Quotes & Sayings About Regret

Yes, our old age is not going to be sunny orchard drowse. By shutting down the fire curtain, though, I find I can live in the moment; which is good; why yield a moment to regret or envy or worry? Why indeed? (24 December 1940) — Virginia Woolf

The best recipe for happiness and contentment I've seen is this: dig a big hole in the garden of your thoughts and put into it all your disillusions, disappointments, regrets, worries, troubles, doubts, and fears. Cover well with the earth of fruitfulness. Water it from the well of contentment. Sow on top the seeds of hope, courage, strength, patience, and love. Then when the time for gathering comes, may your harvest be a rich and fruitful one. — Zig Ziglar

Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves - regret for the past and fear of the future. — Fulton Oursler

All of my plays are about people missing the boat, closing down too young, coming to the end of their lives with regret at things not done, as opposed to things done. II find most people spend too much time living as if they're never going to die. — Edward Albee

Letting someone control your life for you and decide what you will be is a sure way of creating things to regret on the day of reckoning. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

You have to live in these moments, not for them. If you look too hard, they blow right by you. If you do not live enough, you will regret every breath. — Corey Taylor

One of the things I regret is that magazines now are so lifestyle-orientated that the opportunity to do bigger projects is gone. This is a serious misjudgment on the part of magazine editors. — Martin Parr

Such is life. Sometimes we do not even want to know how much pain we cause others, for fear of spoiling our own petty pleasures. And when the time comes to face the consequences, it is too late to be sorry. — Menelaos Stephanides

Alex propped himself against the metal railing where Willow had just stood. "Okay, let's get something straight," he said in Spanish."If you think I don't know you're after my girfriend, you're crazy. And if you try to put any sleazy moves on her while you're here, you're going to regret it." Seb's knapsack was at his feet. He took out a pack of cigarettes; tapped out the last one and lit it.Settling back against the door jamb, he gave Alex a considering, faintly humorous look. "Sleazy moves?" he repeated. "Don't worry, I don't do sleazy moves."
"Let me rephrase," said Alex coldly "Any moves, just keep your hands off her. — L.A. Weatherly

You've made mistakes, and you have every right to regret them. But don't let them own you, Evie. Don't let them be more important than they are. — Lynn Raye Harris

A crowd of drunken lovers. Newspaper
hats, new couples falling from couches and love-
seats - the pleasure remembered,
never the regret. — Kelli Russell Agodon

I quit the Knicks so I know what quitting is, I did. I quit. And it's something I regret to this day. I live with it every day and I regret it. And I let my emotions come into it. And I was just emotionally spent. I made a bad decision and I quit. — Jeff Van Gundy

O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin And wonder what you've missed. — W. H. Auden

What I mean to say is that you can make a choice, be reasonably satisfied with it, and still regret that which you did not choose. Maybe it's like ordering dessert. You have it narrowed down to either a warm peanut butter torte or strawberries jubilee. You choose the torte, and it's delicious. But you still wonder about those strawberries... — Gabrielle Zevin

I regret that there aren't more short stories in other magazines. But in a certain way, I think the disappearance of the short-story template from everyone's head can be freeing. Partly because there's no mass market for stories, the form is up for grabs. It can be many, many things. So the anthology is very much intended for students, but I think we're all in the position of writing students now. Very few people are going around with a day-to-day engagement with the short story. — Lorin Stein

I failed and faltered many times, but I can look back without regret because I was never burdened with the paralysis of fear and inaction. — Diana Nyad

However much I have been blamed for not showing more deferences to a great party, and for not acting more steadily on party principles, all I have to regret is that I showed so much. — Robert Peel

I am her heartbreak at night.
I am her tears come the dawn.
I am her all that was right,
now turned horrible wrong.
I took her happy away,
replaced with an ache so strong.
I made her regret the day
she played me her favorite song. — Kirk Diedrich

I do regret, as I described in my book, the time that I shaved off half of my eyebrows thinking that I could draw them in better - and they would grow back anyway. — Molly Ringwald

I don't have regret about things I've done that are successful or not successful or what people perceive or don't know or whatever. I just know for me it had to be the right choice at the time. Sometimes that choice is just about getting a job. — Mark Harmon

Books can also provoke emotions. And emotions sometimes are even more troublesome than ideas. Emotions have led people to do all sorts of things they later regret-like, oh, throwing a book at someone else. — Pseudonymous Bosch

There's a scream that can't be silenced.It's rising, growing louder and louder. It's the scream of a child abandoned, suddenly long ago. As the scream echoed then in that alley, it echoes now in my mind. It penetrates all the dark places. It slams into the loss, bounces against the regret.. and the pain. — Tom Taylor

We are more inclined to regret our virtues than our vices; but only the very honest will admit this. — Holbrook Jackson

We must come to grief and regret anyway - and I for one would rather regret the reality than its phantasm, knowledge than hope, the deed than the hesitation, true life and not mere sickly potentialities. — A.S. Byatt

I have no regrets. The best thing to happen to me was for Lorne Michaels to hire me and fire me. — Jenny Slate

Always be truthful and you will have fewer visits from regret, guilt or fear. — Suzy Kassem

I felt stuck in a Sisyphean loop, writing the same press release over and over. Even more, I was tired of promoting other people's creations instead of creating something myself. I imagined myself on my deathbed, and I could hear my biggest regret: I never even tried to be a writer. — Helene Wecker

And maybe that's all a ghost is, in the end. Regret, grown legs, gone walking. — Nicole Kornher-Stace

I may have had moments of regret in my life, but you know, they wouldn't add up to an hour. — Emma Donoghue

Patience takes away lots of stress, regrets, & sleepless nights knowing that all is well at the end of the day if we just wait a little bit. — Assegid Habtewold

Time has been given to us as a sacred covenant, that if wasted will haunt us throughout eternity, in the form of regret — Steven Redhead

An important aspect of self-compassion is to be able to empathically hold both parts of ourselves-the self that regrets a past action and the self that took the action in the first place. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

My biggest regret is probably that it took me so long to find out what I want to do. — Hoodie Allen

I lost myself in finding you, nothing has made me feel so wasted ever. — Nigar Siddiqui

Poirot, watching him, felt suddenly a doubt
an uncomfortable twinge. Was there, here, something that he had missed? Some richness of the spirit? Sadness crept over him. Yes, he should have become acquainted with the classics. Long ago. Now, alas, it was too late ... — Agatha Christie

Rarely do you regret what you have done nearly as much as what you have failed to do. — Jeffrey Fry

Ash!" I called. "What are you doing? Come on!"
"Meghan." Ash's voice despite the pain below the surface, was calm. "I hope you find your brother. If you see Puck again tell him I regret having to step out of our duel."
"Ash, no! Don't do this!"
I felt him smile. "You made me feel alive again," he murmured.
Screeching, the greemlins attacked. — Julie Kagawa

If there's a place for tolerance in racial healing, perhaps it has to do with tolerating my own feelings of discomfort that arise when a person, of any color, expresses emotion not welcome in the culture of niceness. It also has to do with tolerating my own feelings of shame, humiliation, regret, anger, and fear so I can engage, not run. For me, tolerance is not about others, it's about accepting my own uncomfortable emotions as I adjust to a changing view of myself as imperfect and vulnerable. As human. — Debby Irving

They said when you are in love you will be happy but when the day comes i fell in love with someone.i regret the day that i met him.. it gives to much pain inside i feel everything is wrong.
knowing that loves is happiness.but in me it has a reversed meaning.it makes my life unhappy. — O.v Grace

I would give a hundred Hemingways for one Stendhal or one Benjamin Constant. And I regret the influence of this literature on many young writers.
(1945) — Albert Camus

Death changes everyone ... It changes the way you think, the way you feel, and the way you live your life. Sometimes it makes you thankful for what you have, but more often than not, it makes you regret what you've lost. — Tara Sivec

Anyone who can read history with both hemispheres of the brain knows that a world comes to an end every instant
the waves of time leave washed up behind themselves only dry memories of a closed & petrified past
imperfect memory, itself already dying & autumnal. And every instant also gives birth to a world
despite the cavillings of philosophers & scientists whose bodies have grown numb
a present in which all impossibilities are renewed, where regret & premonition fade to nothing in one presential hologrammatical psychomantric gesture. — Hakim Bey

My brain came alight with tenderness for her. I felt so sorry for everything. I yearned to embrace her, kiss her even, to stay with her, always her, my sister, my friend to the end. It was a story after all, even if a sick one. It was completely ours. — Hannah Lillith Assadi

Okay," I said, "what's your biggest fear?" As always, he took a second to think about the answer. "Clowns," he said. "Clowns." "Yup." I just looked at him. "What?" he said, glancing over at me. "That is not a real answer," I told him. "Says who?" "Says me. I meant a real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence." He thought for a second. "Clowns. — Sarah Dessen

I believe life is constantly testing us for our level of commitment, and life's
greatest rewards are reserved for those who demonstrate a never-ending
commitment to act until they achieve. This level of resolve can move mountains, but it must be constant and consistent. As simplistic as this may
sound, it is still the common denominator separating those who live their
dreams from those who live in regret. — Anthony Robbins

Militant atheists seek to discredit religion based on a highly selective reading of history. There was a time not long ago - just a couple of centuries - when the Western world was saturated by religion. Militant atheists are quick to attribute many of the most unfortunate aspects of history to religion, yet rarely concede the immense debt that civilization owes to various monotheist religions, which created some of the world's greatest literature, art, and architecture; led the movement to abolish slavery; and fostered the development of science and technology. One should not invalidate these achievements merely because they were developed for religious purposes. If much of science was originally a religious endeavor, does that mean science is not valuable? Is religiously motivated charity not genuine? Is art any less beautiful because it was created to express devotion to God? To regret religion is to regret our civilization and its achievements. — Bruce Sheiman

Though finally the worst thing about regret is that it makes you duck the chance of suffering new regret just as you get a glimmer that nothing's worth doing unless it has the potential of to fuck up your whole life — Richard Ford

Her mind was like her room, in which lights advanced and retreated, came pirouetting and stepping delicately, spread their tails, pecked their way; and then her whole being was suffused, like the room again, with a cloud of some profound knowledge, some unspoken regret, and then she was full of locked drawers, stuffed with letters, like her cabinets. — Virginia Woolf

A thousand times I was ready to regret and take back my rash statement - yet it had been the truth. — Hermann Hesse

Savannah's mind brushed his and found genuine regret for her sorrow. "How did you find me?"
"I always know where you are, every moment. Five years ago you said you needed time, and I gave it to you. But I've never left you. I never will."

-Savannah & Gregori — Christine Feehan

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

Despite a legacy consisting of enough violence and death for twenty men, Jackson admitted to having two regrets on his deathbed: "I didn't shoot Henry Clay and I didn't murder John C. Calhoun." In a life rich with murdering people for little-to-no reason, Jackson's only regret was that he didn't kill quite enough people. People like Calhoun, who, it should be noted, was Jackson's vice president. No one is safe from Jackson's wrath. — Daniel O'Brien

I live completely without regret. Sure there are plenty of things that someone could second guess, but I see the path of life like driving down the road without a map. The thing is, some dark alleys open up in majestic places, and some bright and shiny highways to the top end in cliffs to the bottom. You never know until you get there. What I know for sure is that if many years ago I actually had a map to the path of life, the destination that I would have chosen is right here, with this family, in this place, and with these smiles. That makes anything that could have been regretful, the best decision in the world. — Michael A. Wood Jr.

I have always done my duty. I am ready to die. My only regret is for the friends I leave behind me. — Zachary Taylor

I could never regret you. Us — Susan Mallery

It does no good to regret the past... yet regret remains just the same. — Sang-Sun Park

Never regret thy fall, O Icarus of the fearless flight For the greatest tragedy of them all Is never to feel the burning light. — Oscar Wilde

But I certainly made mistakes, for which I regret, I think most human beings in their lifetime make mistakes, mine ended up in two years prison - two very remarkable years from which I learnt a lot. — Jeffrey Archer

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, leaning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. — Banana Yoshimoto

My advice is flip a coin. If you regret the way it landed, then go with your gut. — Justin Kan

The world changes too fast. You take your eyes off something that's always been there, and the next minute it's just a memory. — Michel Faber

Most people's greatest regret is not living the life they knew they could live. — Todd Stocker

Joel Lane documents a life we don't quite live, in a city we can't quite find: half glimpsed and half imagined, we know it's out there somewhere. Waiting, maybe. Mixing fear with desire, reputation with regret. Touching the blood-beat of our secret hunger with the rhythms of a music that never felt alien till now. Wasted lives, with never a wasted word. It's an extraordinary achievement: vivid as neon, real as rain. Devastating. — Chaz Brenchley

If in my fight I can encourage even some people to understand and to abandon policies they now so blindly follow, I shall not regret any punishment I may incur. — Bram Fischer

Love's like a cigarette..
You know you had my heart aglow, Between you fingertips.
And, just like a cigarette, I never knew the thrill of life
Until you touched my lips.
Then just like a cigarette, Love seemed to fade away and Leave behind ashes of regret..
And, with a flick of your fingertips, It was easy for you to forget ... — Lia Habel

Unrestrained competition can drive people into actions that they would otherwise regret. — George Soros

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in. — Katherine Mansfield

Don't let the regret of the past take the better part of you,because you are a precious child of God.And our God needs you to stop living in the shadows of the past and be whole again with Him. — Rhodalyne Doku

It is best if we do not listen to or look at the person whom we consider to be the cause of our anger. Like a fireman, we have to pour water on the blaze first and not waste time looking for the one who set the house on fire. "Breathing in, I know that I am angry. Breathing out, I know that I must put all my energy into caring for my anger." So we avoid thinking about the other person, and we refrain from doing or saying anything as long as our anger persists. If we put all our mind into observing our anger, we will avoid doing any damage that we may regret later. — Nhat Hanh

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

I'm just saying that I ... I regret that everybody else has nineteen chances, and only I am limited to a single chance for my genes to continue."
"Because you believe your genes would confer a great blessing upon the human race."
Ram thought about this for a moment, "I suppose that's what every adolescent male believes with his whole heart. — Orson Scott Card

men and women perform a different sexual calculus. As Harper's put it perfectly: "Women are inclined to regret the sex they had, and men the sex they didn't. — Christian Rudder

Sometimes over things that I did, movies that didn't turn out very well - you go, 'Why did you do that?' But in the end, I can't regret them because I met amazing people. There was always something that was worth it. — Robin Williams

Maybe I could interest you in a Vodka sour instead. It causes the same effects as having a husband. First you get a rush of euphoria only to be replaced by regret in the morning. — Charity Parkerson

I don't regret not coming out early. A lot of people felt that I could have been a lottery pick, but we'll never know. — Michael Finley

I didn't say, "I'll call you." I didn't hug her because of the wet clothes. Just a quick kiss. Then I turned and left. I made my way quietly down the hallway to the stairwell. I could tell she thought she wasn't going to see me again. I had to admit she might be right. The knowledge was as damp and dispiriting as my sodden clothes. I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixture of gratitude and longing, streaked with guilt and regret. And in a flash of insight, cutting with cold clarity through the fog of my fatigue, I realized what I hadn't been able to articulate earlier, not even to myself, when she'd asked me what I was afraid of. It had been this, the moment after, when I would come face to face with knowing that it would all end badly, if not this morning, then the next one. Or the one after that. — Barry Eisler

You're so consumed with how much you get, you waste your time with hate and regret. — Madonna Ciccone

Sometimes when we're feeling sad, it's important just to feel the sadness. Like a snake shedding its skin, old feelings of remorse and regret and hurt and anger often have to come up in order to be released. On the other side we're a better person, capable of a happier life ... who we are when we're no longer burdened by the buried feelings that weighed us down, or the self - defeating patterns that the pain produced. — Marianne Williamson

It's all right."
"It's not. Nothing's right. I've never done a right thing in my life, it seems."
"That makes a pair of us then." Her lips pressed against the spot under his ear. "But I believe we are right together, don't you? People like us ... we have no talent for following rules. We can only follow our hearts. I've wronged people as well, but is it horribly wicked that I can't bring myself to regret it? It brought me to you."
He took one of her hands and kissed it. "You're so young, you can't know the meaning of true regret. It's never what you've done, love, it's what you've left undone. — Tessa Dare

Without courage we will simply accumulate a collection of good ideas and regrets. — Andy Stanley

Her heavy knives of defense against misery, regret, gall and hurt, she placed one by one on a bank where dear water rushed on below. — Toni Morrison

When I was writing my first draft, and feeling grandiose, I e-mailed an artist/clothing designer I know and suggested we collaborate on a fashion line inspired by the outfits my characters wore. I regret that we never did that. — Heidi Julavits

Have you ever experienced human love?"

"Yes. Once."

Regret shadowed his face. "Then why would you be willing to repeat it?"

"What we learn is worth more than what we lose. — Elizabeth Langston

Erin and I spent four hours shopping for dresses and shoes Tuesday night. She was going all out in her intention to make Chaz regret any decision he'd made that didn't include worshipping at her feet. — Tammara Webber

The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less informed part of the community. They have seen, too, that one legislative interference is but the first link of a long chain of repetitions, every subsequent interference being naturally produced by the effects of the preceding. — James Madison

Tap into that one fear that drives greatness - the fear of regret. — Betty Liu

True penance consists in regretting without ceasing the faults of the past, and in firmly resolving to never again commit that which is so deplorable. — Bernard Of Clairvaux

I lost nothing I regret losing," Witch said softly. "I am what I want to be. — Anne Bishop

If only certain things had been preventable, his life would have unfurled in front of him as intended, like a lush Oriental carpet. No surprises, no detours. Just a thick tapestry of days and nights that at the end of his time on earth, he could roll up and proudly claim as his own. — Shilpa Agarwal

I don't like the word 'regret.' — LeAnn Rimes

You will regret many things in life, but you will never regret being too kind or too fair. — Brian Tracy

Scientific knowledge has taught [humans] much since the days of the Deluge, and it will increase their power still further. And, as for the great necessities of Fate, against which there is no help, they will learn to endure them with resignation. Of what use to them is the mirage of wide acres in the moon, whose harvest no one has ever yet seen? As honest smallholders on this earth they will know how to cultivate their plot in such a way that it supports them. By withdrawing their expectations from the other world and concentrating all their liberated energies into their life on earth, they will probably succeed in achieving a state of things in which life will become tolerable for everyone and civilization no longer oppressive to anyone. Then, with one of our fellow-unbelievers, they will be able to say without regret: 'We leave Heaven to the angels and the sparrows. — Sigmund Freud

....he wanted them to regret their treatment of her, but he also selfishly wanted them to see that she was now in a much better place than they were and to h*ll with whoever thought he was being petty. — Jordan Silver

Daniel felt a sudden pang of regret that something of importance was coming to an end, something so important that it was as if his very life was ending. He struggled to control his voice, while at the same time he became aware of a real pain gripping his chest. He had survived the time of oppression but not the time of freedom. — Ivan Klima

I began to curse the past for passing. — Mara Rostov

And nothing is more haunting than regret. — Claire Contreras

One of the things that made me suffer no regret when I was called away from the cramped intellectual jail of atheism into a wider and more wonderful world, was my growing conviction that my fellow atheists were shallow, men without insight into real human nature. — John C. Wright

We meet different kinds of people in life, Good people gives us happiness whereas worse gives us lesson.So never regret on meeting someone.As it's an experience of life. Taste every flavor of life. — Debolina

My one regret was that I never photographed the bat before we drank it. — A.S. King

Regret isn't going to get me anywhere. It's like being obsessed with something. It doesn't bring you anywhere. — Stanley Kubrick