Quotes & Sayings About Could Have Beens

Sometimes I'm scared of being Ozzy Osbourne. But it could have been worse. I could have been Sting. — Ozzy Osbourne

I know it might be better for you to come out from under your might-have-beens, into the winds of the world. — John Steinbeck

Even cohabitation has been corrupted - by marriage. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I've learned so much from my professors and have been fortunate to have had so many good ones, including Frederick and Steven Barthelme, Edward Carey, Jim Magnuson, and Elizabeth McCracken. — Mary J. Miller

My father has been a rock for me every since. — Andrew Sullivan

Most of my life has been one tragedy after another, most of which hasn't happened. — Voltaire

Music and film are inseparable. They always have been and always will be. — Martin Scorsese

I am always frustrated when I see situations that could have been handled simpler. — Renee Lawless

I have been everywhere because I don't know what I'm looking for. — E.L. Doctorow

Old ghosts, the shadows of might-have-beens. — Cassandra Clare

President Obama contends that charges he is "not really an American" have been trumped up by you-know-who. — Michael R. Burch

We live now in an era where normal values have been displaced. The good is called bad, the bad - good. — Anna Politkovskaya

Stay out of the past. There's nothing there but would've beens, could've beens, and should've beens that will keep you from moving forward. — Julia Mills

What happened to you could have been worse - it could have happened to me. — Ashleigh Brilliant

We define ourselves by the best that is in us, not the worst that has been done to us. — Edward B. Lewis

Whatever happens in a government could have happened differently, and it usually would have been better if it had. — Charles Frankel

Faith, I have been a truant in the law
And never yet could frame my will to it,
And therefore frame the law unto my will. — William Shakespeare

I really don't think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don't mind the failure but I can't imagine that I'd forgive myself if I didn't try. — Nikki Giovanni

So much of my life has been about self-effacement, pretense, masquerading, concealment, and indirection. — Marlon Riggs

Man has been lent, not given, to life. — Publilius Syrus

The one thing that might have stopped San Bernardino, that might have stopped 9/11 would have been stricter controls on those who came here. — Ted Cruz

It might have been really cool back in the '50s when it was less populated but I don't know. — John Leguizamo

In order to see where we are going, we not only must remember where we have been, but we must understand where we have been. — Ella Baker

I could have never dreamed what an amazing ride this has been. — Jennie Finch

I have been a voracious reader for years. — Jacob Tomsky

I'm not jaded. I never have been jaded. I've always been surprised at my success. I've always enjoyed it. — Maurice Sendak

There would have been no Bach had there been no Luther. — Francis Schaeffer

Without internet, there would have been no Jack Ma, and no Alibaba or Taobao. — Jack Ma

No what-might-have-beens. If God says not to worry about tomorrow, I would think the same applies to yesterday. There's enough trouble in the here and now to worry about how differently things could have turned out. — Liz Tolsma

You took the words right out of my mouth, it must have been while you were kissing me. — Meat Loaf

Timid young artists, adding parental fears to their own, often give up their sunny dreams of artistic careers, settling into the twilight world of could-have-beens and regrets. — Julia Cameron

It has been sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the stubborn prejudices of his countrymen. — Edward Gibbon

If you suffer misfortune ... do you damnedest to ignore it. Wallowing in what-might-have-beens and what-could have-happeneds will only keep your emotional wounds festering. — Shelly Branch

The family tree of Christ startlingly notes not one woman but four. Four broken women - women who felt like outsiders, like has-beens, like never-beens. Women who were weary of being taken advantage of, of being unnoticed and uncherished and unappreciated; women who didn't fit in, who didn't know how to keep going, what to believe, where to go - women who had thought about giving up. And Jesus claims exactly these who are wandering and wondering and wounded and worn out as His. He grafts you into His line and His story and His heart, and He gives you His name, His lineage, His righteousness. He graces you with plain grace. Is there a greater Gift you could want or need or have? Christ comes right to your Christmas tree and looks at your family tree and says, I am your God, and I am one of you, and I'll be the Gift, and I'll take you. Take Me? — Ann Voskamp

Tragedy is the difference between what is and what could have been. — Abba Eban

His story is colored by the murder of a brother, the rape of a sister, the betrayal of a friend, the pounding of nails into flesh and bone, and the darkening of the sky. A world of what-ifs and could-have-beens, peopled by has-beens and might-have-beens. It is a world soaked in fear and drenched by the blood of a million martyrs. A world of men burned at the stake and babes slaughtered at their mother's breasts. A dark history with pain oozing into all its hidden corners. At the center of history is a death. Christ's death, the decisive point of history. Christianity is perhaps the most morbid religion of the world. Perpetually meditating upon death with little crosses hung around their necks, Christian disciples sing their way to martyrdom. Anticipating death and calling it gain, Christians are evangelists of the grotesque. The very hope of the Gospel rests directly upon our ability to imagine a world in which suffering serves as the soil from which resurrection springs. — Ben Palpant

Regrets and could-have-beens tried to sneak in, but he shoved them away. No time for this now. — Harlan Coben

Photography could have been invented in color. Colors existed. — Jean-Luc Godard

She shook off the self-recrimination. What-ifs and could-have-beens were not the way to move forward. She knew that from experience. — Judi Fennell

What a Beethoven, Shakespeare or Picasso has done is not create something, so much as they have accessed that place within themselves from which they could express that which has been created by God. — Marianne Williamson

At least nine-tenths of all the original reality ever created lies outside the multiverse, and since the multiverse by definition includes absolutely everything that is anything, this puts a bit of a strain on things.
Outside the boundaries of the universes lie the raw realities, the could-have-beens, the might-bes, the never-weres, the wild ideas, all being created and uncreated chaotically like elements in fermenting supernovas.
Just occasionally where the walls of the worlds have worn a bit thin, they can leak in. — Terry Pratchett

No one could have been more surprised than I at my successes, and yet deep within me there was acknowledgment that had I not succeeded, I would have been equally surprised. — Margery Wilson

I could never have been an accountant. I got a D in math. — Rob Marshall

If he had had no education, maybe Basho could have been a much greater poet. — Nanao Sakaki

I would have been better than Adolf Hitler. I could have delivered his speeches a lot better ... that's for certain. — Klaus Kinski

My career could have been prolonged for longer — Micky Quinn

The Obama Administration has been an unmitigated disaster — Osama Bin Laden

We can have justice whenever those who have not been injured
by injustice are as outraged by it as those who have been. — Solon

I've been quite lucky - everything I've done has been quite varied. — Konnie Huq

Every time I have had a breakthrough in my life, it has been because of Prayer — John C. Maxwell

Arsenal have been literally passed to death. — Jamie Redknapp

It's only human to think about the the 'what might have beens'. But it doesn't change what really is. And if we get lost in things that aren't, we lose sight of what's right in front of us. — Dan Skinner

I'm grateful that music has been a place where I've found freedom. — Valerie June

I'm mainstream. Always have been. — Bill Walton

In order that knowledge be properly digested it must have been swallowed with a good appetite. — Anatole France

Money always has been something that has attracted itself to me. — Wayne Dyer

There are occasions when I have moved boulders, but I'm reluctant to, especially ones that have been rooted in a place for many years. — Andy Goldsworthy

There's no question this is where I want to live. Never has been. — Robin Williams

I've grown environmentally. I'm far more cautious, although I always have been; but more now. And I have grown a lot professionally by working with George Miller. — Brittany Murphy

It has been very truly said that the mob has many heads, but no brains. — Antoine Rivarol

It is usually a mistake to reject something merely because it has been tried before and didn't work. — Robert G. Picard

The heroes of literary history have been no less remarkable for what they have suffered than for what they have achieved. — Samuel Johnson

If 18,000 gods have been invented then it is likely that god 18,001 is also invented. — Graham Kendall

Prayer has not been a part of my life in the sense that truth has been. — Mahatma Gandhi

There is no economic problem and, in a sense, there never has been. — E.F. Schumacher

Just because something has been a lot of work or consumed a lot of time doesn't make it productive or worthwhile. — Tim Ferriss

Recommending or insisting on abstinence has been completely ineffective. — Bill Nye

The Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest has been substituted by a philosophy of the survival of the slickest. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I'm gay and always have been, even when I was David Jones — David Bowie

The person who has been photographed, not the total person, is dead, dead for having been seen. — Christian Metz

I would quite like to have been a 1920s writer. — Paul McCartney

IAR is policy, always has been. — Jimmy Wales

David Moyes, in Italy, would have been sacked three times now. — Gianluca Vialli

It was not his habit to dwell on what could have been, but what could never be. — Alan Paton

Everything we know has come from stories that have been told over and over again as truth. Those stories turn into history. — Oliver Jeffers

Ambition displeases when it has been sated ... having reached the peak, it aspires to descend. — Pierre Corneille

Many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death. — John Keats

To most of us the future seems unsure. But then it always has been; and we who have seen great changes must have great hopes. — John Masefield