Regret Quotes

Why?” I asked him tiredly. “What would it have changed? What could you possibly have said that would have made a difference?”“That I was your brother, Harry,” he said. “That I loved you. That I knew a few things about denying the dark parts of your nature. And that we would get through it.” He put his elblows on his knees and rested his forehead on his hands. “That we’d figure it out. That you weren’t alone.” Stab.Twist.He was right. It was just that simple.

~ Jim Butcher

For, like desire, regret seeks not to be analysed but to be satisfied. When one begins to love, one spends one’s time, not in getting to know what one’s love really is, but in making it possible to meet next day. When one abandons love one seeks not to know one’s grief but to offer to her who is causing it that expression of it which seems to one the most moving. One says the things which one feels the need of saying, and which the other will not understand, one speaks for oneself alone. I wrote: 'I had thought that it would not be possible. Alas, I see now that it is not so difficult.' I said also: 'I shall probably not see you again;' I said it while I continued to avoid shewing a coldness which she might think affected, and the words, as I wrote them, made me weep because I felt that they expressed not what I should have liked to believe but what was probably going to happen.

~ Marcel Proust

The real regrets in life are the risks you didn't take.

~ Habeeb Akande

No such thing as time travel, he'd rumbled patiently, once. Only live with what you've done, and try in the future to do what you're happy to live with.

~ Richard K. Morgan

He took her hand without question, without fear, and he never regretted it.

~ Jessica Fortunato

SONG OF DAWNI saw the sun rise by accident.It was a horrible sight.Annoyed by its splendor, I sought refugein a moist pillow, and lay there, alone,at the dawn of another day,that brought me closer to another death,pondering the vanity of my solitude,the vanity of procrastination,and the tiresome inevitability of waking upagain the same person.It might still be possible to change,but obstinately I remain the same,hoping that others might take solacein my consistency.But perhaps they take no solace in it,perhaps they too find it tedious.

~ John Tottenham

Ah, you dumb sonovabitch, why’d you let your warrior go?

~ S.w. Frank

Maybe I might be repeating the same mistake again... But don't you think it is far better to regret what I have done than what I have not done yet...?

~ Hiroko Sakai

Could it really be this easy to land a handsome man? If so, why didn't I try it ages ago?

~ Steve Hockensmith

But of, but what, but whether, but who, but nevertheless, but insofar, but why, but otherwise, but even if-

~ Clifford Chase

I need you to know that no matter what happens, it was worth it to me. Being with you, loving you. It was all worth it.

~ Jenny Han

I'd watch her, amazed at just how much a person could accomplish fueled by tea and regret.

~ Katja Millay

My phone is on my bed, whispering in my ear like a bottle of scotch to a recovering alcoholic, while the rain continues cackling at me through my window.

~ Katja Millay

Don't overthink things. Sometimes you can convince your head not to listen to your heart. Those are the decisions you regret for the rest of your life. Faith Barnett From Texas Tangle

~ Leah Braemel

It was like we were both trying to hold onto something that was slipping through our fingers, and we didn't understand why. I understood more than him, of course, but just barely. I would never fully understand how I could have ever strayed from such a warm, sensitive and caring soul.

~ S.c. Stephens

Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.

~ Bob Seger

Mr. Upchurch,” she fumbled. “I . . . I must take my leave directly. But before I go, allow me to say how sorry I am for the callous way I treated you in the past. I regret it most keenly.” His heart squeezed even as he felt his brows rise. “Do you?” She swallowed. “I was wrong about you. I was wrong about a great many things.

~ Julie Klassen

Regret and pangs of conscience are feelings we assign to others to make the world seem a little more fair, to even things out a little and provide consolation. In reality, those who do wrong to us never think about us as much as we think about them, and that is the ultimate irony: their deeds live inside us, festering, while they live out in the world, plucking peaches off trees, biting juicily into them, their minds on things lovely and sweet.

~ Samuel Park

I'm not big on regret - until time travel actually exists, it seems like a waste of making yourself feel bad

~ Julie Klausner

Things that are easily done are often much harder to undo. Sometimes, impossible.

~ Janette Rallison

When Olivier had been taken away Gamache had sat back down and stared at the sack. what could be worse than Chaos, Despair, War?What would even the Mountain flee from? Gamache had given it a lot of thought.What haunted people even, perhaps especially, on their deathbed? What chased them, tortured them and brought some of them to their knees? And Gamache thought he had the answer.Regret. Regret for things said, for things done, and not done. Regret for the people they might have been. And failed to be.Finally, when he was alone, the Chief Inspector had opened the sack and looking inside had realize he'd been wrong. The worst thing of all wasn't regret.

~ Louise Penny

I won't regret, because you can grow flowers where dirt used to be.

~ Kate Nash

I'm sorry, I say. I didn't give you everything you wanted. I wasn't everything you wanted. You were everything I wanted.

~ Kaui Hart Hemmings

Life is short, Isobeli. If we gave time to everything sooner or later we'd run out of it. We only have now. And we would be foolish to not seize it while we have it. So, why would it matter if I love him today or five years from now?

~ Nadège Richards

Let's live to regret this (Martin Riggs [Mel Gibson] to Lorna Cole [Rene Russo] in Lethal Weapon 3)

~ Martin Riggs

Whatever you want, at any moment, someone else is getting it. Whatever you have, someone else is longing for.

~ Laura Lippman

Why do we remember the Boys of Summer? We remember because we were young when they were, of course. But more, we remember because we feel the ache of guilt and regret. While they were running, jumping, leaping, we were slouched behind typewriters, smoking and drinking, pretending to some mystic communion with men we didn't really know or like. Men from ghettos we didn't dare visit, or rural farms we passed at sixty miles an hour. Loving what they did on the field, we could forget how superior we felt towards them the rest of the time. By cheering them on we proved we had nothing to do with the injustices that kept their lives separate from ours. There's nothing sordid or false about the Boys of Summer. Only our memories smell like sweaty jockstraps.

~ Roger Kahn

I do not regret one professional enemy I have made. Any actor who doesn't dare to make an enemy should get out of the business.

~ Bette Davis

I'm conflicted about the lyric tattoo thing. I feel like that's a lifetime decision, and I always feel like, 'I hope you don't regret this a couple years from now when you get tired of that song.'

~ Sam Hunt

I don't regret anything I ever do or say. I don't like to live my life being censored. I like to say what I feel, and I think people respect that because you're honest.

~ Eva Longoria

Ask an older person you respect to tell you his or her greatest regret.

~ H. Jackson Brown

I hate to be a failure. I hate and regret the failure of my marriages. I would gladly give all my millions for just one lasting marital success.

~ J. Paul Getty

Not many people are really that meticulous with what they do, I suppose, but I'm just a control freak and terribly afraid of failure or regret. I work very hard on these things.

~ George Michael

I wouldn't call Loopt a failure. It didn't turn out like I wanted, for sure, but it was fun, I learned a lot, and I made enough money to start investing, which led me to my current job. I don't regret it at all.

~ Sam Altman

The regret of my life is that I have not said 'I love you' often enough.

~ Yoko Ono

Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so.

~ Ray Stannard Baker

I regret not having had more time with my kids when they were growing up.

~ Tina Turner

Now that we are cool, he said, and regret that we hurt each other, I am not sorry that it happened.

~ William Henry Hudson

I have done 'Sports Illustrated,' but I don't regret it because it portrayed me in a positive way - as an athlete.

~ Alex Morgan

I was about to get a degree in economics when I accepted that I'd be a lousy businessman, and if I didn't give acting a try I'd regret it for the rest of my life.

~ Peter Gallagher