Rueful Quotes & Sayings

You can't imagine fame. You can only ever see it from an outsider and comment on it with the rueful wisdom of a non participant. When it happens to you, it doesn't matter what age or how, it is a very steep learning curve. The imprtanot thing to realize in all of it is that life is short, to protect the ones you love, and not expose yourself to too much abuse or narcissistic reflection gazing and move on. If fame affords me the type of ability to do the kind of work I'm being offered, who am I to complain about the downsides. It's all relative. And this are obviously very high class problems. The way privacy becomes an every shrinking island is inevitable but also manageable and it doesn't necessary have to get that way ... — Benedict Cumberbatch

Mia, stop!" My voice bounces off her bedroom walls. "We are not in high school anymore!"

She looks at me, a question hanging in the air.

"Look, my tour doesn't start for another week."

A feather of hope starts to float across the space between us.

"And you know, I was thinking I was craving some sushi."

Her smile is sad and rueful, not exactly what I was going for. "You'd come to Japan with me?"

"I'm already there. — Gayle Forman

Oi, lovebirds!" Puck's voice shattered the quiet, bouncing through the darkness.
Ash pulled back with a rueful look. "Get a room, would ya? We've got better things to
do than watch you suck face! — Julie Kagawa

You are your mother's trueborn son of Lannister."
"Am I?" the dwarf replied, sardonic. "Do tell my lord father. My mother died birthing me, and he's never been sure."
"I don't even know who my mother was," Jon said.
"Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are." He favored Jon with a rueful grin. "Remember this, boy. All dwarfs may be bastards, yet not all bastards need be dwarfs."
And with that he turned and sauntered back into the feast, whistling a tune.
When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king. — George R R Martin

What were you thinking about just
now while you were looking out the window?" To his surprise, the question flustered her.
"I - wasn't thinking."
"Then what were you doing?" he asked, his curiosity aroused.
A rueful smile touched her inviting lips, and she shot him a sideways look before turning back to the
window. "I was ... talking to God," she admitted. "'Tis a habit I have."
Startled and slightly amused, Royce said, "Really? What did God have to say?"
"I think," she softly replied, "He said, 'You're welcome.' "
"For what?" Royce teased.
Lifting her eyes to his, Jenny solemnly replied, "For you. — Judith McNaught

What?" I asked uneasily. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
He shook his head, the smile rueful now. "Because sometimes, a person can get so caught up in the details that they miss the whole. It's not just the dress or the hair. It's YOU. You're beautiful. So beautiful, it hurts me. — Richelle Mead

Love was over, and her man was sleeping beside her. Her man. She smiled a little in the darkness, his seed still trickling with slow warmth from between her slightly parted thighs, and her smile was both rueful and pleased, because the phrase her man summoned up a hundred feelings. Each feeling examined alone was a bewilderment. Together, in this darkness floating to sleep, they were like a distant blues tune heard in an almost deserted nightclub, melancholy but pleasing. — Stephen King

"I tried, once," said Bernard, with a rueful smile. "Yup! I tried." He gazed thoughtfully out the window. — Carey Rockwell

May I speak on behalf of your prison's commander, Axiyn Seir? He's most zealous for your cause and deserves a promotion." The king frowned. "Why should you petition for him? He's given you scars." Despite his pain, Nikaros actually grinned. "Sire, the Eosyths believe that a man who dies without scars has never lived." Josias managed a rueful chuckle. "I feel as if I've lived a lifetime already. — R.J. Larson

Already known as one of America's best and wittiest poets, William Trowbridge has, in Ship of Fool, found the perfect vessel to convey his vision: comic, tender, wry, compassionate, full of insight and rueful understanding of what it means to carry on, cream pies in the face, pants falling down as the Green Weenie rampages through our foolish, beautiful lives. — Charles Harper Webb

I knew that I shouldn't have, but I did it all the same; and there you have my epitaph, or one of them, because my grave is going to require a monument inscribed on all four sides with rueful mottoes, in small characters, set close together. — Michael Chabon

His hand lightly pressed to the small of my back, and I turned. His arm slid around me and I was brought up against him. 'You're shaking,' he said, a frown lacing his tone. 'I know.' 'We don't have to,' he said. 'I'm a patient man.' 'Are you really?' I asked, my tone slightly rueful. His white teeth flashed. 'For you I would be.' The sincerity in his voice was my undoing. 'No more talking,' I whipered.
- Romeo & Rimmel — Cambria Hebert

The pain'll start creeping in again by midnight, but that should give us enough time to talk this through." He sipped again and gave me a look of rueful amusement. "Human things are terrific right to the end, it seems like. I never would have guessed. — Stephen King

There's no such thing as a tax on happiness," Helen said, rubbing her forehead.
The countess regarded her with rueful sympathy. "My poor girl... it certainly can't be had for free. — Lisa Kleypas

Swallowing back her bitterness, Amelia glanced up at her brother and managed a rueful smile. "Thank you, but at this advanced stage of life, I have no ambitions to marry."
Leo surprised her by bending to brush a light kiss on her forehead. His voice was soft and kind. "Be that as it may, I think someday you'll meet a man worth giving up your independence for." He grinned before adding, "Despite your encroaching old age. — Lisa Kleypas

ALBUS: Who are you? Because this is sort of my house and . . .
DELPHI: I'm a thief, of course. I'm about to steal everything you own. Give me your gold, your wand, and your Chocolate Frogs! (She looks fierce and then smiles.) Either that or I'm Delphini Diggory. (She ascends the stairs and sticks out a hand.) Delphi. I look after him - Amos - well, I try. (She indicates AMOS.) And you are?
ALBUS (rueful grin): Albus. — J.K. Rowling

He nodded, rueful. I immediately caught myself — Jennifer Chiaverini

In his grief over the loss of a dog, a little boy stands for the first time on tiptoe, peering into the rueful morrow of manhood. After this most inconsolable of sorrows there is nothing life can do to him that he will not be able somehow to bear. — James Thurber

Where will you go?" "To the safest place in London," he says with a rueful smile. "A place that loved your husband and will never forgive Duke Richard for betraying him. The only honest business in London." "Where d'you mean?" "The whorehouse," he says with a grin. — Philippa Gregory

I thought, too, about time. How fleet it is, and how certain, and like death how indifferent to our commentary upon it. Once not long before we had been boys and girls, and soon we would be middle-aged, thickening with rueful pleasure toward the thinness of old age. — Charles Finch

But the character of the music emphasized the tale as allegory
humorous, poignant, humane allegory
disclosing the metamorphosis of life itself, in which man moves from confident inexperience through the bitterness of experience, toward the rueful wisdom of self-knowledge. — Robertson Davies

He lowered his head and shook it from side to side, giving her a rueful smile. "I find it so ironic that someone I think of as sometimes so brave to the point of stupidity could be so terrified of her own happiness,"
Bree felt the shot hit home, and she couldn't look at him. She ran her finger along the marble topped of the island. "That's ridiculous. Who in their right mind is afraid of being happy?"
"Someone who has lost too much," he moved slowly towards her in gentle careful strides as if he was afraid of startling her.
Fair enough, she did tend to attack him when he tried to corner her, but for some reason, Bree just couldn't tonight. The much too relaxing bubble bath must be making her sluggish.
"Someone who is so used to being told she caused too much pain to others to ever be worthy of happiness herself,"
Bree closed her eyes. "Shut up. Please, Alessandro. — E. Jamie

Or do you mean to rule over a realm of seals and otters?"
She gave a rueful laugh. "Otters might be easier to rule than men, I grant you. And seals are smarter. — George R R Martin

They were readers for whom literature was a drug, each complex plot line delivering a new high, suspending them above reality, allowing them a magical crossover ... They had spoken often, with rueful honesty, of how the books they read represented escape, offered pathways to literary landscapes that intrigued and engrossed ... From childhood on, books had been the hot air balloons that carried them above the angry mutterings of quarreling parents, schoolyard rejections, academic boredom ... They were of a kind, readers from birth. — Gloria Goldreich

What name did you give them when you registered us?" Bonnie asked. She was turned around in her seat, watching to see if they were going to be pursued. So far so good.
"Parker Barrow."
Bonnie laughed and groaned. "And you thought that was a good idea?"
"No. I just thought it was funny. And at this point, funny is about all we've got," Finn said with a rueful smile.
"We really aren't anything like Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow."
"I've decided that the media doesn't care, Bonnie Rae. They want us to be . . . and so that's the story they'll tell. — Amy Harmon

Marylou was watching Dean as she had watched him clear across the country and back, out of the corner of her eye
with a sullen, sad air, as though she wanted to cut off his head and hide it in her closet, an envious and rueful love of him so amazingly himself, all raging and sniffy and crazy-wayed, a smile of tender dotage but also sinister envy that frightened me about her, a love she knew would never bear fruit because when she looked at his hangjawed bony face with its male self-containment and absentmindedness she knew he was too mad. — Jack Kerouac

He limped slowly over to his own wooden sword and stooped awkwardly to pick it up. Trailing it on the ground behind him, he limped toward the queen, and the courtyard quieted as he approached and was silent again as he dropped to his knees before her and laid the sword across her lap.
"My Queen," he said.
"My King," she said back.
Only those closest saw him nod his rueful acceptance. He lifted his hand to brush her cheek softly. As the entire court listened breathlessly, he said, "I want my breakfast."
The queen's lips thinned, and she shook her head as she said, "You are incorrigible. — Megan Whalen Turner

That doesn't explain this weird nudity thing." "Well, it's not like we change shapes fully clothed." "That can get awkward," Hayder added. "A lioness in a G-string is a dangerous sight to see." "Dangerous how?" Kira dared asked. "Because the Instagram pic I took of it got me pounced on by a trio of them, and they waxed me from head to toe." Hayder shook his head, in rueful remembrance. Kira snickered. "I would have used Nair. It lasts longer. — Eve Langlais

Aren't we all alone?" I asked with a rueful smile.
"Yes. I think in the end, we all are, no matter what the songs and happy stories say. I guess it's just a matter of who we choose to be alone with."
"That's why I come here, you know. To be alone with other people. There's isolation in a crowd. You're hidden. Safe. — Richelle Mead

I used to eat people, you know."
If he meant to shock her out of crying, he succeeded. A snort burst out of her. "That's awful," she said. Her nose was clogged. "I mean it, that's awful. It's not funny. I'm not laughing."
He sighed. "It was a long time ago. Thousands of years. Once I really was the beast the Elves call me."
She closed her eyes, took a deep, shuddering breath and rubbed her fingers along the seam of his T-shirt. "What made you stop?"
"I had a conversation with somebody. It was an epiphany." His voice was rueful.He rocked her. "From that point on I swore I would never eat something that could talk."
"Hey, that's kind of your version of turning vegetarian, isn't it? — Thea Harrison

Nicholas felt a rueful smile spread across his face. And a curse be on him for it, because now he knew her. She'd shown him her mind, and she'd opened up her heart, and now he knew the taste of her tears. And he was wrecked. — Alexandra Bracken

Abe's face came back into focus. "Greetings, Zmey," I said weakly. Somehow, him being here didn't surprise me. "Nice of you to slither on in." He shook his head, wearing a rueful smile.
"I think you've outdone me when it comes to sneaking around dark corners. I thought you were on your way back to Montana."
"Next time, make sure you write a few more details into your bargains. Or just pack me up and send me back to the U. S. For real."
"Oh," he said, "that's exactly what I intend to do."
He kept smiling as he said it, but somehow, I had a feeling he wasn't joking. — Richelle Mead

All the sanguine guesswork of youth is there, and the silliness; all the novelty of being alive and impressed by the urgency of tremendous trivialities. — Siegfried Sassoon

What age is she now, twenty something. I'm not sure. She is very bright, quite the bluestocking. Not beautiful, however, I admitted that to myself long ago. I cannot pretend this is not a disappointment, for I had hoped that she would be another Anna. She is too tall and stark, her rusty hair is coarse and untameable and stand out around her freckled face in an unbecoming manner, and when she smiles she shows her upper gums, glistening and whitely pink. With those spindly legs and big bum, that hair, the long neck especially ... Yet she is brave and makes the best of herself and of the world. She has the rueful, grimly humorous, clomping way to her that is common to so many ungainly girls. ... Dear Claire, my sweet girl. — John Banville

Hunted what?" Shea held her breath, afraid of what he might say.
"Beautiful women, little one, and I was the one who found you after all." His white teeth gleamed at her, a definite leer.
"Don't put me off like that." She had already taken advantage, sliding easily into his mind and picking out the pictures of danger and revulsion. Fear even. Not so much of their adversary, but of themselves turning into the very thing they sought to destroy.
Jacques, unprepared for her entrance into his mind, had been confident he could keep the grimmer side of their existence watered down for her. Shea had always been reluctant to enter his mind; it hadn't occurred to him that she would do so whenever she wanted.
His expression was so rueful that Shea burst out laughing. "Where I grew up, that's called being caught with your pants down."
He looked down at his body, glistening with the rain. His grin was self-mocking, his black eyes amused. "Literally. — Christine Feehan

Of four infernal rivers that disgorge/ Into the burning Lake their baleful streams;/Abhorred Styx the flood of deadly hate,/Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;/Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud/ Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon/ Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage./ Far off from these a slow and silent stream,/ Lethe the River of Oblivion rolls/ Her wat'ry Labyrinth whereof who drinks,/ Forthwith his former state and being forgets,/ Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain. — John Milton

Vagabond knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

What's going on with your face, by the way?"
Gansey rubbed his chin, rueful. His skin felt reluctantly stubbled. He knew he was being diverted, but he allowed it. "Is it growing?"
"Dude, you aren't really going to do that beard thing, are you? I thought you were joking. You know that stopped being cool in the fourteen century or whenever it was that Paul Bunyan lived." Ronan looked over his shoulder at him. He was sporting the five o'clock shadow that he was capable of growing at any time of the day. "Just stop. You look mangy."
"It's irrelevant. It's not growing. I'm doomed to be a man-child."
"If you keep saying things like 'man-child,' we're done," Ronan said. "Hey, man. Don't let it get you down. Once your balls drop, that beard'll come in great. — Maggie Stiefvater

Daisy Bowman," he said unevenly, "I'd spend eternity in hell for one hour with you." "Is that how long it takes? An hour?" His reply was rueful. "Sweetheart, at this point it would be a miracle if I lasted one minute. — Lisa Kleypas

Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I see. So you playacted the role of a rake who was only pretending to be in earnest, knowing you would come across as though you had the lowest of motives, when in fact, you were sincere?"
"Precisely."
She gave a short, wry laugh and shook her head at him. "Convoluted sir! You are a maze."
He shot her a sulky glance. "I thought you were going to say I was amazing."
"That, too," she admitted with a rueful smile, capturing his square chin between her fingertips. — Gaelen Foley

In short, to sum up all in a few words, or in a single one, I may tell you I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance;' for though self-praise is degrading, I must perforce sound my own sometimes, that is to say, when there is no one at hand to do it for me. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Clem rubbed at her face with her cuff and gave a quick, rueful smile. 'It's just so sad. It's the umpteenth time I've read it, and I will always think it will have a different ending. But it never does. — Anna Hope

They were the kind of couple you rolled your eyes at. The couple you wanted to punch square in their perfect noses, but secretly hoped would become your new best friends and invite you to a private dinner party where you'd eat something made with truffle oil and share a rueful laugh about the party scene in Ibiza. — Matt K. Turner

I love you, Callie. The war is over, but" - He smiled, a crooked, rueful, tender smile - "my life is just beginning," he told her. — Heather Graham

Sweet Mercy! to the gates of heaven This minstrel lead, his sins forgiven; The rueful conflict, the heart riven With vain endeavour, And memory of Earth's bitter leaven Effaced forever. — William Wordsworth

Like Hemingway and Faulkner, but in an entirely different mode, Fitzgerald had that singular quality without which a writer is not really a writer at all, and that is a voice, a distinct and identifiable voice. This is really not the same thing as a style; a style can be emulated, a voice cannot, and the witty, rueful, elegaic voice gives his work its bright authenticity. — William Styron

When I entered and shut the door, the Darkling gave me a small bow. "How are you, Alina?"
"I'm fine," I managed.
"She's fine!" hooted Baghra. "She's fine! She cannot light a hallway, but she's fine."
I winced and wished I could disappear into my boots.
To my surprise, the Darkling said, "Leave her be."
Baghra's eyes narrowed. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
The Darkling sighed and ran his hands through his dark hair in exasperation. When he looked at me, there was a rueful smile on his lips, and his hair was going every which way. "Baghra has her own way of doing things," he said.
"Don't patronize me, boy!" Her voice cracked out like a whip. To my amazement, I saw the Darkling stand up straighter and then scowl as if he'd caught himself.
"Don't chide me, old woman," he said in a low, dangerous voice. — Leigh Bardugo

I leaned back in my chair, stretching luxuriantly, delibrately letting my jacket fall open. Predictably, his eyes moved down my body-some things outlast even the change. I grinned and he looked away, a rueful smile twitching at his lips. I finished breakfast in peace. — Karen Chance

He expects me turn up for the inspection, glance through all of this, and then scurry back to Ohnlei to get on with my life. Marcus gave a rueful smile. More fool him. He doesn't know I haven't got a life. — Django Wexler

Stephen can, of course, use my power, for two reasons. Firstly, because it's his, just as all I am and all I have are his. Not that he ever asks, of course. I'm not sure that he quite believes it." He looked round at Stephen, a rueful smile dawning, ignoring Fairley's loud noises of disgust. "But I do hope you are aware, my sweet, somewhere in that absurd heart, that I am ever, entirely, and quite pathetically yours. — K.J. Charles

All men press, one way or another," she said with mock severity.
"They're still keeping to their book then?"
Denna's expression grew rueful and she sighed. "I used to hope they'd disregard the book with age. Instead I've found they've merely turned a page. — Patrick Rothfuss

Men," she said rueful, "are the most absurd creatures on this green earth." "But there are camels," Gabriel pointed out. "Believe me," she answered. "I've taken camels into consideration. — Zoe Archer

What do you want, Mal?" The room seemed very quiet.
"Don't ask me that."
"Why not?"
"Because it can't be."
"I want to hear it anyway."
He blew out a long breath. "Say goodnight. Tell me to leave, Alina."
"No."
"You need an army. You need a crown."
"I do."
He laughed then. "I know I'm supposed to say something noble
I want a united Ravka free from the Fold. I want the Darkling in the ground, where he can never hurt you or anyone else again." He gave a rueful shake of his head. "But I guess I'm the same selfish ass I've always been. For all my talk of vows and honor, what I really want is to put you up against that wall and kiss you until you forget you ever knew another man's name. So tell me to go, Alina. Because I can't give you a title or an army or any of the things you need. — Leigh Bardugo

Reckless youth makes rueful age. — Benjamin Franklin

Nothing," he said.
"I've just been wondering when you'd get around to telling me about her." He stared at him, unable to hide his surprise.
"You knew?"
"I thought you were to busy ... "
"Being sad?" Owen gave him a rueful grin.
"Well ... yeah."
"You know what made me less sad?"
"What?"
"Seeing you happy," he told him.
"And for a while there, it seemed like those postcards were the only thing that did the trick. — Jennifer E. Smith

Papa wants you to marry some decrepit old wigsby?" She gave him a charmingly rueful smile, all tousled golden curls like some angel who had rolled off a cloud in her sleep, he thought, and had fallen to earth with a thud. "Something like that," she said in vague amusement. "I see. Well, surely we can find a solution." He snapped his fingers and gave her a grin. "Shall I ruin you? That should solve your problem. The old wigsby won't want you if you're used goods, and I assure you, I'd be happy to oblige. — Gaelen Foley

I am a sassenach, after all," I said, seeing it. He touched my face briefly with a rueful smile. "Aye, mo duinne. But you're my sassenach. — Diana Gabaldon

You know Quinn?" Macaulay asked me.
"Ten minutes ago I was putting him to bed."
Macaulay grinned. "I hope you keep his acquaintance like that - social"
"Meaning what?"
Macaulay's grin became rueful. "He used to be my broker, and his advice led me right up to the poorhouse steps."
"That's sweet," I said. "he's my broker now and I'm following his advice." Macaulay and the girl laughed. I pretended I was laughing and returned to my table. — Dashiell Hammett

She gave Cooper a quick nod, indicating she was going out the back, and didn't wait around to see if he understood her meaning. She pushed through the swinging doors to the small kitchen in the back, snagged the keys to her truck from the hook, and replaced them with her apron. She gave a quick glance to the grill, making sure Sandy hadn't left anything to burn on it when he'd been pulled out front, but everything looked in order. Stop stalling.
She sighed, shook her head, but the rueful smile that accompanied the movement was fleeting. For what might be the first time in her life, she had absolutely no idea how she was going to handle what came next.
"Only one way to find out," she murmured. Tightening her grip on her keys, if not her emotions, she let herself out the back door of the pub and found herself staring straight up into the crystalline blue eyes of Cooper Jax. — Donna Kauffman

I had a conversation with somebody. It was an epiphany." His voice was rueful. He rocked her. "From that point on I swore I would never eat something that could talk. — Thea Harrison

Rueful, bittersweet, funny, written with tenderness and bite, Merrill Feitell's stories, like so many classic short stories, are made from the plain and painful stuff of this world, and haunted by the possibility, and the impossibility, of a better one. — Michael Chabon

You're a hard man to love, Lachlan MacRuairi, but I do belive I'm up to the challenge."
"We'll probably argue."
"Aye, it seems likely."
"I have a bit of a temper when I get angry."
"I have noticed," she said wryly.
"I can be a mean bastard. I"ll probably say something to hurt you."
She laughed. "Are you trying to scare me off?"
He gave her a rueful smile. " Maybe."
"Well, stop - it isn't going to work. I'm quite aware of your faults."
He frowned. "I didn't say they were faults. — Monica McCarty

At first Deanna guessed the person was a guy, a college kid whose jaw was still stubbornly smooth, but as the figure straightened Deanna caught the soft hint of breasts under the shirt. Suddenly she could see the thick frame of lashes around a pair of amber eyes, and the feminine curve to lips tugged into a wide and rueful grin. Deanna hastily tacked several years onto the stranger's age: not a kid at all, but someone closer to her own twenty-six. Deanna — Michelle Osgood

And he was not angry. But, before the pain set in, he had the time to be rueful. He had laid everything out, the best of himself, and it had not been enough. He had considered himself a bohemian, but she had proved too bohemian for him. And he had failed to understand her explanation of herself. — Julian Barnes

So," I demanded, trying to sound confident, "where can we find this trod to New Orleans?"
"The frost giant ruins," Ash replied, looking thoughtful. "Very close to Mab's court." At Puck's glare, he shrugged and offered a tiny, rueful smirk. "She goes to Mardi Gras every year."
I pictured the Queen of the Unseelie Court flashing a couple of drunken partygoers, and giggled uncontrollably. All three shot me a strange look. "Sorry," I gasped, biting my lip. "Still kind of giddy, I guess. — Julie Kagawa

In a way I'm almost more rueful about the notion of having a non-ideological Labour party than I am about the personality of Tony Blair. — Robert Harris

Here's what I like about God: Trees are crooked, mountains are lumpy, a lot of his creatures are funny-looking, and he made it all anyway. He didn't let the aardvark convince him he had no business designing creatures. He didn't make a puffer fish and get discouraged. No, the maker made things - and still does. European film directors often enjoy creative careers, during which their films mature from the manifestos of angry young men to the rueful wisdom of great works by creative masters. Is an afternoon siesta the secret? Is their vita just a little more dolce? We've taken espresso to our American hearts, but we haven't quite taken to the "break" in our coffee breaks. Worried about playing the fool, we forget how to simply play. We try to make our creativity linear and goal oriented. We want our "work" to lead somewhere. We forget that diversions do more than merely divert us. — Julia Cameron

Social Science, is not a 'gay science' but rueful, which finds the secret of this universe in 'supply and demand' and reduces the duty of human governors to that of letting men alone. Not a 'gay science', no, a dreary, desolate, and indeed quite abject and distressing one; what we might call, the dismal science — Thomas Carlyle

We have all heard the forlorn refrain "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!" This phrase has come to stand for the rueful reflection of an idiot, a sign of stupidity, but in fact we should appreciate it as a pillar of wisdom. Any being, any agent, who can truly say, "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!" is standing on the threshold of brilliance. We — Daniel C. Dennett

What?" I ask the back of his head. "Now you're giving me the silent treatment?" His shoulders jiggle up and down. You know, one of those wry, silent chuckles, accompanied by a rueful shake of the head. Girls! So silly. — Rick Yancey

He gave me a rueful smile, his brown eyes so endearing. I could tell he was about to say something funny. I just knew him that well. That's like asking if I'm a fan of cancer. I fucking hate it, but do I know how to get rid of it? Not fucking likely. — R.K. Lilley

If someone had asked him about his dreams on the morning of the barbecue, he would have said that he didn't want for much, but he wouldn't mind a lower mortgage, a tidier house, another baby - ideally a son, but he'd take another girl no problem at all - a big motherfucking boat if it were up for grabs, and more sex. He would have laughed about the sex. Or smiled at least. A rueful smile. Maybe the smile would have been exactly halfway between rueful and bitter. — Liane Moriarty