No Time To Regret Quotes & Sayings

Eventually Spade and Marrow would devolve into caricature. There is no peril that can make the handsome and fantastic James Bond sweat, no pain that can break him. But as the critic Judith Crist pointed out, when Spade or Marlowe "got hit they hurt and they needed time to recover; when they killed they flinched and were gnawed by regret. Above all, they did what they had to because they were men, in the head and the heart and not exclusively in the groin. — Ann M. Sperber

Each time they meet, they have more to discuss, and so they talk, quietly revealing themselves with and without language, their eyes moving like their hands over the plates of food between them....As he walks away from these visits, his heart almost bursts from happiness and regret. He would give anything to have made different choices. He is making those choices now, but he is forty-six years old. Sometimes he is haunted by the thought that it's all come too late. Other times he thinks, No, what is happening now could never have happened before; I was too young and too fearful. The paradox fascinates him--as the old loyalties desiccate and the danger intensifies, he feels lighter and younger than he has in years. — Karen Connelly

I owed the greater apology, but at the same time I knew that was done was done, that no matter what I said now I would never be able to make it right. — Jhumpa Lahiri

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

Maybe that's why I get frustrated sometimes, because there's no one to blame for how our lives have turned out. I wouldn't change any of the things I've done, but at the same time I wish things were different than they are. I have no regrets, but there's also no satisfaction in where I am. — Chris Dietzel

Why do you think I am like this?" It didn't really sound like a question; there was no regret, or sorrow, or genuine tinge of curiosity. I didn't think he expected a complex answer in any case, as I'm pretty sure we both knew that a team of neuroscientists and psychologists could work on Mad Dog for a decade and still not have all of the answers. Instead, I removed a sheet of paper from my legal folder and wrote one quatrain from a poem by W.H. Auden: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. He received this carefully and spent a moment looking it over. For the tiniest fraction of a second his face relaxed and his eyes softened and he seemed to shrink into himself as he breathed in. Then it was over, and he turned away from me, a dismissal if I ever saw one. He crumpled up my note angrily and tossed it away onto the floor. It was the last time we ever spoke. — Jean Casella

Maybe the play wasn't about miracles. No, maybe it was about the passage of time, and the need for patience, and the ability to forgive. Maybe Shakespeare was saying that even in a world where miracles can happen, there's still going to be pain, and loss, and regret. Because sometimes people die and you can't bring them back. That's what life is Joseph realized, miracles and sadness, side by side. — Brian Selznick

I found myself suddenly jealous of the time when things were simple, when days centered on creek walks and tetherball, and your biggest worry was whether you'd have riding or sailing. There were no boys, there were no secrets or rumors, and there were no regrets. Not even fear of regret. There was just a best friend and endless hours to fill with Pixy Stix and laughing so hard you couldn't breathe. — Kathryn Williams

He meant it and he didn't. Both. At the same time.
'It doesn't matter if you meant it or not. This is the life you're living. It's not temporary and it's not pretend and there's no do-over...You don't get to regret us. — Nicola Yoon

Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all. — William James

When it came to time travel, science and science fiction and fantasy had flip-flopped. Nobody was going to create a machine that traveled to the future or the past. Time machines might be accepted in science fiction as an enabling device to get the story moving, but they're like faster-than-light space ships-- neither one is going to happen any time soon, not with any technology we know how to implement.
The guys who had it figured were the fantasists, Dennis. The Finneys and the Mathesons and the Ellisons and the Serlings. No machines and no advanced physics, at least not most of the time. Just an overpowering desire. Just need and longing and pain and regret and the right talisman or the right surroundings. Put the right person in the right place, and perhaps with the right objects, and the potential for time travel is there. — Tony Rabig

If we do nothing while we are feeling an emotion, there is no short- or long-term harm that can come to us. However, if we react to the emotion by making a DECISION, we may not only regret the immediate outcome, but we may also create a long-lasting pattern of DECISIONS that will continue to misguide us for a long time. — Dan Ariely

Why would anyone want to turn back time? There is no meaning in regret, no point in thinking about thing I could have done. Because there is no guarantee that any decision is the right one. — Kazuya Minekura

Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you'll never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. Even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope for something good to come along. Something to make you feel connected, to make you feel whole, to make you feel loved. — Charlie Kaufman

I was where I needed to be. I wasn't going to regret staying in Pittsburgh or taking the full-time job with Rye Publishing. I loved what I did, who I worked with, and how my future looked. I worked damn hard to make it to where I was. I knew going into my internship that the likelihood of me getting a full-time position was slim to none, and yet I'd impressed the shit out of them and landed a permanent spot. There were no regrets there. And, though I missed the surf, I really did love the city. I loved who I was becoming. Sure, I was lonely, but I had offers to go out - to make friends - I just had to start taking them. I could do that. — Kandi Steiner

I'm not sure if the question's rhetorical or if she thinks I have a clue to her metaphysical mystery. And I'm in no state to answer either way because I'm crying. I don't realize it till I taste the sale against my lips. I can't remember the last time I've cried but, once I accept the mortification of sniveling like a baby, the floodgates open and I'm sobbing now, in front of Mia. In front of the whole damn world. — Gayle Forman

Personally of course I regret everything.
Not a word, not a deed, not a thought, not a need,
not a grief, not a joy, not a girl, not a boy,
not a doubt, not a trust, not a scorn, not a lust,
not a hope, not a fear, not a smile, not a tear,
not a name, not a face, no time, no place ... that I do not regret, exceedingly.
An ordure, from beginning to end. — Samuel Beckett

But I've been turning over in my mind the question of nostalgia, and whether I suffer from it. I certainly don't get soggy at the memory of some childhood knickknack; nor do I want to deceive myself sentimentally about something that wasn't even true at the time - love of the old school, and so on. But if nostalgia means the powerful recollection of strong emotions - and a regret that such feelings are no longer present in our lives - then I plead guilty. — Julian Barnes

I find funny that altho no one is perfect, we constantly compare ourselves to others. Judging others by their appearance and wealth, assuming that they're happier than us. History shows that human's will never be fully satisfied. Even those who seem perfect eventually break down in tears, because everyone has their own struggle, regret, and war within to face each day. So why waist your time comparing yourself to those around you? — Abraham Ruiz

The idle apprehend more things, are deeper than the industrious: no task limits their horizon; born into an eternal Sunday, they watch- - and watch themselves watching. Sloth is a somatic skepticism, the way the flesh doubts. In a world of inaction, the idle would be the only ones not to be murderers. But they do not belong to humanity, and, sweat not being their strong point, they live without suffering the consequences of Life and of Sin. Doing neither good nor evil, they disdain - spectators of the human convulsion - the weeks of time, the efforts which asphyxiate consciousness. What would they have to fear from a limitless extension of certain afternoons except the regret of having supported a crudely elementary obviousness? Then, exasperation in the truth might induce them to imitate the others and to indulge in the degrading temptation of tasks. This is the danger which threatens sloth, that miraculous residue of paradise. — Emil Cioran

Sometimes we let them treat us badly because we yearn to feel loved and accepted so much that we are willing to do anything to get it. It's very painful to realize that no matter how much you try, you feel like it, do not even want to accept you as you are. When they finally understand you, I regret all that time you've spent pleasing others and you wonder what that is so horrible in you that prevents them even pretend to want. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

O youth! youth! you have no concerns, you possess, as it were, all the treasures of the universe, even grief is a comfort to you, even sadness suits your looks, you are self-assured and bold, you say: 'Look, I'm the only one alive!' while the very days of your life run away and vanish without a trace and without number and everything in you disappears like wax, like snow in the hear of the sun... And perhaps the entire et of your charm consists not in the possibility of doing everything, but in the possibility of thinking perhaps it consists precisely in the fact that you want only to scatter on the wind energies that you wouldn't know how to use for anything else, perhaps it consists in the fact that each one of us seriously regards himself as a spendthrift and seriously considers that he has the right to say: 'Oh, the things I could have done if only I hadn't wasted my time! — Ivan Turgenev

I am too busy with my cause to hate too absorbed in something bigger than myself. I have no time to quarrel, no time for regrets and no man can force me to stoop low enough to hate him. — Lawrence James

I'd give everything to back to that moment and make things right."
"Would you really? Would you go back in time and change that, if you could?"
"No. No, maybe not. Because then I wouldn't have this. I wouldn't have you. I have to live with my mistakes, but I don't have to regret them. I regret my actions but I can't regret the consequences. — Karina Halle

Ileni swallowed hard.
"Yes," she said. "I am. But it's all going to be the same, for a very long time. The sorcerers will have all the power, and the assassins will eventually regather and start attacking again ... and I haven't made any difference at all."
"Well," Evin said, "I think you've made quite a bit of difference to the people whose lives you saved. Speaking as one of them."
She stepped away from the edge, closer to him.
"Do you regret it?" he asked evenly.
His face was half-shadowed, but his eyes were bright and piercing. Not wide with pain and devoid of hope. She felt again his hand, limp and helpless in hers. Felt it tighten as Sorin plummeted past the gray rock.
"No," she said. And for at least that moment, it was entirely true. — Leah Cypess

I come from the philosophy of: "Whatever happens to me is the greatest thing that could happen, no matter what." Sometimes in the moment I have a regret, but then I have found myself every time down the line saying to myself: "I wouldn't be here if it weren't for that so called failure." — Jim Carrey

He swallowed again. "Why?"
When I opened my mouth to answer, my lips started trembling - from nerves or regret I don't know - and it took a few seconds to actually force the words out. "Because you have to find Nicholas. And I can't handle that right now. I know I said I could, but I can't." Breathing as deeply as I could, I took Daniel's closeness inside me, feeling all the while like I was on the edge of suffocating. "I'm about to fall apart, and I need time."
"I need you."
"You need me to kill-"
"No!" Daniel's face flushed, and he fixed his mouth shut, inhaling rapidly through his nose while trying to regain control. "You aren't going anywhere near Dmitri. Not ever. He's my responsibility. — Angela B. Wade

The healthy attitude, the only reasonable one towards a fault made or a sin committed is surely a vigorous shake of one's moral shoulders, vigorous enough to shake it off and out of remembrance. The sin itself was a sad waste of time and happiness, and absolutely no more should be wasted in lugubriously reflecting on it. Shall we, poor human beings at such a disadvantage from the first in the fight with Fate through the many weaknesses and ailments of our bodies, load our souls as well with an ever-growing burden of regret and penitence? Shall we let a weight of vivid memories break our hearts? How are we to get on with our living if we are continually dropping into sloughs of bitter and often unjust self-reproach? Every morning comes the light, and a fresh chance of doing better. Is it not the sheerest folly and ingratitude to let yesterday spoil the God-given to-day? There — Elizabeth Von Arnim

After the slowing, every action required a little more force than it used to. The physics had changed. Take, for example, the slightly increased drag of a hand on a knife or a finger on a trigger. From then on, we all had a little more time to decide what not to do. And who knows how fast a second-guess can travel? Who has ever measured the exact speed of a regret? But the new gravity was not enough to overcome the pull of certain other forces, more powerful, less known
no law of physics can account for desire. — Karen Thompson Walker

Yes, and words are not deeds, Solanka allowed, moving off fretfully. Though words can become deeds. If said in the right place and at the right time, they can move mountains and change the world. Also, uh-huh, not knowing what you're doing - separating deeds from the words that define them - was apparently becoming an acceptable excuse. To say "I didn't mean it" was to erase meaning from your misdeeds, at least in the opinion of the Beloved ALis of the world. Could that be so? Obviously, no. No, it simply could not. Many people would say that even a genuine act of repentance could not atone for a crime, much less this unexplained blankness - an infinitely lesser excuse, a mere assertion of ignorance that wouldn't even register on any scale of regret. — Salman Rushdie

For the first time, Araushnee realized how truly alone she was on the path she had chosen. With this realization came a moment's regret. But the emotion did not linger, and when it passed, something else went with it - a part of Araushnee's heart that had slowly been dying, unnoticed and unmourned. The slender thread of magic that connected her to the other gods of the Seldarine and to their elven children had finally snapped. Whatever else Araushnee had become, she was no longer truly elven. — Anonymous

That they were torn from mistakes they had no chance to fix; everything unfinished. All the sins of love without detail, detail without love. The regret of having spoken, of having run out of time to speak. Of hoarding oneself. Of turning one's back too often in favour of sleep. I tried to imagine their physical needs, the indignity of human needs grown so extreme they equal your longing for wife, child, sister, parent, friend. But truthfully I couldn't even begin to imagine the trauma of their hearts, of being taken in the middle of their lives. Those with young children. Or those newly in love, wrenched from that state of grace. Or those who had lived invisibly, who were never know. — Anne Michaels

Perhaps it was true a century ago - I deeply regret that it is no longer true - but the United States criminal justice system long ago lost any legitimate claim to the loyal cooperation of American citizens. You cannot write tens of thousands of criminal statutes, including many touching upon conduct that is neither immoral nor dangerous, write those laws as broadly as you can imagine, scatter them throughout the thousands of pages of the United States Code - and then expect decent law-abiding, unsuspecting citizens to cooperate with an investigation into whether they may have violated some law they have never even heard about. The next time some police officer or government agent asks you whether you would be willing to answer a few questions about where you have been and what you have been doing, you must respectfully but very firmly decline. — James Duane

I had enough time being single to know I have no regrets about being married! — Jennifer Connelly

If I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject - which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The sea was the first thing he had found that was large enough to absorb his sorrow.

...Perdu would drift on his back, his feet pointing toward the beach. There, on the waves, with the water spilling through his outspread fingers, he drew up from the depths of his memory every hour he had spent with Manon. He examined each one until he no longer felt any regret that it was past, then he let it go.

So Jean let the waves rock him, raise him up and pass him on. And slowly, infinitely slowly, he began to trust. Not the sea, far from it; no one should make that mistake! Jean Perdu trusted himself again. He wouldn't go under; he wouldn't drown in his emotions.

And each time he abandoned himself to the sea another small grain of fear trickled out of him. It was his way of praying. — Nina George

Over the years I'd lodged him in the permanent past, my pluperfect lover, put him on ice, stuffed him with memories and mothballs like a hunted ornament confabulating with the ghost of all my evenings. I'd dust him off from time to time and then put him back on the mantelpiece. He no longer belonged to earth or to life. All I was likely to discover at this point wasn't just how distant were the paths we'd taken, it was the measure of loss that was going to strike me
a loss I didn't mind thinking about in abstract terms but which would hurt when stared at in the face, the way nostalgia hurts long after we've stopped thinking of things we lost and may never have cared for. — Andre Aciman

Almost all men are over anxious. No sooner do they enter the world than they lose that taste for natural and simple pleasures so remarkable in early life. Every hour do they ask themselves what progress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or honor and on they go as their fathers went before them till weary and sick at heart they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden time of their childhood. — Samuel Rogers

To have regret is to be disappointed with yourself and your choices. Those who are wise, see their life like stepping stones across a great river. Everyone misses a stone from time to time. No one can cross the river without getting wet. Success is measured by your arrival on the other side, not on how muddy your shoes are. Regrets are only felt by those who do not understand life's purpose. They become so disillusioned that they stand still in the river and do not take the next leap. — Colleen Houck

TOP TEN RESOLUTION PITFALLS 1. Being vague about what you want 2. Not making a serious commitment 3. Procrastinating and excuse making - no time, wrong time, dog ate my homework 4. Being unwilling to go through the awkward phase 5. Not setting up a tracking and reminder system 6. Expecting perfection, falling into guilt, shame, regret 7. Trying to go it alone 8. Telling yourself self-limiting rut stories 9. Not having backup plans 10. Turning slip-ups to give-ups — M.J. Ryan

After wearing and wasting her palpitating heart with every engine of regret that lonely inexperience could devise, common sense had illumined her. She felt that she would do well to be useful again - to taste anew sweet independence at any price. The past was past; whatever it had been, it was no more at hand. Whatever its consequences, time would close over them; — Thomas Hardy

Time will make it worse! You're ... the other half of his soul. He's never going to get over you. And no matter how much you hope that you will ... you'll never get over him. You're going to wake up one day and realize what you've done, and you're going to regret the time you wasted apart from him for the rest of your life. — Jamie McGuire

If we spend our time with regrets over yesterday, and worries over what might happen tomorrow, we have no today in which to live. — Thomas Sowell

After each dream, Frankie woke with a start, soaked in tears. But she found no relief in the peaceful silence of her room, because there everything was real. And the guilt was too immense to bear. Each time she opened her eyes, she'd quickly shut them. And wish that she had woken up for the very last time. — Lisi Harrison

Why didn't you ask me out?" Layla blurted, suddenly needing to know. She bit the inside of her lip, cursing her impulsive tongue. Her heart beat erratically, thumping hard against her ribs. "Two summers ago when we volunteered at the theater? I kept thinking you might." His hands paused on a spool of twine as he looked at her, his eyes somber. "I wanted to. But I was coming off a difficult relationship - I needed some time." Regret laced his voice. "Chloe Peterson." He nodded. She'd seen them around town for about a year. The grapevine claimed she'd cheated on him with Chris Geiger, but who knew? "I was about to ask you out," he said. "But before I could ... " "Jack." His eyes skimmed over her face. "You have no idea how many times I've regretted waiting." Her face warmed under his perusal. Her pulse skittered. "Wonder what would've happened." One corner of his lips tipped up as a look of serenity passed over his face, displacing the regret. "Who knows. Maybe we'd be engaged for real. — Denise Hunter

You must believe in your own instincts and your own instincts at any particular time and believe that they were the right ones for any given situation. So, there's no point ever of kind of regretting something because you can't properly remember the exact circumstances in which you were playing out this particular scene. You have to believe in your intuition and your instinct at that moment. — Dominic Cooper

A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it. We must not be governed by rigid rules, as by the almanac, but let the season rule us. The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature's. Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this. Where the good husbandman is, there is the good soil. Take any other course, and life will be a succession of regrets. Let us see vessels sailing prosperously before the wind, and not simply stranded barks. There is no world for the penitent and regretful. — Henry David Thoreau

Don't quit.
When your latest efforts fail, don't quit. When your performance is scoffed and ridiculed, don't quit. When you're told you have no talent, don't quit. When you come in dead last, don't quit. When it seems an uphill fight to keep going, don't quit. When you can't see any possible way to achieve your goals, don't quit. When your last supporter is you alone, don't quit. When discouragement and depression seem your constant companion, don't quit. When you feel like quitting, don't quit.
Time and time again you will crave relief from the harsh fight of trying to succeed. You will falsely think that quitting will bring peace and reprieve, but alas, only regret and disappointment await the quitter. Victory means never ever ever quitting.
So don't quit.
Do not quit. — Richelle E. Goodrich

This is the short drop," the man said. "You'll notice that, unlike the standard drop or the long drop, your neck is not broken. Which may seem like a blessing now, but in the end you will wish it had been a longer drop and a shorter wait. But that's the good news and bad news of the short drop. You live longer, but . . . you live longer. Most people think they'd always want to live longer, but twenty minutes at the end of a rope is a long time to die. A long time to regret things that cannot be changed and that no longer matter. — Matthew FitzSimmons

Well, people who acknowledge their faults aren't so angry about them. Oh to be selfish, eh?'
'I think life would be easier if I was selfish.'
'No, it wouldn't. Not really. Those people aren't happy, they'll be on their death beds with little more than a life time of guilt and regret to think about. People like us die with a clear conscience, Flo. That's the best way to be. If you admit to where you go wrong at least you stand a chance of making it better.'
I still wish I was selfish. — Dawn O'Porter

When it is time to part, then it is time to part. There should be no regrets. The beauty of marriage is like the fleeting perfection of a snowflake. — Ming-Dao Deng

There is (as I now find) no remorse for time long past, even for what may have mortified us or made us ashamed of ourselves when it was happening: there is a pleasant panoramic sense of what it all was and how it all had to be. Why, if we are not vain or snobbish, need we desire that it should have been different? The better things we missed may yet be enjoyed or attained by someone else somewhere: why isn't that just as good? And there is no regret, either, in the sense of wishing the past to return, or missing it: it is quite real enough as it is, there at its own date and place — George Santayana

No time for better words, no time to unsay anything.
-Til We Have Faces — C.S. Lewis

Go on a living spree. While you're here, why not live it up? Make your list, then go be, do, and have everything you want. Live life to the fullest. Live a life of no regrets. Strive toward your potential. NO restrictions apply. This offer is good for a limited time only. Don't miss this opportunity. Go on a living spree! — Clifton Anderson

Embrace it. Live it. Life's too short. Even looking at it from my end, when I've had more chances than many, I wish
actually even more so now
that I could go back and tinker with a few things ... do a little more of this, a little less of that. But the things about which I feel no regret are those that I did with passion. Those things I remember in living colour. The good and the bad. The rest have faded to black and white. They don't matter. Maybe they never did. — Ella J. Fraser

The point is that everyone needs some exposure to the various ways of life. People buy things out of catalogues too much. They see in Time magazine that they're suppose to be feeling in such and such a way, and they dash off a check and buy that life-style sight unseen. A pig in a poke if there ever was one, for once you've bought the thing there's no refund. We ought to be able to try things before we sign up for them. Used to be you could listen to the records in a record store before you bought them. Now they're sealed, for your protection, they say. Bullshit! It's for their goddamned protection, not ours. We don't need to be protected. We need to be allowed to get a taste of something before we accept it. — Arthur Alexander

There's a difference between a mistake and a regret. Everything up to this moment has made this moment. If you can change a mistake, then go out and do what you can to change it. If you can't change it, there's no use regretting it because it will just make you miserable. Live right now, even if that involves dealing with the consequences of your actions. Time travel always ends badly. — Rebecca McKinsey

In travelling where novelties of all kinds press in upon us, mental food is often supplied so rapidly from without that there is no time for digestion. We regret that the quickly shifting impressions can leave no permanent imprint. In reality, however, it is with this as it is with reading. How often we regret not being able to retain in the memory one-thousandth part of what is read ! It is comforting in both cases to know that the seen as well as the read has made a mental impression before it is forgotten, and thus forms the mind and nourishes it, while that which is retained in the memory merely fills and swells the hollow of the head with matter which remains ever foreign to it, because it has not been absorbed, and therefore the recipient can be as empty as before. — Arthur Schopenhauer

God, Satan, Paradise, and Hell all vanished one day in my fifteenth year, when I quite abruptly lost my faith. I recall it quite vividly.I was at school in England by then. The moment of awakening happened, in fact, during a Latin lessson, and afterwards, to prove my new-found atheism, I bought myself a rather tasteless ham sandwich, and so partook for the first time of the forbidden flesh of the swine. No thunderbolt arrived to strike me down. I remember feeling that my survival confirmed the correctness of new position. I did slightly regret the loss of Paradise, though. — Salman Rushdie

[A]dventures befall the unadventurous as readily, if not as frequently, as the bold. Adventures are a logical and reliable result - and have been since at least the time of Odysseus - of the fatal act of leaving one's home, or trying to return to it again. All adventures happen in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one's home. As soon as you have crossed your doorstep or the county line, into that place where the structures, laws, and conventions of your upbringing no longer apply, where the support and approval (but also the disapproval and repression) of your family and neighbors are not to be had: then you have entered into adventure, a place of sorrow, marvels, and regret. — Michael Chabon

It seemed to him that every time he made one choice in his life, he said no to another. All of those things he could not do or be were huddled inside of him; they might spring up at any moment, and he would be hobbled with regret. — Ayana Mathis

But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives. — Haruki Murakami

Although too much time has gone by to miss her, I feel regret that I didn't maintain our friendship. Even if we no longer have much in common, we would have always had the past, which, in some ways, is just as important as the present or future. — Emily Giffin

I know of no long-time practitioner who regrets adhering to a value philosophy; few investors who embrace the fundamental principles ever abandon this investment approach for another — Seth Klarman

You remember the dialogue you had with yourself, you can quote the emotion word for word, as if you're still there, as if it matters that you can map in detail the geographies of regret.

It starts with a hope and ends with a turn of the stomach: a cringe at the excuses you make for your heart, a momentary forever you remember on alternate days over coffee and novels that hit too close to home.

You cry because you know the point at which you could have turned back but didn't, could have taken time by the throat and resisted, could have ignored the phone, answered that message, said no, said yes, said nothing, smiled - whatever it is that you didn't do. But by the time that moment ends, it is over and you are in too deep, wondering why there exists no rewind button for the soul, no second chance for the petty player, no backup plan for those who risk everything on nothing, all at once. — Tania De Rozario

You don't think I know that?" Puck was shouting now, green eyes feverish. "You don't think I regret what I did, every single day? You lost Ariella, but I lost you both! Believe it or not, I was kind of a mess, too, Ash. It got to a point where I actually looked forward to our random duels, because that was the only time I could talk to you. When you were freaking trying to kill me!"
"Don't compare your loss to mine," I snarled. "You have no idea what I went through, what you caused."
"You think I don't know pain?" Puck shook his head at me. "Or loss? I've been around a lot longer than you, prince! I know what love is, and I've lost my fair share, too. Just because we have a different way of handling it, doesn't mean I don't have scars of my own."
"Name one," I scoffed. "Give me one instance where you haven't - "
"Meghan Chase!" Puck roared, startling me into silence. — Julie Kagawa

This is your life. If you are not who you want to be, change it! It won't be easy and it may take some time, but surround yourself with people who love and support you and go for it! No regrets! Only you dwell on your failures. Good luck and remember the inner strength you'll achieve from adopting a healthy lifestyle far supersedes anything physical. — Jamie Eason

It is to be regretted that domestication has seriously deteriorated the moral character of the duck. In a wild state, he is a faithful husband ... but no sooner is he domesticated than he becomes polygamous, and makes nothing of owning ten or a dozen wives at a time. — Isabella Beeton

I was so ashamed for a mistake I made unknowingly when I was completely out of control and lost my mind for some reasons. I thought about to end my life next day at some point. I was struggling to cope with my pain, shame and thinking about others who I had hurt unintentionally. The worst moment came when people who I loved most had pulled out their support and threatens me to end relationships. Lesson learns hard way that people who are not with you at worst time of your life have no right to stand beside you when you are at best. Life goes on ... — Sammy Toora Powerlifter

There's another story I know. This one doesn't have any swords or visions. This one is about a boy who found a girl during a terrible time."
"How did it turn out?"
"I don't know, but I do know the boy doesn't regret it. Not a minute. No matter how it turns out. Because he's been waiting for this girl from the time she was born, and if it takes another thousand years to meet her again, he'd wait again. Whatever it takes. — Priya Ardis

The reality that I had known no longer existed. The places that we have known belong now only to the little world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. None of them was ever more than a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; remembrance of a particular form is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years. — Marcel Proust

I tell students, when in doubt, to title their story after the smallest concrete object in their story. I warn them off plays on words, ('The Rent Also Rises'
no; 'Life in My Cat House'
no) and no grand reaches, either. 'Reverence,' 'Respect,' 'Regret,' 'Greed,' 'Adventure,' 'Retribution.' And never use the worst title of all time, 'The Gift,' a story I read six times a year. — Ron Carlson

I can wait in silence no longer, but I'm afraid I'm already too late. I am trapped between agony and hope - believing I have no right to speak, but knowing more how much I'd regret it if I did not. Tell me I'm not wrong. Tell me that, this time, you will accept my offer. Because I'm making it again. I want you with me, Elliot. It's all I have ever wanted. I offer you everything I have - my world, my ship, my self - perhaps they will be enough to replace what I know you would be giving up if you came with me. — Diana Peterfreund

Jacqueline ran like she had been saving all her running for this moment, for this place where no one could see her, or scold her, or tell her that ladies didn't behave that way, sit down, slow down, you'll rip your dress, you'll stain your tights, be good. She was getting grass stains on her knees and mud under her fingernails, and she knew she'd regret both those things later, but in the moment, she didn't care. She was finally running. She was finally free.
Jillian ran more slowly, careful not to trample the flowers, slowing down whenever she felt like it to look around herself in wide-eyed wonder. No one was telling her to go faster, to run harder, to keep her eyes on the ball; no one wanted this to be a competition. For the first time in years, she was running solely for the joy of running, and when she tripped and fell into the flowers, she went down laughing. — Seanan McGuire

Instead of things I'm good at, it might be faster to list the things I can't do. I can't cook or clean the house. My room's a mess, and I'm always losing things. I love music, but I can't sing a note. I'm clumsy and can barely sew a stitch. My sense of direction is the pits, and I can't tell left from right half the time. When I get angry, I tend to break things. Plates and pencils, alarm clocks. Later on I regret it, but at the time I can't help myself. I have no money in the bank. I'm bashful for no reason, and I have hardly any friends to speak of. — Haruki Murakami

We went through a hard time, and we had to turn to music as a means to putting food on the table. And we've been doing it ever since. No regrets either. — Selena

We pass and leave you lying. No need for rhetoric, for funeral music, for melancholy bugle-calls. No need for tears now, no need for regret.
We took our risk with you; you died and we live. We take your noble gift, salute for the last time those lines of pitiable crosses, those solitary mounds, those unknown graves, and turn to live our lives out as we may.
Which of us were fortunate
who can tell? For you there is silence and cold twilight drooping in awful desolation over those motionless lands. For us sunlight and the sound of women's voices, song and hope and laughter, despair, gaiety, love
life.
Lost terrible silent comrades, we, who might have died, salute you. — Richard Aldington

Ii would no longer waste time on regret. I would turn my face to the future and carve it into the shape I wanted. - Panchali — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

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. — Libba Bray