Regret Quotes

Nought’s had, all’s spent, where our desire is got without content.

~ William Shakespeare

Any fighter knows that regret that doesn't inform your future is wasted emotion. If you lose and dwell on the missed opportunity rather than the chances to come, you're finished.

~ Craig Lancaster

You see it everywhere and everyone seems to be doing it but you. You could have had it as well, and you know it, and that’s what bothers you. Your worst enemy is yourself, and sadly, you know that what you did wasn't worth what you lost.

~ Donna Lynn Hope

I am not going to live with regret for not having tried.

~ Kim Harrison

If you have trouble getting motivated always remember that time is going to pass either way and that eventually regret is going to make its way around.

~ Matthew Donnelly

If I could go back would I do it differently? Well, I can't go back.

~ David Mamet

There is one day that has brought me unspeakable pain, & the effects of that day continue to cover & erode my world like rust. I suspect that someday the rust will eat through the joists & posts of my life & I will topple, literally as well as figuratively.

~ Richard Paul Evans

And he had a theory about fear. It was all about regret. If you make what you want out of life and don't bullshit yourself about your choices, then there are no regrets, and a man without regret isn't afraid of anything.

~ Mark Allen Smith

The problem with living without the person you can't live without is eventually realizing you can live without them.

~ Charlaine Harris

Worry and regret are both useless weights that provide no drag. They never did anything to slow down the planet for one goddamned second.

~ Andrew Smith

My animal howlsMy angel's upsetBut I'm not allowedA trace of regret

~ Leonard Cohen

It all feels so different than it did yesterday. Is it because I'm aware of your feelings now? Or is it something else? Is it that...I know...what love is?

~ Rei Tōma

I've lived the life of a man without teeth, he thought about it. A life of a man without teeth. I've never bitten, I've been waiting, keeping myself for later - and now I've just ascertained that I don't have teeth anymore.

~ Jean-Paul Sartre

It was really over, I thought. There was no way to go back, to make it stay. There was never that.

~ Cheryl Strayed

Wait, I almost shouted, but didn’t, and that would be my burden to bear. Instead, I stood on the curb and I watched him disappear, lights fading in the distance like waking up from a dream.

~ Katie Cotugno

There are things that have to be done and you do them and you never talk about them.They can't be justified.You just do them.Then you forget it.

~ Mario Puzo

What I mean is, right from that first time, there wassomething in Tommy's manner that was tinged with sadness, that seemed tosay: “Yes, we're doing this now and I'm glad we're doing it now. But what apity we left it so late.

~ Kazuo Ishiguro

And I am nothing if not a stupid, stupid man.

~ Paul Auster

The pleasure is there, between your expectations and regrets.

~ Bryant Mcgill

They don't give gold bracelets for regrets.

~ Colson Whitehead

We are now left to choose between danger and regret, neither of which can restore the lives we have lost.

~ Anne Fortier

Kahneman’s evidence shows that we suck at remembering and predicting our own well-being. We as a culture still ignore this empirical evidence, recommending to live our lives so as to avoid deathbed regrets. Deathbed regrets are like Hollywood films: they stir passions for a couple hours, but are poorly connected to reality. They are not good criteria for a well-lived life.

~ Nick Winter

They had both wanted it to happen and they both wished it had not, what mattered now was that nobody else should ever know.

~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day.

~ Yann Martel

It seemed to Rosa Lublin that the whole peninsula of Florida was weighted down with regret. Everyone had left behind a real life. Here they had nothing. They were all scarecrows, blown about under the murdering sunball with empty ribcages.

~ Cynthia Ozick

I'd felt the pop of the needle sliding into my veins, like a fang into flesh. I'd been enveloped in the golden haze where nothing is wrong even when everything is falling apart. A dance with a hypodermic fiend, my hands in the claws of a vulture.

~ Taylor Rhodes

Unanswered? I would've answered any question, Hannah. But you never asked.

~ Jay Asher

I’ve been so careful my whole life that I don’t even want to imagine what I’ve missed.” Sara realized she was speaking so quickly she hadn’t taken a breath, and suddenly felt lightheaded. “I can’t miss you.

~ Heather Mcvea

What I do know is that there are two kinds of pain in this life: risk and regret. I'd rather live with the first than the second.

~ Holley Gerth

The cost of not following your heart is spending the rest of your life wishing you had.

~ Anonymous

People live, and then they die, and as long as they do both things propertly, there's nothing much to regret.

~ Child

I didn't actually know what regret tasted like—but I imagined if it did have a flavor, it would be lutefisk.

~ Angela N. Blount

She could, she thinks, have entered a different life. She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.

~ Michael Cunningham

He felt what a murderer must feel, when he sees the body he has robbed of life. That body, robbed by him of life, was their love, the first stage of their love. There was something awful and revolting in the memory of what had been bought at this fearful price of shame. Shame at their spiritual nakedness crushed her and infected him.

~ Leo Tolstoy

But now it’s too late.And that’s why, right at this moment, I feel so much hate. Toward myself. I deserve to be on this list. Because if I hadn’t been so afraid of everyone else, I might have told Hannah that someone cared. And Hannah might still be alive.I pull my gaze back from the neon sign.

~ Jay Asher

It hurt her to stir up these feelings, but yet she knew that that was the best part of her soul, and that that part of her soul would quickly be smothered in the life she was leading.

~ Leo Tolstoy

Regret is a self-inflicted emotional scar.

~ Steve Maraboli

But as Rianne walked away from him, he could only stand there and watch, tearing at the earth withrestless claws.Wishing with all his heart that he could go after her.Eiona’s presence kept him locked in place and for the first time, he found himself resenting thebond that held them so tightly together.

~ Shiloh Walker

Nothing to be proud of, nothing to regret.

~ Rawi Hage

I am your little ram,burying his muzzle in thick grass of your pasture,folded by you at night, herded by day,a dedicated dog nipping at my hocks.The day will come for you to drawthe bright sickle of the moonacross my wooly throat.Do it with love, without regret.

~ Mark Wunderlich