I can tell. No other man has entered her life. Not the way her Jimmy did. She's been waiting sixty years for Jimmy to come back. And now he has.

Two Giant Words: I'm Sorry