Things I Should Have Done Quotes & Sayings

I want to be able to look back and say, 'I've done everything I can, and I was successful.' I don't want to look back and say I should have done this or that. I'd like to change things for the younger generation of swimmers coming along. — Michael Phelps

In I went to John Bickel's office. We hit it off instantly. I did something all job applicants should do - I asked for the job. I told him that if they extended an offer, I would accept it on the spot, that I had done the research and investigation, and this was where I wanted to be. Don't underestimate the power this message can have on a potential employer. Everyone likes to be flattered. Of course it works better if it's true. I left the office cautiously optimistic. That night, between my ridiculously soft sheets, with that feeling of a new city around me and a new beginning on the horizon, I stared at the ceiling and felt elated at the possibilities. Things were happening that could alter the course of my life. One step at a time, I was starting to run. I hadn't grown up with high hopes for my future, but in that moment I had a sense of opportunity knocking, of imagining that I might actually be able to make something out of my life. — Megyn Kelly

I occasionally entertain guests in my office. There are too many things to do and see for them to spare more than a few moments for their professor. They certainly don't have time for tea, and that's a shame. I will not give in to cynicism and call them shallow, but they do concern themselves with trifles more than perhaps they should. They are so quick to be done with their education and out into the world they don't stop to enjoy the pleasure of learning. I frequently hear the word "life" bandied about, and I wonder when they leave if they'll truly know how to live at all. — L. Joseph Shosty

In ancient Rome, when a victorious general paraded through the streets, legend has it that he was sometimes trailed by a servant whose job it was to repeat to him, " Memento Mori": Remember you will die. A reminder of mortality would help the hero keep things in perspective, instill some humility. Job's memento mori had been delivered by his doctors, but it did not instill humility. Instead he roared back after his recovery with even more passion. The illness reminded him that he had nothing to lose, so he should forge ahead full speed. " He came back on a mission," said Cook. " Even though he was now running a large company, he kept making bold moves that I don't think anybody else would have done. — Walter Isaacson

I don't think that everyone should have a philosophical answer to any given question. There are things that need to be done. — Aleksandar Hemon

You see, we were able to give you something, something which even now no one will ever take from you, and we were able to do that principally by sheltering you. Hailsham would not have been Hailsham if we hadn't. Very well, sometimes that meant we kept things from you, lied to you. Yes, in many ways we fooled you, I suppose you could even call it that. But we sheltered you during those years, and we gave you your childhoods. Lucy was well-meaning enough. But if she'd have her way, your happiness at Hailsham would have been shattered. Look at you both now! I'm so proud to see you both. You built your lives on what we gave you. You wouldn't be who you are today if we'd not protected you. You wouldn't have become absorbed in your lessons, you wouldn't have lost yourselves in your art and your writing. Why should you have done, knowing what lay in store for each of you? You would have told us it was all pointless, and how could we have argued with you? So she had to go. — Kazuo Ishiguro

Don't lie - when you are 105 years of age - on your deathbed, thinking, 'I should have done a few things!' I would like to think I tried as much as I could. — Imelda May

You do hear from people that the things that you have done or projects you have worked on have made an impact on people's lives. I think it is important to take that seriously and to recognise that you are being followed and watched by some degree in what you do and you should use that. It's a real blessing to be able to make an impact on people's lives and to use that for the bettering of them. — Bridgit Mendler

And just as Catskin went to the ball, and Cendrillon, and Aschenputtel, so must you. The ball that will be given soon in the palace; I've heard talk of it in the kitchens. The servants say one is held each year. Have you never gone?"
She shook her head.
"Then you must go this year dressed in a fine gown as it is done in the stories."
She sat staring at him. "Me, Gillie? I don't belong at the ball."
"As much as Cinderella did."
"But they are only stories; they're not things that can happen." She studied him for a long time. He did not seem to be making a joke.
"It's what you dream, Thursey. You should do what you dream of doing, else where is the good in dreaming? — Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Maybe I didn't treat you Quite as good as I should have Maybe I didn't love you Quite as often as I could have Little things I should have said and done I just never took the time You were always on my mind You were always on my mind — Elvis Presley

I suppose in the end it's almost too easy to look back and say what you should have done, how you might have changed things. What's harder - what's much, much harder - is to accept what you actually did do. — Peter Hook

You're quite right," said MacMaster. "You're putting your finger on the thing that matters. If you think it over, you know, that's always the interesting part of any murder. What the person was like who was murdered. Everybody's always so busy inquiring into the mind of the murderer. You've been thinking, probably, that Mrs. Argyle was the sort of woman who shouldn't have been murdered." "I should imagine that everyone felt that." "Ethically," said MacMaster, "you're quite right. But you know" - he rubbed his nose - "isn't it the Chinese who held that beneficence is to be accounted a sin rather than a virtue? They've got something there, you know. Beneficence does things to people. Ties 'em up in knots. We all know what human nature's like. Do a chap a good turn and you feel kindly towards him. You like him. But the chap who's had the good turn done to him, does he feel so kindly to — Agatha Christie

I'm a grown man. You know, I've been in a lot of scrapes, but I never felt like I got so - there are probably a lot of things I should have done that I didn't do. — James Stockdale

I've definitely seen things that have made me laugh. And there's some things that are really smart and like, "Oh man, we should have done that, that's really cool!" And there's some things that are like, "Oh, do they know something? I don't know!" So there's the whole variety of things that are in those theories. But they're cool. — Dan Trachtenberg

Exactly, I repeated myself. I believe we do it all the time. We always take up certain elements again. How can it be avoided? An actor's voice always has the same timbre and, consequently, he repeats himself. It is the same for a singer, a painter ... There are always certain things that come back, for they are part of one's personality, of one's style. If these things didn't come into play, a personality would be so complex that it would become impossible to identify it.
It is not my intention to repeat myself, but in my work there should certainly be references to what I have done in the past. Say what you will, but The Trial is the best film I ever made ... I have never been so happy as when I made this film.
(talking about directing, The Trial (1962) - from Orson Welles: Interviews (book)) — Orson Welles

I knew I would replay the scene countless times in the years before me, each time thinking of different things I should have said and done.
But all I did was walk away without looking back. — Lisa Kleypas

While Elstir, at my request, went on painting, I wandered about in the half-light, stopping to examine first one picture, then another.
Most of those that covered the walls were not what I should chiefly have liked to see of his work, paintings in what an English art journal which lay about on the reading-room table in the Grand Hotel called his first and second manners, the mythological manner and the manner in which he shewed signs of Japanese influence, both admirably exemplified, the article said, in the collection of Mme. de Guermantes. Naturally enough, what he had in his studio were almost all seascapes done here, at Balbec. But I was able to discern from these that the charm of each of them lay in a sort of metamorphosis of the things represented in it, analogous to what in poetry we call metaphor, and that, if God the Father had created things by naming them, it was by taking away their names or giving them other names that Elstir created them anew. — Marcel Proust

How seriously would we take person who said, "I have faith in Adolf Hitler, or in John Dilinger. I can't explain why they did the things they did, but I can't believe they would have done them without a good reason." Yet people try to justify the deaths and tragedies God inflicts on innocent victims with almost these same words.
Furthermore, my religious commitment to the supreme value of an individual life makes it hard for me to accept an answer that is not scandalized by an innocent person's pain, that condones human pain because it supposedly contributes to an overall work of esthetic value. If a human artist or employer made children suffer so that something immensely impressive or valuable could come to pass, we would put him in prison. Why then should we excuse God for causing such undeserved pain, no matter how wonderful the ultimate result may be? — Harold S. Kushner

The time I spend in the morning - praying, sipping coffee, and coming up with my list - is a ritual I relish. I have done it for so long now that I subconsciously measure whether or not the things I'm doing match with what I should be doing, what I want to be doing, and the life I want to live. — Kristin Armstrong

Because really, what do you have to lose? Your life? That's no big deal, I promise you. When you find out you might die, you're finally allowed to live like you never have before. If you lose your life while living the shit out of it, then you've done the best you could, and you shouldn't worry about death. When you're dead, you can't screw up. But while you're here, all you have are a few things to call your own. You have your integrity, your family, and your hope for the future. These are important and you should keep them somewhere safe where you'll remember them. — Kevin Lankes

Let me get this straight," Nina said. "You haven't kissed me because the setting isn't suitably romantic?"
"This isn't about romance . A proper kiss, a proper courtship. There's a way these things should be done."
"For proper thieves?" The corners of her beautiful mouth curled and for a moment he was afraid she would laugh at him, but she simply shook her head and drew even nearer. Her body was the barest breath from his now. The need to close that scrap of distance was maddening.
"The first day you showed up at my house for this proper courtship, I would have cornered you in the pantry," she said. — Leigh Bardugo

I journaled: "Why do I feel like crap after being offered a book deal by one of the best publishers on the planet?" The answer that I came up with surprised me. I knew there were people who would have done anything to get their work out into the world this way. i knew there were people who had worked their butts off and still hadn't made it. I knew there were people who had amazing, life-changing things to say who didn't have the platforms to say it yet. I knew there were people who would have been doing cartwheels in the street if they were me right now. And I felt like because they wanted it more, they should have it instead of me. — Kate Northrup

There's a lot of things that I've done to stick into the box set. You never have it this good. I think people should bargain. They shouldn't just buy the set, it's a little expensive [anyway]. But they should say - I'll give them dialogue, I'm a good writer. — Mel Brooks

When you do what I've done - the normal Hollywood way, where you let people do things for you - and then you make certain choices where you have to learn to do it for yourself, which is how you should do it, it caused me to get way behind in stuff. I wouldn't change a thing because it's been a very important learning thing. — Stephen Baldwin

Little things I should have said and done I just never took the time You were always on my mind — Willie Nelson

I discovered early on that the player who learned the fundamentals of basketball is going to have a much better chance of succeeding and rising through the levels of competition than the player who was content to do things his own way. A player should be interested in learning why things are done a certain way. The reasons behind the teaching often go a long way to helping develop the skill. — John Wooden

Learning how to play an instrument has always been near the top of my to-do list, but what are the chances now? There's little downtime with a column and a two-year-old, and after reading Goldilocks and the three Bears and going through half a bottle of wine with dinner on an average evening, imagining a day when I join Nathaniel on the Elgar Cello Concerto is not a vision but a hallucination. I'm at the point where the things on your to-do list get transferred to a should-have-done list, and one reason I write a column is for the privilege of vicariously sampling other worlds, dropping in with my passport, my notebook and my curiosity. — Steve Lopez

I didn't believe that God told some guy, however many thousands of years ago, "Hey, build a ginormous boat in this desert over here." I liked it as a story, though, because it seemed like the kind of thing God ought to say. There were crazy stupid things that needed to get done, or should have gotten done, or turned out to be wonderful when they did get done. And maybe, if God ever did tell people what to do, it was to stick up for these crazy stupid things that no one in their right mind would ever do otherwise. — Emily Horner

We can't lose you," she said after a few moments of awkward as hell silence. "You have to understand that we aren't doing this because we don't care about Kat. We're doing this because we love you."
"But I love her," I said without hesitation.
Dee's eyes widened, probably since it was the first time she'd herd me say it out loud, well, about anyone other than my family. I wished I had said it more often, especially to Kat. Funny how that kind of shit always turns out in the end. While you're deep in something, you never say or do what you need to. It's always after the fact, when it's too late that you realize what you've should've said or done/
It couldn't be too late. I knew that. The fact that I was still alive was testament to that. Like Dee said, though, there were worse things than death. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

[N]ow that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Being a pastor, of course, obviously people would say it (shouldn't) have done much but, boy, it sure gave me a peace I never had before. I think we struggle in life. Even people of faith struggle when things don't work out quite the way we think they should. — Todd Burpo

I knew that these people on their way to work or home or dinner had no idea what it was they were supporting. They did not have a clue as to what war was like. What it made people see, and what it made them do to each other. I felt as though I didn't deserve their support, or anyone's, for what I had done. No one should ever support the activities in which I had participated. No one should ever support the people who do such things. (...) They were uninformed but good people. The kind whose respect we would welcome if it was based upon something true. It was when we were around them that we had to hide the actual truth most consciously. It wasn't enough to not mention the war or being a veteran, because they'd bring it up. The civilians we were most anxious around, and therefore tended the most to avoid, were exactly those good citizens who thought they were helping us. — Jessica Goodell

I tried to convince myself, too, but I was a much tougher sell because I knew the truth. I was so very not okay. I realized that I was going to feel shitty either way. I was probably going to feel shitty for the rest of my life, a life I should not even still be living. A life that should have let me go. So I got angry. Then I got very angry. Then I got angrier still. But you can only go so long being angry before you learn to hate. I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and started hating instead. Whining was pathetic, but hate got things done. Hate strengthened my body and shaped my resolve and what I resolved to do was to get revenge. Hate seemed pretty damn healthy to me. - Nastya Kashnikov — Katja Millay

Maybe I flatter myself when I think that I have things in common with Hamlet, that I have
an important mission, that I'm temporarily mixed up about how it should be done. Hamlet had one
big edge on me. His father's ghost told him exactly what he had to do, while I am operating
without instructions. But from somewhere something is trying to tell me where to go, what to do
there, and why to do it. Don't worry, I don't hear voices. But there is this feeling that I have a
destiny far away from the shallow and preposterous posing that is our life in New York. And I
roam.
And I roam. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I've always thought that there shouldn't be any limit to the things that are well designed. And I think that people who consider that art should only be kept for art galleries and doesn't have a role in public life, I think that's too narrow. — Ken Done

Now I happen to possess the bump of locality. It is not a virtue; I make no boast of it. It is merely an animal instinct that I cannot help. That things occasionally get in my way - mountains, precipices, rivers, and such like obstructions - is no fault of mine. My instinct is correct enough; it is the earth that is wrong. I led them by the middle road. That the middle road had not character enough to continue for any quarter of a mile in the same direction; that after three miles up and down hill it ended abruptly in a wasps' nest, was not a thing that should have been laid to my door. If the middle road had gone in the direction it ought to have done, it would have taken us to where we wanted to go, of that I am convinced. — Jerome K. Jerome

I used to think I knew everything. I was a "smart person" who "got things done," and because of that, the higher I climbed, the more I could look down and scoff at what seemed silly or simple, even religion.
But I realized something as I drove home that night: that I am neither better nor smarter, only luckier. And I should be ashamed of thinking I knew everything, because you can know the whole world and still feel lost in it. So many people are in pain-no matter how smart or accomplished-they cry, they yearn, they hurt.But instead of looking down on things, they look up, which is where I should have been looking, too. Because when the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same things:comfort, love, and a peaceful heart. — Mitch Albom

It was not an eventful day. I should have done extraordinary things. I should have sucked the marrow out of life. But on that day, I slept eighteen hours out of a possible twenty-four. — John Green

I guess we can all look back and see things in our lives that we could or should have done differently - and better - and — Duff McKagan

What do you want to know, my pretty?" Gordoc asked, his expression one of puzzlement. "Do you want me to scare Merl off--thump him for you? Just tell him your Uncle Gordoc will have words with him if he offends you."

"No, no, I don't mean that." Tashi smiled. "He's not insulted me--at least, not by Eastern standards, I suppose." She wrinkled her nose.

"What's he done?" growled Ramil.

"Well, first there's the gifts--flowers and jewelry, mainly. What should I say when he gives me things?"

"Thank you' usually does the trick," said Gordoc — Julia Golding

I'd like to get the sex thing over with, but I realized I'm not done with it.You should never will a change in your work-you have to work an idea to death. I often find that the best things happen when you're near the end. — John Currin

Strong passions are the precious raw material of sanctity. Individuals that have carried their sinning to extremes should not despair or say, "I am too great a sinner to change," or "God would not want me." God will take anyone who is willing to love, not with an occasional gesture, but with a "passionless passion," a "wild tranquility." A sinner, unrepentant, cannot love God, any more that a man on dry land can swim; but as soon as he takes his errant energies to God and asks for their redirection, he will become happy, as he was never happy before. It is not the wrong things one has already done which keep one from God; it is the present persistence in that wrong. — Fulton J. Sheen

Full House was a show that was done for ten-year-olds. The critics hated it. They said terrible, terrible things about it. But it should have been reviewed by ten-year-olds. That's who it was made for. They loved it. And if they loved it, great. Why the hell does a fifty-year-old guy working at a big newspaper have to tell me I'm a piece of crap? — Bob Saget

I have made mistakes, but I feel that the people who have done things to me - they should be ashamed. — Sean Quinn

I feel alive for the first time in years. I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. For a little while I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. I suppose I'll have to do even more violent things, exposing myself so I won't fall down on the job and turn scared again — Ray Bradbury

As a result of my hike, I am much more inclined to "do" things. I will have fewer "should have done"s even if it means incurring some "wish I hadn't"s. — David Miller

Some of the regrets I've had about my own career are things I have not done that I should have done. More than some of the things that I've done. — Samuel Goldwyn Jr.

I had to do things to myself on the page that had been done to me in real life. I had to try and drown myself in the bath. You have to do that. And the impulse is to rescue yourself and to spare the reader, but I can't rescue myself. And why should I spare the reader when nobody spared me? It's telling people what happened. — Damian Barr

Musashi wondered how many people there were who on this night could say: "I was right. I did what I should have done. I have no regrets." For him, each resounding knell evoked a tremor of remorse. He could conjure up nothing but the things he had done wrong during the last year. Nor was it only the last year - the year before, and the year before that, all the years that had gone by had brought regrets. There had not been a single year devoid of them. Indeed, there had hardly been one day. — Eiji Yoshikawa

Strangely enough, when you get older the things you didn't understand when you were a child start to make sense. "When this happened, I should have done that." "When that happened, I should have said this." those types of things. You start to understand rather than regret. It may be closer to repentance. So it may be that I do want to repent and erase the ignorant self from my childhood. — Natsuki Takaya

I think we have a high responsibility to base any criticisms that we have on a fair and honest statement of the facts, and that nominees should not be subjected to distortions of their record, taking things they've done out of context. — Jeff Sessions

Gentleman, we're all cruel, we're all monsters, we all make men weep and mothers, and babes at the breast, but of all, let it be settled here, now, of all I am the lowest reptile! I've sworn to amend, and every day I've done the same filthy things. I understand now that such men as I need a blow, a blow of destiny to catch them as with a noose, and bind them by force from without. Never, never should I have risen of myself! But the thunderbolt has fallen. I accept torture of accusation, and my public shame; I want to suffer and by suffering I shall be purified. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Nothing that I've turned down do I feel like I should have done. Because I've generated everything I've done, I've never really considered doing something that I haven't originated myself. There are definitely things that I've been brought that someone else made good movies out of. But it's not a path I've followed, so I don't have regret. — Noah Baumbach

It's funny, you can get over the win pretty quick and get ready for the next opponent. When you lose, it just eats at you ... What could we have done? What should I have done? All those things. Just part of playing professional sports and sports in general. — Tony Romo

I am disappointed with myself. I am disappointed not so much with the particular things I have done as with the aspects of who I have become. I have a nagging sense that all is not as it should be. — John Ortberg Jr.

I wonder what Thoreau would have done...[H}is greatest story, I thought, was his life. He knew that anything is possible when you wield the pen and claim your life as your own. But the truth is so few have the privilege to write their own stories. People are born
into poverty without a hope of redemption. Children are abused and damaged. Disease and war and famine and a million other things prevent them from wielding the pen. But for those of us who can, should it not be our great privilege
to live the lives we've imagined? To be who we want to be? To go on our own great journeys and share our experiences with others? — Ken Ilgunas

But somehow, there's less time to think since she came back. We're too busy talking, or working, or having sex (there's a lot of sex at the moment, much of it initiated by me as a way of banishing insecurity), or eating, or going to the pictures. Maybe I should stop doing these things, so as I can work it all out properly, because I know these things are important times. But then again, maybe I shouldn't; maybe this is how it's done. Maybe this is how people manage to have relationships. — Nick Hornby

Freedom continues to be the thing I prize most in the world. Of course, this has led me to drink wines I did not like, to do things I should not have done and which I will not do again; it has left scars on my body and on my soul, it has meant hurting certain people, although I have since asked their forgiveness, when I realized that I could do absolutely anything except force another person to follow me in my madness, in my lust for life. I don't regret the painful times; I bear my scars like medals. I know that freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that smile is dimmed by tears. — Paulo Coelho

Once when I was younger I went out and sat under the sky and looked up and asked it to take me back. What I should have done was gone to the swamp and bog and ask them to bring me back because, if anything is, mud and marsh are the origins of life. Now i think of the storm that made chaos, that the storm opened a door. It tried to make over a world the way it wanted it to be. At school I learned that storms create life, that lightning, with its nitrogen, is a beginning; bacteria and enzymes grow new life from decay out of darkness and water. It's into this that I want to fall, into swamp and mud and sludge and it seems like falling is the natural way of things; gravity needs no fuel, no wings. It needs only stillness and waiting and time. — Linda Hogan

I've never seen an exploding helicopter. I've never seen anybody go and blow somebody's head off. So why should I make films about them? But I have seen people destroy themselves in the smallest way, I've seen people withdraw, I've seen people hide behind political ideas, behind dope, behind the sexual revolution, behind fascism, behind hypocrisy, and I've myself done all these things. So I can understand them. What we are saying is so gentle. It's gentleness. We have problems, terrible problems, but our problems are human problems. — John Cassavetes

I don't believe in funerals.

Funerals aren't for the dead. The dead are gone. They couldn't care less.

Funerals are for the living.

They're for the people trying to feel better about the things they could have said, the things they could have done for the dead while they were still alive.

The dead don't give a damn.

The dead couldn't care less about what's being said to them, about them.

Hell, they're dead.

The dead know the living aren't there for them, but for themselves. To feel better, to feel less guilty, less regretful, to feel loved, better appreciated by all the other living people who, like them, should have paid attention to the dead while it still mattered, while they were still alive.

So screw funerals.

Forget the dead.

Tend to the living.

Before it's too late.

Before they're dead — Lionel Fisher

want you, it's their loss," Grandma said. "Why don't we just wait and see what they say?" Ms. Donatello told me. "I have to go to the bathroom," Georgia said. I didn't want to talk anymore, so I just made like Leonardo the Silent and kept my mouth shut after that. Finally, the office door opened, and Mr. Crawley, the director of the school, came over to talk to us. I tried not to look like I wanted to disappear. Or self-destruct. Or both. "First of all, Rafe," he said, "you should know there are three things we look for in an applicant. One of those is experience. A lot of the students at Cathedral have been studying art since before they could write." "Sure," I said. "I get it. No problem." But he wasn't done yet. "The other two things we look for are talent and persistence," he said. "Not only is that portfolio of yours full of artistic promise, it's also just full. When I see that, I see a boy who would probably keep drawing whether anyone was paying attention or not. — James Patterson

One of the hardest things I've had to learn as a writer is that while virtually any story can be a good book if done correctly, not every story should. It's possible to have an amazing idea and still lack the interest necessary to polish it to publication level shine. I can not tell you the number of books I've plotted, written 30k words in, and then abandoned because I simply could not stand to look at them another second. Every single one of these ideas looked great on paper, and maybe in another author's hands they could have been golden, but in the end I just didn't care enough to push through. — Rachel Aaron

I'm sure there are a lot of things I should have done differently. But I don't think I've stepped on anyone along the way. If I have, I didn't mean to. — Patti Page

I thought about how, at twenty-six, I shouldn't have to floss yet, who wants to be bothered! I didn't even have the energy left over for flossing. I mean, how many things was I supposed to do? Flossing should only be done by people in their forties. — Chrissi Sepe

Today I am amazed at the things our children have done and their wide range of interests. They are all living their lives and not the ones I would have planned for them. But I have learned that their lives are theirs, not mine, and in living their own lives they have given me experiences and an education I would never have had if I'd been fool enough to make them do what I thought they should do. — Bernie Siegel

I do not long for those days. I have no desire to make you "tough" or "street," perhaps because any "toughness" I garnered came reluctantly. I think I was always, somehow, aware of the price. I think I somehow knew that a third of my brain should have been concerned with more beautiful things. I think I felt that something out there, some force, nameless and vast, had robbed me of ... what? Time? Experience? I think you know something of what that third could have done, and I think that is why you may feel the need for escape even more than I did. You have seen all the wonderful life up above the tree-line, yet you understand that there is no real distance between you and Trayvon Martin, and thus Trayvon Martin must terrify you in a way that he could never terrify me. You have seen so much more of all that is lost when they destroy your body. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

When I was a teenager I took freedom for granted until I got through the army and saw what the Nazis had done in Germany. Then I realized that freedom isn't automatic; it has a price.

World War II was a justified and necessary war. Last year I met five survivors of Auschwitz concentration camp. The things that happened to those people should never have happened to any human being.

- Ed Tipper — Marcus Brotherton

I used to routinely turn down things that might compound the impression that I was some kind of vacuous blonde. But now, when I look back, I think I should have done them because I would be very rich - being taken seriously isn't all it's cracked up to be. — Mariella Frostrup

I am asked what strength is. Strength is the ability to not do to others only the things that were done to you. It is said, that you should "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", but strength takes that even further and says, "I can give more than what I received in life, I can be more than those who gave me little, I can do more for others than what was done for me." Strength, though well aware of the pain that is aroused by drawing from a well that is not naturally replenished by others, continues to replenish that well so that it may draw from those beautiful innate waters, so that it may give to others even those things that were not given unto it. — C. JoyBell C.

Whatever the reasons that I turn things down, I'm always happy when there's a good result, and I can enjoy it as a movie, you know? I don't feel like, 'Oh man, that was really good. I should have done it.' You have to make the decisions you have to make, whether it has to do with your family or repeating a character or whatever it is. — John C. Reilly

I don't look back on my life with a single moment of regret or remorse for things I didn't do, should have done or might have done differently. — Dave Liniger

I sleep till one, and I'm always surprised when someone in blue rinse on a talk show says, 'You're a genius, Mr. Newley, you do so many things.' Tony Newley never realized his potential, did the things he should have done. — Anthony Newley

I can't tell you what to do. No one can. But as the mother of two children, I can tell you what most moms will: that mothering is absurdly hard and profoundly sweet. Like the best thing you ever did. Like if you think you want to have a baby, you probably should.
I say this in spite of the fact that children are giant endless suck machines. They don't give a whit if you need to sleep or eat or pee or get your work done or go out to a party naked and oiled up in a homemade Alice B. Toklas mask. They take everything. They will bring you the furthest edge of your personality and abso-fucking-lutely to your knees.
They will also give you everything back. Not just all they take, but many of the things you lost before they came along as well. — Cheryl Strayed

I think Ive done the best I could have done. But I keep wanting to play better, go further. There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I havent yet done. When I was younger I thought maybe Id reached that peak. But Im 86 now, and if I make it through to next month, Ill be 87. And now I know it can never be perfect, it can never be exactly what it should be, so you got to keep going further, getting better. — B.B. King

I did things I should not have done. But people make mistakes, especially at my age, when you feel you are so smart, but in fact you are an asshole. — Martina Hingis

May 20, '95 - Mississippi calls. She says, "All my working life I have done things to help black people. I can drive into the black part of town where no white person would dare to go. I have nothing to fear. They say, 'Hi there, Mizz Mississippi.' I still call them niggers, but only because of the way they act. I'd have an affair with Johnnie Cochran in a minute." Once she said to me, "I don't see why I should have to feel guilty about the Holocaust. It's not my fault." I hadn't been talking or thinking about the Holocaust, and hadn't told anyone to feel guilty. Her remark came out of nowhere. We were in a diner, about to have a sandwich and suddenly the moment was explosive. Simply being a Jew arouses a peculiar expectation mixed with resentment, even in a highly intelligent woman. Amazing to me is that she doesn't do much but watch television, drink beer, and smoke Marlboros, and yet seethes with dark thoughts and tumultuous feeling. — Leonard Michaels

... I seemed to be lying neither asleep nor awake looking down a long corridor of gray half light where all stable things had become shadowy paradoxical all I had done shadows all I had felt suffered taking visible form antic and perverse mocking without relevance inherent themselves with the denial of the significance they should have affirmed thinking I was I was not who was not was not who. — William Faulkner

only had to write the play that I was already thinking of. Plays are much easier to write than books, because you can see them in your mind's eye, you are not hampered with all that description which clogs you so terribly in a book and stops you getting on with what's happening. The circumscribed limits of the stage simplifies things for you. You don't have to follow the heroine up and down the stairs, or out to the tennis lawn and back, thinking thoughts that have to be described. You have only what can be seen and heard and done to deal with. Looking and listening and feeling is what you have to deal with. I should — Agatha Christie

Perrin told me about his people before I ever came here," she said. He was not a man to brag, but things had a way of coming out. "When hail flattens your crops, when the winter kills half your sheep, you buckle down and keep going. When Trollocs devastated the Two Rivers, you fought back, and when you were done with them, you set about rebuilding without missing a step." She would not have believed that without seeing for herself, not of southerners. These people would have done very well in Saldaea, where Trolloc raids were a matter of course, in the northern parts at least. "I cannot tell you the weather will be what it should tomorrow. I can tell you that Perrin and I will do what needs to be done, whatever can be done. And I don't need to tell you that you will take what each day brings, whatever it is, and be ready to face the next. That is the kind of people the Two Rivers breeds. That is who you are. — Robert Jordan

I am almost dizzied by a sudden knowledge, as cold as snow down my spine; that I, too, will grow up one day like everyone else, and look back and miss the years gone by, and the things I could have done, should have done. And growing up is suddenly not something to be impatient for, not all jam and buns and doing as one pleases. It is precisely the opposite. — Paul Kearney

Personally, the message that I would like to convey to everyone is just that life is really great and you can do whatever you want with it. That's what I feel like I've gotten out of my experience with the band, because I have done so many amazing things that I never thought I would get to do-and I don't really feel like I'm any more qualified than the next person. I feel like people should take their goals seriously and do exactly what they want, because they can. — Agent M

You know, many people have said that I'm on the edge and I'm maverick for some of the big operations that I've done. I'm not at all. I pray; I ask God to give me wisdom, 'Should I do it?', guidance in terms of how to do it, who to consult with. All those kind of things are incredibly important. — Ben Carson

I get anxious about a lot of things, that's the trouble. I get anxious about everything. I just can't stop thinking about things all the time. And here's the really destructive part - it's always retrospective. I waste time thinking of what I should have said or done. — Hugh Laurie

The day it comes out, there's already things that you start to go, 'Oh, I should have done that a little differently.' You start to make a list in your head. I actually write things down
what I'm going to do next time. — Howie Day

I'm in a position where, if you have the ability, you should use it well. To get things done. — Christine Quinn

I had an abortion when I was 16. Because that's what I should have done. Otherwise I would now have a 20-year-old kid. Anyway, those are things that people shouldn't be dishonest about it. — Chelsea Handler

In raising children, life brings forth those things where you do what you should never have done and what I taught you never to do. And when my kids have done those things, I just kind of look at them and say, 'Now you know life.' — George Foreman