Quotes About Letting go

Don't have regrets. They're a painful thing, and they never go away.

It's hard to leave a dream behind if you don't have a new one to move toward.

The best way to keep from stumbling over the past was to move forward

There can be no fooling ourselves into thinking this is something other than what it is—the willful ejection of Molly from our nest. It's too late for second thoughts, anyway. She has to be moved into her dorm in time for freshman orientation. It's been marked on the kitchen calendar for weeks—the expiration date on her childhood.

But it's the nature—no, the duty—of a child to grow up and leave you. Doesn't seem fair, does it? The person you love most in the world is destined to leave you and break your heart.

a broken heart doesn't care how the love got lost.

Forgiveness was such a simple thing, she thought, once you surrendered to it.

Maybe the lesson to be learned here was that the price of letting someone into her heart was the pain of letting go. Or maybe the even harder work of holding on, no matter what the risk.

Bitterness does not pay. Certain things have happened to all of us in the past and it is for us to forget those and to look to the future.

I'm sure of one thing," she said earnestly. "It hurts to—to let go of anything beautiful. But something will come to take its place, something different, of course, but better. The future's always better than we can possibly think it will be . . . We ought to live confidently. Because whatever's ahead, it's going to be better than we've had.

If she were their mother she'd teach them these things are nothing, the clothes and toys and furniture. These things fool people into thinking they must stay where the things are. Leave it all, she'd teach them, even your hopes, and all the dreams of safe, calm places. Go with what is most terrifying, the dizzying empty night and the lonely stars until night slows and you see the whole design. Always choose love over safety if you can tell the difference...

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.

You must distance yourself from the past if you want to realize your specific ideal."

How did people get over this? They obviously did. Every day someone fell in love with the wrong person and had to pack up all their fragile, misguided hopes and unwanted affection, and move on to the next picnic table.

You can't go around holding the worst thing you ever did in your hand, staring at it. You gotta cook supper, put gas in the car. You gotta plant more zinnias.

Since my child is choosing not to spend time with me, it is healthy for me to think about how I want to spend my time without him or her in my life. Putting my child out of my mind is useful for my happiness and serenity. When I punish myself for the past, I perpetuate the myth that I deserve to suffer. I have suffered enough and as of today I choose to feel good about myself as a parent and as a person.

But remember, continuing a wrong relationship only increases the pain when it finally does end.

Although the release was heartbreaking for the Adamsons, they were mindful that she had been born free.

Forgiveness is not about letting someone off the hook. It's about freeing yourself from the pain and anger of the past.

To achieve happiness, one must be willing to let go of what no longer serves them.

The legacy from my mother is eighteen things, and the last is the capacity to look at life fresh, to not give up. To tell the truth about our fuckups and our wounds. To let it hurt. To change, to let go, to start over - the willingness to keep starting over, for as long as we have and as long as it takes.

If you're still hanging onto a dead dream of yesterday, laying flowers on its grave by the hour, you cannot be planting the seeds for a new dream to grow today

I ponder the rhythms of letting go and embracing whatever is around the corner, trusting that the empty spaces will be filled. And knowing that sometimes community can happen only in the gaps where mystery resides.

All those small injuries, sorrows, wounds, regrets—the hurtful words, the pain people inflicted on each other, intentionally or not, that seemed so important once. You might not even remember anymore what they were about, those things that once made you so angry, bitter, hurt. Or maybe you remembered, but did any of it matter, really? (Who said what? Who did what, when? Who hurt whom? Well, everybody had hurt everyone.)