“
I can’t undo the past. But in the future, I will gladly lay my life down for you, brother. (Styxx)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Second Chances (Dark-Hunter #7.1))
“
You can’t heal a heart that’s been fragmented. But my wounds were closing. Stitch by stitch, I was starting to feel again. I can’t undo the past and stop everything that has happened. However, I can try to take a tiny step forward.
”
”
Calia Read (Breaking the Wrong (Sloan Brothers, #2))
“
It’s interesting-most people think about therapy as something that involves going in and undoing what’s happened. But whatever your past experiences created in your brain, the associations exist and you can’t just delete them. You can’t get rid of the past.
Therapy is more about building new associations, making new, healthier default pathways. It is almost as if therapy is taking your two-lane dirt road and building a four-lane freeway alongside it. The old road stays, but you don’t use it much anymore. Therapy is building a better alternative, a new default. And that takes repetition, and time, honestly, it works best if someone understands how the brain changes. This is why understanding how trauma impacts our health is essential for everyone.
”
”
Bruce D. Perry (What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing)
“
Would you trade him in order to undo the past?"
That's a question I can't answer.
”
”
M. Leighton (The Wild Ones (The Wild Ones, #1))
“
I don't have a lot of regrets about the way I've lived my life. Not because I haven't made mistakes - I've made plenty. But what's the point of regret? You can't undo the past.
”
”
Cindy Crawford
“
My dad says stop thinking that way. “You be lookin’ backward all the time, Brady, you’re gonna have one heck of a crook in the neck.” He smiles when he says that. But I know what he means deep down, and it’s not funny. You can’t keep dwelling on the past when you can’t undo it. You can’t make it happen any different than it did.
”
”
Priscilla Cummings (Red Kayak)
“
Nothing you do now can undo what’s been done. You can’t change the past.
”
”
Madisyn Carlin (Shattered Reflection (The Shattered Lands, #1))
“
You can't undo the past, but you can learn from it.
”
”
Karen Witemeyer (At Love's Command (Hanger's Horsemen, #1))
“
An unknown place in some distant land can’t undo the tragedies of the past. If it could, we’d all be travelers, spending our natural lives on steamer ships and trains.
”
”
Mimi Matthews (A Modest Independence (Parish Orphans of Devon, #2))
“
Dear girl, face whatever it is. You’ve been brave already. You’ve come here on your own. Only a brave soul would do that. Be brave again. Be brave until the end. You can’t go back and undo this. It’s one of the harsh realities of this life. If I could I’d go back and unsay every harsh word I’ve ever uttered. But I can’t—and you can’t change the past either. Look ahead.
”
”
Rachel Fordham (Yours Truly, Thomas)
“
For those filled with regret, perhaps the most needful exercise of proactivity is to realize that past mistakes are also out there in the Circle of Concern. We can’t recall them, we can’t undo them, we can’t control the consequences that came as a result.
”
”
Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
“
You can't undo the past, but you can learn from it. ... I believe in you, Charlie. I believe that you can be a man God designed you to be. A man of honor and integrity. You've got a good heart. ... It's just a little rusty, is all. Give it a good scrubbing, scrape away the corrosion, and infuse it with a purpose higher than itself. It will shine again.
”
”
Karen Witemeyer (At Love's Command (Hanger's Horsemen, #1))
“
You can’t undo the past, but you can remedy it by creating a better future.
”
”
A.D. Posey
“
You can't undo the past. And you can't put it back together either.
”
”
Chris Cole
“
You can't undo the past
”
”
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
“
You can’t take away the past; you can only add to the narrative. There is a narrative about Muslims that already exists. I’m not here to undo or rewrite history. That is propaganda or an impossibility. What I, and others, can do is expand on the notion of what it means to be Muslim, continue the story line that survives alongside us.
”
”
Ilhan Omar (This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman)
“
Ten things that won’t make you happier Wanting to be someone you aren’t. Wishing you could undo a past that can’t be undone. Taking out your hurt on people who didn’t cause your hurt. Trying to distract yourself from pain by doing something that creates more pain. Being unable to forgive yourself. Waiting for people to understand you when they don’t even understand themselves. Imagining happiness is the place you reach when you get everything done. Trying to control things in a universe characterized by unpredictability. Avoiding painful memories by resisting a contented present. The belief that you have to be happy.
”
”
Matt Haig (The Comfort Book)
“
It's not that your mother didn't love you,' the boy named Crow says from behind me. 'She loved you very deeply. The first thing you have to do is believe that. That's your starting point.'
'But she abandoned me. She disappeared, leaving me alone where I shouldn't be. I'm finally beginning to understand how much that hurt. How could she do it if she really loved me?'
'That's the reality of it. It did happen,'the boy named Crow says. 'You were hurt badly, and those scars will be with you forever. I feel sorry for you, I really do. But think of it like this: It's not too late to recover. You're young, you're tough. You're adaptable. You can patch up your wounds, lift your head, and move on. But for her that's not an option. The only thing she'll ever be is lost. It doesn't matter whether somebody judges this as good or bad- that's not the point. You're the one who has the advantage. You ought to consider that.'
I don't respond.
'It all really happened, you can't undo it,' Crow tells me. 'She shouldn't have abandoned you then, and you shouldn't have been abandoned. But things in the past are like a plate that's shattered to pieces. You can never put it back together like it was, right?'
I nod. You can never put it back together like it was. He's hit the nail on the head.
The boy named Crow continues. 'Your mother felt a gut-wrenching kind of fear and anger inside her, okay? Just like you do now. Which is why she had to abandon you.'
'Even though she loved me?'
'Even though she loved you, she had to abandon you. You need to understand how she felt then, and learn to accept it. Understand the overpowering fear and anger she experienced, and feel it as your own- so you won't inherit it and repeat it. The main thing is this: You have to forgive her. That's not going to be easy, I know, but you have to do it. That's the only way you can be saved. There's no other way!'
- pg 398-99
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)
“
Why can’t you just get over it? It’s all in the past.’
These two statements often run together. Apparently, history is not
there to be learned from, rather it’s a large boulder to be gotten over.
It’s fascinating, because in the hundreds of workshops I’ve taught on
Shakespeare no one has ever told me to get over his writing because
it’s, you know, from the, erm, past. I’m still waiting for people to get
over Plato, or Da Vinci or Bertrand Russell, or indeed the entirety of
recorded history, but it seems they just won’t. It is especially odd in a
nation where much of the population is apparently proud of Britain’s
empire that critics of one of its most obvious legacies should be asked
to get over it, the very same thing from the past that they are proud of.
But anyway, let’s imagine for a second that humanity did indeed ‘get
over’ - which in this case means forget - the past. Well, we’d have to
learn to walk and talk and cook and hunt and plant crops all over again,
we’d have to undo all of human invention and start from . . . when?
What period exactly is it we are allowed to start our memory from?
Those that tell us to get over the past never seem to specify, but I’m
eager to learn. In reality, of course, they just don’t want to have any
conversations that they find uncomfortable.
”
”
Akala (Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire)
“
You cannot undo anything that you did in the past But you can learn from it Even the gods can’t change the past
”
”
Jason King Godwise (The Sacred Havamal)
“
We can’t undo the past, but we can learn from it by looking to the future
”
”
Kim J. Vicente (The Human Factor)
“
You can’t bring back what is gone or undo what has already happened, but what you can do is build a better tomorrow. You have no control over your past, but the future is still in your hands. So what are you waiting for?
”
”
Santosh Nair (Eleven Commandments of Life Maximization)
“
Sometimes I forget for one second and it hurts.
It’s a different kind of pain than the constant, the weight that hangs from my heart. It swings from twine embedded so deeply that my aorta has grown around it. Blood pulses past rope in the chambers of my heart, dragging away tiny fibers until my whole body is suffused and pain is all I am and ever can be. But sometimes it swings just right and there's a moment of suspension when I can't feel it. The rope goes slack and the laws of physics give me one second of relief. I can laugh and smile and feel something else. But, those same laws undo me. And, when it swings back, there's a sharp tug on my heart to remind me that I forgot.
”
”
Mindy McGinnis (The Female of the Species)
“
I am suggesting a seismic shift in black politics. Obviously, we can’t stand idly by as Democrats take our votes for granted and cave to forces that devastate our communities. Nor can extremists on the right and those who enable them expect us to sit back as they trade in racist nonsense, continue to legislate for the 1 percent, and undo the modest gains we’ve made in this country. What has become crystal clear over these past few years, at least to me, is that business as usual isn’t sufficient; that the typical black characters on the national scene have to be called out for what they have failed to do and say in the face of what has happened and is happening in black America.
”
”
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul)
“
I stay in that state of mind for the next couple of days, in the places that only exist in the past. The things you can’t undo get lodged in the darkest corners of your mind, where nothing ever seems to get solved, just recycled into new anxiety.
”
”
Caroline Burau (Answering 911: Life in the Hot Seat)
“
Forgive yourself.
Forgive yourself for what happened.
For the mistakes you made. For your poor choices.
For not showing up the way
you needed to. For being the person
you wanted to be. You're human.
You did the best you could in the moment
given what you knew and what you had,
and that's all you can ask for yourself.
You're still learning. You're still finding
your way. That takes time.
And you're allowed to give yourself that time.
You're allowed to show up in the world imperfectly.
You're allowed to fail at
things you tried hard for. You're allowed
to realize you made the wrong decision.
You're allowed to be someone who's still
figuring out their path and their purpose.
You're allowed to forgive yourself.
You can't go back and change the decisions you've made, but you can choose
what you do today. You can keep choosing,
again and again. You can start over.
And that's where your power is--in today.
So no more beating yourself up. No more
going over and over it again in your head
and torturing yourself with the past.
What happened is over, and all the shame and
self-hatred in the world won't undo that.
Today, you're starting over.
Today, you're moving forward
with the new knowledge and experiences you have.
Today, you can be the person you want to be and live the life you want to live.
You're not a bad person.
You're not a disappointment or a failure.
”
”
Daniell Koepke (Daring To Take Up Space)
“
IT’S A CHOICE
Try as we might; neither I nor anyone else can change the past. Yet, our history does not have to hold us hostage. We can’t change things said and done to us, nor can we undo and change what we have done to others. There is no do-over, unfortunately. What we can choose to do, however, is grow and take ownership of our mistakes and share our history and experiences to heal ourselves and others. We can also choose to forgive ourselves and others, and we can also choose to use our experiences to raise ourselves while giving hope and inspiration to others. We can choose to grow from adversity, and we can choose to let go of victimhood.
And that is what I decided to do when I left prison, here and in my book. I choose to own it all – the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I choose to let it all go and use my story as both a cautionary tale and a source of inspiration.
”
”
Sonny Von Cleveland (Hey White Boy: Conversations of Redemption)
“
That's what we do. Embellish. Decorate. Unvarnished truth has only limited appeal. Some events are a joy to recall, but others are best modified, even forgotten. They live in some lumber-room of the mind, housed somewhere you wouldn't want to go alone and never after dark. If I make a mistake in my work or if I change my mind, I can unpick. Undo what I've done. I can make good my errors and no one is the wiser. If they looked, even through a magnifying glass, all observers would see would be the tiny holes where my needle had travelled. I can erase even that evidence by scratching carefully at the weave of the lining with my needle, until the holes are no longer visible. But life isn't like that. Mistakes once made are rarely reversible. The holes they leave in the fabric of life aren't tiny and they can't be scratched away. You have to live with them as best you can. Work round them. That's why you have to come to terms with memory. You can't obliterate the past or eradicate it from the mind, even when, for our own good, memory enfolds us in a blanket of forgetfulness. There are always traces left, marks where time gripped us and left its telltale fingerprint.
”
”
Linda Gillard (Untying the Knot)
“
I was told love should be unconditional. That's the rule, everyone says so. But if love has no boundaries, no limits, no conditions, why should anyone try to do the right thing ever? If I know I am loved no matter what, where is the challenge? I am supposed to love Nick despite all his shortcomings. And Nick is supposed to love me despite my quirks. But clearly, neither of us does. It makes me think that everyone is very wrong, that love should have many conditions. Love should require both partners to be their very best at all times. Unconditional love is an undisciplined love, and as we all have seen, undisciplined love is disastrous.
You can read more about my thoughts on love in Amazing. Out soon!
But first: motherhood. The due date is tomorrow. Tomorrow happens to be our anniversary. Year six. Iron. I thought about giving Nick a nice pair of handcuffs, but he may not find that funny yet. It's so strange to think: A year ago today, I was undoing my husband. Now I am almost done reassembling him.
Nick has spent all his free time these past months slathering my belly with cocoa butter and running out for pickles and rubbing my feet, and all the things good fathers-to-be are supposed to do. Doting on me. He is learning to love me unconditionally, under all my conditions. I think we are finally on our way to happiness. I have finally figured it out.
We are on the eve of becoming the world's best, brightest nuclear family.
We just need to sustain it. Nick doesn't have it down perfect. This morning he was stroking my hair and asking what else he could do for me, and I said: 'My gosh, Nick, why are you so wonderful to me?'
He was supposed to say: You deserve it. I love you.
But he said, 'Because I feel sorry for you.'
'Why?'
'Because every morning you have to wake up and be you.'
I really, truly wish he hadn't said that. I keep thinking about it. I can't stop.
I don't have anything else to add. I just wanted to make sure I had the last word. I think I've earned that.
”
”
Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl)
“
You can't do anything about the Past, life doesn't give you Undo Option. Live Now! Hence you need not that Option.
”
”
The Idealist Merchant
“
In this exercise we try to untangle the knot of pain and/or anger created by conflict. Even if the relationship is not one you want to salvage or have the option of rebuilding, this exercise will help you let go of anger and find peace. Before you start, visualize yourself in the other person’s shoes. Acknowledge their pain and understand that it is why they are causing you pain. Then, write a letter of forgiveness. List all the ways you think the other person did you wrong. Forgiving another person honestly and specifically goes a long way toward healing the relationship. Start each item with “I forgive you for…” Keep going until you get everything out. We’re not sending this letter, so you can repeat yourself if the same thing keeps coming to mind. Write everything you wanted to say but never had a chance. You don’t have to feel forgiveness. Yet. When you write it down, what you’re doing is beginning to understand the pain more specifically so that you can slowly let it go. Acknowledge your own shortcomings. What was your role, if any, in the situation or conflict? List the ways you feel you did wrong, starting each with the phrase “Please forgive me for…” Remember you can’t undo the past, but taking responsibility for your role will help you understand and let go of your anger toward yourself and the other person. When you are done with this letter, record yourself reading it. (Most phones can do this.) Play it back, putting yourself in the position of the objective observer. Remember that the pain inflicted on you isn’t yours. It’s the other person’s pain. As Wayne Dyer once wrote, when you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice. When you squeeze someone full of pain, pain comes out. Instead of absorbing it or giving it back, if you forgive, you help diffuse the pain.
”
”
Jay Shetty (Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Everyday)
“
Passing Through Her Mirror!
When the time was right,
And there was light and delight,
But now nothing can undo her present plight,
Unless she bows a bit and ruffles the curtains to allow in some graceful light!
She seems to try but only to fail,
Because she still wears the past like an invisible veil,
But today it is midsummer day again,
And the rose is peeping through the window glass again,
Alas the mirror with just the black base can’t reflect its colours now,
And the old lady lies lifeless with a bent back and a fallen head in a perfect bow!
Time has won yet again,
But the eternal question remains “who lost her life to time and who was slain?
”
”
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
“
I’ve never been prone to dwelling on the past, but I can’t help wishing that I could somehow rewind the clock, undo the unintended consequences of my fucked-up choices.
”
”
Anna Zaires (Twist Me: The Complete Trilogy (Twist Me #1-3))
“
Many erroneously believe that time travel is a way to fix their past mistakes. You can’t undo what’s been done. Revisiting past pain only lets you relive it, not prevent it. One’s time is better served crafting the future. It’s a commodity too valuable to be squandered on repetition.” -Excerpt from the journal of Harold Quickly, 1980 My
”
”
Nathan Van Coops (In Times Like These (In Times Like These, #1))
“
Right,” says Gertie. “But the point is that sometimes I feel like that girl, and sometimes I feel one hundred years old and just sort of over the whole thing, you know? The whole fame thing, the whole acting thing. Sometimes I don’t know how to keep finding the joy. But if there’s anything I learned from us, or rather I guess I should say from the end of us, it’s that I have to find that joy on my own. I can’t depend on you for that. You broke my heart, Timothy. Really and truly, you broke it. And I’ve never recovered. Not all the way.” He feels a sharp pain behind his eyes, and in the center of his body, between his ribs. Is this where his soul lives? Does his soul hurt? “I’m sorry, Gertie. My darling. I know I did. I know how foolish I was. And I’m so sorry.” “I believe you,” she says gently. “I do believe that. But that doesn’t undo it, you see. I can’t go back to a time before you hurt me. I have to live at a different angle from you than I did in the past. That was the cost of all of it.
”
”
Meg Mitchell Moore (Summer Stage)
“
You can’t undo the past. You can only go forward and make things better in the future.
”
”
Kristen Ciccarelli (Heartless Hunter (Crimson Moth, #1))
“
Let it go. You have your own life. Not Uncle Saul’s, not your parents’.’ His face had grown very serious then, his eyes searching. ‘You can’t live in the past and you certainly can’t undo it. What happened to Uncle Saul has nothing to do with you. Memories can kill, Yvette. The past can reach right up and grab you and drag you to a place you shouldn’t be. Like a burning building.
”
”
Louise Penny (A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #2))
“
The past is the past. We can’t undo it,” Tabby said after a long sigh. “What you did almost two decades ago can’t define the future any more than what I did about that same time can determine how tomorrow looks for me. We’d probably all choose to do things different if we could go back, but then we have to ask ourselves if we would be the same people we are today if we could do that.
”
”
Carolyn Brown (The Sandcastle Hurricane)
“
For those filled with regret, perhaps the most needful exercise of proactivity is to realize that past mistakes are also out there in the Circle of Concern. We can’t recall them, we can’t undo them, we can’t control the consequences that came as
”
”
Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
“
You can’t rewrite history, undo the past, or predict the future.
”
”
Suze Orman (The Ultimate Retirement Guide for 50+: Winning Strategies to Make Your Money Last a Lifetime (Revised & Updated for 2023))
“
Latin not Lethal (The Sonnet)
Yes I am latino and proud,
That doesn't make me a thug.
Yes I am brown in color and loud,
That doesn't mean I'm a lethal bug.
Some of us can't speak English,
That doesn't make us second-rate.
We care for family as much as you,
In friendship we walk to the world's end.
Savage imperialists walked on our corpses,
While they snatched our lands and homes.
Yet you call us illegal and dangerous,
Showing no remorse or desire to atone!
None of us can undo the past I know.
Our kids may walk together, let's make sure.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Earthquakin' Egalitarian: I Die Everyday So Your Children Can Live)
“
When you let go of all that is causing you pain and distress, you let go of your unhappiness too. Sometimes, it may be people who make you unhappy. So move away from such people. At other times, it may be the choices that you have made that make you unhappy. So let go of the past – it is over, you can’t undo it. There may also be situations where you cannot fix the core issue that is causing all your pain and agony. When you can’t fix a problem yourself, let go of your desire to fix it. When you let go, when you uncling from whatever it is that is holding you hostage, you set yourself free. When you let go, you actually let Happiness in!
”
”
AVIS Viswanathan
“
I can’t undo my past. I can only live with it, accept it, and move forward intent on not making those poor choices again.
”
”
Liz Talley (Adulting)
“
I can't undo my past actions, but I don't have to let them define me now.
”
”
Clancy Nacht (His Fake Prison Daddy)
“
Regrets
There it is, that one thing in your past you wish you could undo. It sits in your mind like a big, red, tantalizing bow. A gentle tug is all it would take to set things right.
If only you could get to it.
But you can't.
”
”
Lang Leav (Love Looks Pretty on You)
“
We can’t go back and redo or undo the past, but we don’t have to let it define us,
”
”
Carolyn Brown (The Hope Chest)
“
we had the choice to make over again, we would make it differently. We call these choices mistakes, and they are the second thing that merits our deeper thought. For those filled with regret, perhaps the most needful exercise of proactivity is to realize that past mistakes are also out there in the Circle of Concern. We can’t recall them, we can’t undo them, we can’t control the consequences that came as a result. As a college quarterback, one of my sons learned to snap his wristband between plays as a kind of mental checkoff whenever he or anyone made a “setting back” mistake, so the last mistake wouldn’t affect the resolve and execution of the next play.
”
”
Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
“
Unfortunately, I can’t undo the past. But if you’ll give me a chance, I’d like to show you I can do better. I want to see if we have a future together.
”
”
Brigham Vaughn (12 Dates of Christmas (Christmas Falls: Season 2 #3))
“
You can't undo the past, or change it, or make those memories of Christmas any less real or painful. And you don't have to forget them and how they shaped you. But you can add to them. Create new memories of this holiday that are happy and peaceful.
”
”
Katie Bailey (Holiday Hostilities (Cyclones Christmas #2))