Quotes About Forgiveness

Early love is exciting and exhilarating. It's light and bubbly. Anyone can love like that. But love after three children, after a separation and a near-divorce, after you've hurt each other and forgiven each other, bored each other and surprised each other, after you've seen the worst and the best—well, that sort of a love is ineffable. It

Joy and Stan used to exchange smiles as their ponytailed daughter glided back and forth across the court, when she was maybe eight or nine, back when she had a "funny little personality" not "a possible mental illness." (Joy never forgave the GP who wrote that particular referral letter.)

For the first time ever, she saw her mother as just a girl: a girl like her who made mistakes, who screwed things up, who was just making it

She would never again lie in bed on a Good Friday morning and relax in the blissful knowledge that there was nothing to do and nowhere to be, because for the rest of her life, there would always, always be something left undone. An unmade confession. An ugly secret.

But love after you've hurt each other and forgiven each other, bored each other and surprised each other, after you've seen the worst and the best – that sort of a love is ineffable. It deserves its own word.

Neither of us is going to jail, you ninny. One day we'll be sweet little old ladies and we'll probably forget that it didn't happen the way we said it did.' 'I can't imagine us as sweet little old ladies.' 'It does seem unlikely.

There was no point saying, You mustn't feel responsible. Of course she felt responsible. Denying her regret would be like denying her loss.

So that's how she lived with it. She did it the way so many people lived with their regrets and mistakes. They simply rewrote their stories. Her mother had re-created herself as a devoted mother: as if ballet had been her daughter's favorite extracurricular activity, not her own obsession.

She was busy thinking about the concept of forgiveness. It was such a lovely, generous idea when it wasn't linked to something awful that needed forgiving.

Her mother could always charm her, even at the worst times. Just when Erika thought she was done, that was it, she could take no more, her mother charmed her back into loving her. Her

Never forgive. Never forget. That's my motto.

Sometimes it felt like Zoe was just waiting out her life now, enduring it, ticking off events and days and months and years, as if she just had to get herself through something unspecified and then things would be better, except she never got through it and it never got better and she would never forgive him. His death was the ultimate 'fuck you'.

My mother was a drunk. That's all I have to say about her." "Mother issues," said Felicity, when Tess repeated this conversation. "Run a mile.

just stop thinking about it, you can't change what you did or didn't do, what you should and shouldn't have done.

lately with work, and, you know, the baby thing. Obviously it would never happen again and he was very, very, very sorry and he loved her so much and God, it was such a relief to have this

looked back tenderly and condescendingly at herself a year ago: all that unnecessary drama! There was enough love to go around for everyone.

He didn't say he forgave her, but she took it as forgiveness. A younger couple might have spent months in counseling talking it through, but she knew they were done with it. Move on. Once you've hit a ball there's no point watching to see where it's going. You can't change its flight path now. You have to think about your next move. Not what you should have done. What you do now. She had betrayed him. He chose to still love her. There was nothing more to say.

She had betrayed him. He chose to still love her. There was nothing more to say.

She would have happily never seen Troy Delaney ever again, or even returned to Australia. The wounds had healed nicely, no visible scars, and she'd found a new life, a new love, so she could once again watch romantic comedies without scoffing.

Every time she fell out of love with him, he saw it happen and waited it out. He never stopped loving her, even those times when he felt deeply hurt and betrayed by her, even in that bad year when they talked about separating, he'd just gone along with it, waiting for her to come back to him, thanking God and his dad up above each time she did.

Sometimes it felt like Zoe was just waiting out her life now, enduring it, ticking off events and days and months and years, as if she just had to get herself through something unspecified and then things would be better except she never got through it and it never got better and she would never forgive him.

But each time she didn't leave, she gave him tacit permission to do it again.

We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We're each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We've got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.