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Quotes About Regret

On Earth, Liz was constantly occupied with studying and finding a college and a career and all those other things that the adults in her life deemed terribly important. Since she had died, everything she was doing on Earth had seemed entirely meaningless. From Liz's point of view, the question of what her life would be was now definitively answered. The story of her life is short and pointless: There once was a girl who got hit by a car and died. The end.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
He would know that if he hadn't been the person he was, terrified and cowardly and petty and insecure and sexually panicked and broken, Sadie might have been his.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
Though I hadn't had a stroke like Uncle Yuri, it was still difficult for me to express what was in my heart. I wanted to tell her that I loved her, that she was the most important person in the world to me, that I was truly sorry for having lied to her about Liberty. Instead, I asked her what she wanted for dinner.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
You made quite an impression on the old man, by the way." "You mean Uncle Yuri?" "He said he'd marry you. If you weren't related. And if he were fifty years younger. Et cetera. Et cetera." "That a lot of very important 'ifs', Jacks.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
What if I had told the boy I loved to leave and it ended up being for nothing?
~ Gabrielle Zevin
She drew the curtains, and she got into bed, without taking off her clothes or her shoes. She felt ashamed and foolish. She felt covered in failure and she felt sure that people could smell and see it on her. The failure was like a fine coating of ash, after a fire. But it wasn't only on her skin; it was in her nose, in her mouth, in her lungs, in her molecules becoming part of her. She would never be rid of it.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
And eventually, Sadie would be a stranger. And this would be a disaster for Sam. A tragedy. He would know that if he hadn't been the person he was, terrified and cowardly and petty and insecure and sexually panicked and broken, Sadie might have been his.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
Retrospectively, he realized that he had made a grave miscalculation when he had ended the friendship with Sadie. His mistake had been in thinking the world would be filled with Sadie Greens, people like her. It was not.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
He wanted Ichigo's life, a lifetime of endless, immaculate tomorrows, free of mistakes and the evidence of having lived.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
I feel like I've fucked everything up. I'm a fucking genius so I don't know why I fuck everything up all the time, but I do. I want to stop but I don't know how.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
A nostalgia for something that had never been? An envy at their intimacy? She wondered what it would have been like if Sam had been her lover.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
A.J. finds that he cannot make eye contact with either his daughter or Lambiase. It is twenty-nine degrees, but shame is keeping him warm.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
It would be so easy, Ismay thinks. You walk out. You swim for a while. You swim too far. You don't try to swim back. Your lungs fill up. It hurts for a bit, but then it's over. Nothing ever hurts again, and your conscience is clear. You don't leave a mess. Maybe your body washes up some day. Maybe it doesn't.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
YOU CAN KIND of see them if you get on your tippy toes and look over the fence," A.J. says. "There, in the distance!" They had left Alice at seven that morning, taken the ferry to Hyannis, then driven two hours to Portsmouth only to discover that the Green Animals Topiary Garden is closed from November through May. A.J. finds that he cannot make eye contact with either his daughter or Lambiase. It is twenty-nine degrees, but shame is keeping him warm.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
Gabrielle Zevin
~ Charming Billy
Macbeth has just heard the news that his wife had died, and he is giving the most famous soliloquy from the play, the "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" speech.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
Yes," said the cop. "It wasn't anyone's fault." "People like to say that," A.J. replies. "But it was someone's fault. It was hers. What a stupid thing for her to do. What a stupid melodramatic thing for her to do. What a goddamn Danielle Steel move, Nic! If this were a novel, I'd stop reading right now. I'd throw it across the room.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
She was pretty and smart, which makes her death a tragedy.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
On the day she found Daedalus blowing the glass heart, she had suspected Sam, but she had also allowed herself not to know. She wanted to play more than she wanted to know. Sadie told Sam he had tricked her, but the truth was, she had tricked herself. It was embarrassing how much that silly, exquisite world had meant to her. A year and a half later, she
~ Gabrielle Zevin
I've made so many mistakes,' she says. 'I can't help you,' I say. She shakes her head and picks up the baby. 'We'll be out of your way now,' she says. 'Merry Christmas.' "And they leave. I'm pretty shaken up, so I go into the kitchen to make myself some tea. When I get back out to the living room, I notice that the little girl has left her backpack and Tamerlane is on the floor next to it.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
What I mean to say is that you can make a choice, be reasonably satisfied with it, and still regret that which you did not choose. Maybe it's like ordering dessert. You have it narrowed down to either a warm peanut butter torte or strawberries jubilee. You choose the torte, and it's delicious. But you still wonder about those strawberries...
~ Gabrielle Zevin
and you're going to regret that you didn't stand by me. Because if you love someone, you love them all the way. You love them even when they make mistakes. That's what I think.
~ Gabrielle Zevin
When I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as a boy, I used to think that Turkish Delight must be incredibly delicious if it made Edmund betray his family
~ Gabrielle Zevin
She feels very sorry for her mother because people who don't wake up can't go downstairs to the bookstore in the morning.
~ Gabrielle Zevin