Quotes About Remorse

What sets a man writhing sleepless in bed at night is not having injured his fellow so much as having been wrong; the mere injury he can efface by destroying the victim and the witness but the mistake is his and that is one of his cats which he always prefers to choke to death with butter.

Tomorrow night is nothing but one long sleepless wrestle with yesterday's omissions and regrets.

He was wrong; he knew he was when it was too late for him to stop just as a drunkard reaches a point where it is too late for him to stop, where he promises himself that he will and maybe believes he will or can but it is too late.

no man ever does that under the first fury of despair or remorse or bereavement he does it only when he has realised that even the despair or remorse or bereavement is not particularly important to the dark diceman

I have but one rift in the darkness, that is that I have injured no one save myself by my folly, and that the extent of that folly you will never learn.

Then I begin to run. I run toward the back and come to the edge of the porch and stop. Then I begin to cry. I can feel where the fish was in the dust. It is cut up into pieces of not-fish now, not-blood on my hands and overalls. Then it wasn't so. It hadn't happened then. And now she is getting so far ahead I can-not catch her.

The shameful knowledge grew in them and they did not know how to begin confession.

Prefer loss to the wealth of dishonest gain; the former vexes you for a time; the latter will bring you lasting remorse.

There was such noise. It came without remorse. There were always people everywhere. New Crobuzon.

Le lapidi erano banali, parevano chiedere scusa ai defunti.

If she had another chance, she thinks, she would do it differently. But chance is a slippery customer, and she can feel Amit's hands growing cold.

I used to feel sorry for them, or sad. Not so much any more. Now I wonder what they did, and I know what they did, and all I can think is how all that water is barely enough to cover it up.

I could have done something in there to stop it, that first day, before it got too far along. There'd be no stopping it, after that first day. I could have done it, if only I were a different kind of guy. But I'm not. I'm exactly this kind of guy. I'm all I've got, and I never claimed to have anything better to work with. *

I tell her how sorry I am, and as I speak my words feel inadequate and pathetic.

Eighty-two years later, the sound of her crying still haunts me. If only I had paid closer attention to why she was crying instead of simply trying to quiet her. If only I had paid closer attention.

I saw my entire life a waste, a desert of shame and unspeakable sorrow, and behind me, a suicided wife!

Ich weine, wissend, daß Tränen eines Säufers nicht zählen, kein Gewicht haben- und ich spüre etwas, das ich nicht Gewissensbisse, sondern einfach Schmerz nennen möchte.

The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity.

purely hated myself because I hadn't bothered to ask his name. People oughtn't to breeze into your life and out again in ten seconds, without leaving even a name behind. As Mr. Dickens once pointed out, we're all on our way to the grave together.

If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for tomorrow morning, sleep late.

To reget deeply is to live afresh.

I killed the wife when I first tasted sensual joys without love, and then it was that I killed my wife.

For the first time in his life he knew the bitterest sort of misfortune, misfortune beyond remedy, misfortune his own fault.

This foolish smile he could not forgive himself.