Quotes About Regret

Why be given hours and days if all you want to do is make them go away again?

Sometimes when things happen you just let them go, one by one, because it's easier. You pretend they don't mean as much as they do. I should've had my eyes open about that, but you can't go back and second-guess things. It's just that when we sat around and thought about the things we really loved, which you do when you're away at war, mostly what came to me were experiences.

Picture yourself looking back on the decision ten or twenty years down the road. Let's say you try it, and it doesn't work out. How much will you regret it? Now let's say you don't try it, so you never know. Then how much regret?

We did exactly what we were supposed to do." "Us?" he asked. "Yes. Us. We did exactly what our parents taught us. We got married in the church, and we tried to have a bunch of kids. We lived the life everybody told us was right. And now look at us. Tina is gone. We're apart. Why did we do just what we were supposed to do if it wasn't even going to make us happy?

We shouldn't have stayed so long." "Water under the bridge, Buddy Boy." Buddy wondered why his father would bring up anything as scary as the river flowing under the railroad bridge. Especially at a time like this.

mean. The biggest regret of his life has been having no last name, no pictures of Pearl, and no way of knowing who his father was. Oh, by the way . . .

How'd we let so much time go by... When we swore we wouldn't?

On Papua, actually, after you were gone. At least, that's the first that I know for sure I killed. That I saw. I watched his eyes while he was dying. Then I almost turned the gun on myself.

Damn shame to have to go to heaven and tell Saint Peter you forgot to live while you had the chance.

But dogs don't regret what they didn't do soon enough, or didn't do enough of. Or what you didn't do enough of. Dogs are where they are right now, in this moment, and nowhere else. Which is why I generally keep the company of dogs, she thought. Chapter Sixteen: Pete Pete eased the front door of his house open and then froze, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dim living room.

I just blurted it out. I wasn't really thinking. I do that all the time. Talk first, think later. It's my curse. I'm really sorry.

Ethan tries not to look back on that night. At least, as much as human nature allows. But it's a funny thing about your darkest moments. They have a life of their own. They come around because they've got you pinned. Because they can. The harder you try to push them back into the shadows, the stronger they grow. They draw power from your resistance.

I had all these hours that added up to all these days, and I look back and it seems my goal was mostly to make them go away. But that's not a proper life. That's not really living.

though he should gather the silence into his arms and apologize to it. She

That's the thing about mothers. If you're close, you don't want to lose that closeness, though I don't know from personal experience. If you're not, you harbor this little thread of hope that you will be someday, and you don't want to be told you've just run out of time.

Sorry doesn't mean shit. Not if you don't plan to stop doing the thing you're so sorry about. There has to be more to amends than just a word. Anybody can say a damn word.

She half stood, half floated in the water, absorbing the totality of Lance and Neal having so much shared history. So much life with each other that Roseanna knew nothing about. It felt as though someone had been watching her through one-way mirrored glass while staying safely anonymous and hidden himself. It also meant there was a great deal of her son's life that she had missed, but that much she'd known already. It just hurt to get a good look at it in retrospect.

I was a mean old woman. I'd never meant to be, but it was unquestionable that I was. Up until that moment, I'd half known, but I hadn't cared what other people thought of me. I guess I cared what Vern thought, but somehow I'd considered him grandfathered in. I guess I'd thought he had to put up with me regardless. I cared what Denny and Bobby thought of me,

Try not to be so sorry, my young friend. Most of what you regret in this world is not of your own making.

I had all these hours that added up to all these days, and I look back and it seems my goal was mostly to make them go away. But that's not a proper life. That's not really living. Why didn't I take up oil painting, or learn to play the flute or something?

It struck me that she had been a pretty woman, once upon a time. Before she'd decided she didn't want to be anymore. Before she'd decided she didn't want to be anything to anybody.

You will always go into that tent. You will see her scar and wonder where she got it. You will always be amazed at how one woman can have so much black hair. You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast. You will always run away with her. You will always lose her. You will always be a fool. You will always be dead, in a city of ice, snow falling into your ear. You have already done all of this and will do it again.

How I adore you, Marya. How well I chose. Scold me; deny me. Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don't leave me.

It takes energy for new roads to diverge in new woods, and no energy is spent with complete efficiency, without waste. Where wood has burned, there will be ash. The waste product of the constantly dividing multiverse is a fine, drifting mist of regret, and no wormhole has ever starved.