Regrets Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Regrets. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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We should all start to live before we get too old. Fear is stupid. So are regrets.
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Marilyn Monroe
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Donโ€™t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.
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Roy T. Bennett
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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I've got a stele we can use. Who wants to do me?" "A regrettable choice of words," muttered Magnus.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2))
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Why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time. My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.
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Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
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No amount of regretting can change the past, and no amount of worrying can change the future.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live.
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Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
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Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting.
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Haruki Murakami (Dance Dance Dance)
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If I'm sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?
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Josรฉ Saramago (Blindness)
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Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.
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George Sand
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Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.
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L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Avonlea (Anne of Green Gables, #2))
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But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.
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Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
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Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
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Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
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One of my main regrets in life is giving considerable thought to inconsiderate people.
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Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
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Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
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Ambrose Bierce
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Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on. I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you.
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Jonathan Safran Foer
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I will never, ever regret the things I've done. Because most days, all you have are places in your memory that you can go to.
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Jojo Moyes (Me Before You (Me Before You, #1))
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At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.
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Ted Hughes (Letters of Ted Hughes)
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Bones mend. Regret stays with you forever.
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Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1))
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We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations โ€” one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it โ€” you will regret both.
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Sรธren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: A Fragment of Life)
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My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.
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Woody Allen
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The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the worldโ€™s existence. All these half-tones of the soulโ€™s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.
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Fernando Pessoa
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Books can also provoke emotions. And emotions sometimes are even more troublesome than ideas. Emotions have led people to do all sorts of things they later regret-like, oh, throwing a book at someone else.
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Pseudonymous Bosch (The Name of This Book Is Secret (Secret, #1))
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I'm done with those; regrets are an excuse for people who have failed.
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Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
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I have no regrets in my life, but this. That we did not have time. That I did not have time with you, Nesta. I will find you in the next world - the next life. And we will have that time. I promise.
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Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3))
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Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to.
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Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)
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Correct." Kekrops sounded bitter, like he regretted his decision. "My people were the original Athenians--the gemini." "Like your zodiac sign?" Percy asked. "I'm a Leo." "No, stupid," Leo said. "I'm a Leo. You're a Percy.
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Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
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She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Leisel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist's suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers...She did not say goodbye. She was incapable, and after a few more minutes at his side, she was able to tear herself from the ground. It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on...
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Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)
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The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.
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Mary Oliver
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No. No, I don't believe you'd betray me with her. I don't believe you'd cheat on me. But I'm afraid, and I'm sick in my heart that you might look at her, then at me. And regret.
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J.D. Robb (Innocent in Death (In Death, #24))
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You can be sorry about something and not regret it,โ€ Evelyn says.
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Taylor Jenkins Reid (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo)
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One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.
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Shannon L. Alder
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Words can break someone into a million pieces, but they can also put them back together. I hope you use yours for good, because the only words you'll regret more than the ones left unsaid are the ones you use to intentionally hurt someone.
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Taylor Swift
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The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then โ€” to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.
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T.H. White (The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-4))
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I hope you werenโ€™t looking to me to be the voice of reason. I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret.
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Leigh Bardugo (Ruin and Rising (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #3))
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The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love.
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Gabriel Garcรญa Mรกrquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)
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How do you regret one of the best nights of your entire life? You don't. You remember every word, every look. Even when it hurts, you still remember.
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Jenny Han (It's Not Summer Without You (Summer, #2))
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We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.
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Libba Bray
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Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.
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Arthur Miller (The Ride Down Mt. Morgan)
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Never regret thy fall, O Icarus of the fearless flight For the greatest tragedy of them all Is never to feel the burning light.
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Oscar Wilde
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I've got a bad case of the 3:00 am guilts - you know, when you lie in bed awake and replay all those things you didn't do right? Because, as we all know, nothing solves insomnia like a nice warm glass of regret, depression and self-loathing.
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D.D. Barant (Dying Bites (The Bloodhound Files, #1))
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Never rearrange your life in order to meet Mr. Darcy half way. If he couldnโ€™t see your worth at the moment you met then he wonโ€™t two years later. May the halls of Pemberly be filled with his regrets and your life filled with thankfulness because of this revelation.
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Shannon L. Alder
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Let's just say you may regret that second piece of cake.' Oh my God. Regret cake? Whatever was about to happen must be truly evil.
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Rachel Hawkins (Hex Hall (Hex Hall, #1))
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misgivings, n. Last night, I got up the courage to ask you if you regretted us. "There are things I miss," you said. "But if I didn't have you, I'd miss more.
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David Levithan (The Lover's Dictionary)
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And on that evening when we grow older still we'll speak about these two young men as though they were two strangers we met on the train and whom we admire and want to help along. And we'll want to call it envy, because to call it regret would break our hearts.
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Andrรฉ Aciman (Call Me by Your Name)
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Many times in life I've regretted the things I've said without thinking. But I've never regretted the things I said nearly as much as the words I left unspoken.
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Lisa Kleypas (Sugar Daddy (Travises, #1))
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We don't have to be defined by the things we did or didn't do in our past. Some people allow themselves to be controlled by regret. Maybe it's a regret, maybe it's not. It's merely something that happened. Get over it.
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Pittacus Lore (I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies, #1))
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She was a beautiful dreamer. The kind of girl, who kept her head in the clouds, loved above the stars and left regret beneath the earth she walked on.
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Robert M. Drake
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A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you." The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?" The old man replied simply, "The one you feed.
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Wendy Mass (Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life)
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1. Be Impeccable With Your Word Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. 2. Don't Take Anything Personally Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering. 3. Don't Make Assumptions Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life. 4. Always Do Your Best Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
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Miguel Ruiz
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I was going to kiss him, and I was going to regret it. But at that moment, I couldn't bring myself to care.
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Michelle Hodkin (The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #1))
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Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.
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Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
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But Iโ€™d rather look back and regret something I did when I was young and crazy, than look back and regret something I never had the courage to do, and realize itโ€™s too late.
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Cherrie Lynn (Rock Me (Ross Siblings, #2))
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Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.
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Anonymous
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I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered-and that I loved it, that is the unanswered in my life.
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Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead)
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Not everything's perfect, especially in the beginning. And its all right to have a little bit of regret every once in a while. It's when you feel it all the time and can't do anything about it... that's when you get into trouble
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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abyss, n. There are times when I doubt everything. When I regret everything you've taken from me, everything I've given you, and the waste of all the time I've spent on us.
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David Levithan (The Lover's Dictionary)
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I don't think I could love you so much if you had nothing to complain of and nothing to regret. I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and of little value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.
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Boris Pasternak (Doctor Zhivago)
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ุงู„ู†ุฏู… ู‡ูˆ ุตูˆุช ุงู„ูุทุฑุฉ ู„ุญุธุฉ ุงู„ุฎุทุฃ
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ู…ุตุทูู‰ ู…ุญู…ูˆุฏ (ุฑุญู„ุชูŠ ู…ู† ุงู„ุดูƒ ุฅู„ู‰ ุงู„ุฅูŠู…ุงู†)
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There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.
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Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
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Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about those who donโ€™t. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it.
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Harvey MacKay
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In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. Weโ€™re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. Weโ€™ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.
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Libba Bray
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Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen Hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.
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Mary Anne Radmacher
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Meaning and morality of One's life come from within oneself. Healthy, strong individuals seek self expansion by experimenting and by living dangerously. Life consists of an infinite number of possibilities and the healthy person explores as many of them as posible. Religions that teach pity, self-contempt, humility, self-restraint and guilt are incorrect. The good life is ever changing, challenging, devoid of regret, intense, creative and risky.
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Friedrich Nietzsche
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Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: youโ€™re falling to the floor crying thinking, โ€œI am falling to the floor crying,โ€ but thereโ€™s an element of the ridiculous to it โ€” you knew it would happen and, even worse, while youโ€™re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didnโ€™t paint it very well.
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Richard Siken
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Marry, and you will regret it; donโ€™t marry, you will also regret it; marry or donโ€™t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the worldโ€™s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the worldโ€™s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret itโ€ฆ Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or donโ€™t hang yourself, youโ€™ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy.
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Sรธren Kierkegaard
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The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
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Omar Khayyรกm
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Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever.
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Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
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Arthur: If I asked you where the hell we were, would I regret it? Ford: We're safe. Arthur: Oh good. Ford: We're in a small galley cabin in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet. Arthur: Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of.
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Douglas Adams (The Hitchhikerโ€™s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
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Time will make it worse! You're...the other half of his soul. He's never going to get over you. And no matter how much you hope that you will... you'll never get over him. You're going to wake up one day and realize what you've done, and you're going to regret the time you wasted apart from him for the rest of your life.
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Jamie McGuire (Providence (Providence, #1))
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If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world.
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Mercedes Lackey
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The mistakes I've made are dead to me. But I can't take back the things I never did.
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Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
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Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as a secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.
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Leonard Cohen (The Favorite Game)
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I fucking love you!โ€ He grabbed each side of my face, slamming his lips against mine. โ€œI love you so much, Pigeon,โ€ he said, kissing me over and over. โ€œJust remember that in fifty years when Iโ€™m still kicking your ass in poker,โ€ I giggled. He smiled, triumphant. โ€œIf it means sixty or seventy years with you, Babyโ€ฆyou have my full permission to do your worst.โ€ I raised one eyebrow, โ€œYouโ€™re gonna regret that.โ€ โ€œYou wanna bet?โ€ I smiled with as much deviance as I could muster.
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Jamie McGuire (Beautiful Disaster (Beautiful, #1))
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All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.
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Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)
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Would 'sorry' have made any difference? Does it ever? It's just a word. One word against a thousand actions.
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Sarah Ockler (Bittersweet)
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It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga. It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out. But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy. We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.
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Matt Haig (The Midnight Library)
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This is for girls who have the tendency to stay up at night listening to music that reminds them of their current situation. Who hide their fears, hurt, pain and tears under the smiles, laughs and giggles on a daily basis. The girls who wear their heart on their sleeve. The girls who pray that things will work out just once and they'll be satisfied. The girls who sceam and cry to their pillows because everyone else fails to listen. The girls who have so many secrets but wont tell a soul. The girls who have mistakes and regrets as a daily moral. The girls that never win. The girls that stay up all night thinking about that one boy and hoping that he'll notice her one day. The girls who take life as it comes, to the girls who are hoping that it'll get better somewhere down the road. For the girls who love with all their heart although it always gets broken. To girls who think it's over. To real girls, to all girls: You're beautiful.
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Zayn Malik
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There are so many things that I want so badly to tell you but I just can't.
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Nina LaCour (Hold Still)
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Miriam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Miriam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate belongings.
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Khaled Hosseini (A Thousand Splendid Suns)
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I donโ€™t regret anything Iโ€™ve ever done in life, any choice that Iโ€™ve made. But Iโ€™m consumed with regret for the things I didnโ€™t do, the choices I didnโ€™t make, the things I didnโ€™t say. We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to. โ€œWhat ifโ€ฆโ€ โ€œIf onlyโ€ฆโ€ โ€œI wonder what would haveโ€ฆโ€ You will never, never know, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days.
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Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood)
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Choosing a path meant having to miss out on others. She had a whole life to live, and she was always thinking that, in the future, she might regret the choices she made now. โ€œIโ€™m afraid of committing myself,โ€ she thought to herself. She wanted to follow all possible paths and so ended up following none. Even in that most important area of her life, love, she had failed to commit herself. After her first romantic disappointment, she had never again given herself entirely. She feared pan, loss, and separation. These things were inevitable on the path to love, and the only way of avoiding them was by deciding not to take that path at all. In order not to suffer, you had to renounce love. It was like putting out your own eyes not to see the bad things in life.
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Paulo Coelho (Brida)
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I love you, Savannah, and I always will," I breathed. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. You were my best friend and my lover, and I dont regret a single moment of it. You made me feel alive again, and most of all, you gave me my father. I'll never forget you for that. You're always going to be the very best part of me. I'm sorry it has to be this way, but I have to leave, and you have to see your husband." As I spoke, I could feel her shaking with sobs, and I continued to hold her for a long time afterward. When we finally seperated, I knew that it would be the last time I ever held her. I backed away, my eyes holding Savannah's. "I love you, too, John," she said. "Good-bye." I raised a hand.
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Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)
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It's not my story anymore: whenever I speak about the past now, I feel as if I were talking about something that has nothing to do with me. All that remains in the present are the voice, the presence, and the importance of fulfilling my mission. I don't regret difficulties I experienced; I think they helped me to become the person I am today, I feel the way a warrior must feel after years of training; he doesn't remember the details of everything he learned, but he knows how to strike when the time is right.
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Paulo Coelho (The Zahir)
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1. Accept everything just the way it is. 2. Do not seek pleasure for its own sake. 3. Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling. 4. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world. 5. Be detached from desire your whole life long. 6. Do not regret what you have done. 7. Never be jealous. 8. Never let yourself be saddened by a separation. 9. Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself nor others. 10. Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of lust or love. 11. In all things have no preferences. 12. Be indifferent to where you live. 13. Do not pursue the taste of good food. 14. Do not hold on to possessions you no longer need. 15. Do not act following customary beliefs. 16. Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful. 17. Do not fear death. 18. Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age. 19. Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help. 20. You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honour. 21. Never stray from the Way.
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Miyamoto Musashi
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Well, it's true that I have been hurt in my life. Quite a bit. But it's also true that I have loved, and been loved. and that carries a weight of its own. A greater weight, in my opinion. It's like that pie chart we talked about earlier. in the end, I'll look back on my life and see that the greatest piece of it was love. The problems, the divorces, the sadness... those will be there too, but just smaller slivers, tiny pieces.
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Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)
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Itโ€™s not that we have to quit this life one day, but itโ€™s how many things we have to quit all at once: music, laughter, the physics of falling leaves, automobiles, holding hands, the scent of rain, the concept of subway trains... if only one could leave this life slowly!
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Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
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I wanted to tell her everything, maybe if I'd been able to, we could have lived differently, maybe I'd be there with you now instead of here. Maybe... if I'd said, 'I'm so afraid of losing something I love that I refuse to love anything,' maybe that would have made the impossible possible. Maybe, but I couldn't do it, I had buried too much too deeply inside me. And here I am, instead of there.
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Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
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If you simply ignored the feeling, you would never know what might happen, and in many ways that was worse than finding out in the first place. Because if you were wrong, you could go forward in your life without ever looking back over your shoulder and wondering what might have been.
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Nicholas Sparks (Message in a Bottle)
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Wellโ€”I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between โ€˜goodโ€™ and โ€˜badโ€™ as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One canโ€™t exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But youโ€”wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking โ€˜what if,โ€™ โ€˜what if.โ€™ โ€˜Life is cruel.โ€™ โ€˜I wish I had died instead of.โ€™ Wellโ€”think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No noโ€”hang onโ€”this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we canโ€™t get there any other way?
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Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
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They send a person who can never stay," she whispered. "Who can never accept my offer of companionship for more than a little while. They send me a hero I can't help ... just the sort of person I can't help falling in love with." ... As I sailed into the lake I realized the Fates really were cruel. They sent Calypso someone she couldn't help but love. But it worked both ways. For the rest of my life I would be thinking about her. She would always be my biggest what if.
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Rick Riordan (The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #4))
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Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the truth, maybe I didn't want things to turn abstract, but I felt I should say it, because this was the moment to say it, because it suddenly dawned on me that this was why I had come, to tell him 'You are the only person I'd like to say goodbye to when I die, because only then will this thing I call my life make any sense. And if I should hear that you died, my life as I know it, the me who is speaking with you now, will cease to exist.
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Andrรฉ Aciman (Call Me by Your Name)
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It's impossible to be the Mockingjay. Impossible to complete even this one sentence. Because now I know that everything I say will be directly taken out on Peeta. Result in his torture. But not his death, no, nothing so merciful as that. Snow will ensure that his life is much more worse than death. "Cut," I hear Cressida say quietly. "What's wrong with her?" Plutarch says under his breath. "She's figured out how Snow's using Peeta," says Finnick. There's something like a collective sigh of regret from that semicircle of people spread out before me. Because I know this now. Because there will never be a way for me to not know this again. Because, beyond the military disadvantage losing a entails, I am broken. Several sets of arms would embrace me. But in the end, the only person I truly want to comfort me is Haymitch, because he loves Peeta, too. I reach out for him and say something like his name and he's there, holding me and patting my back. "It's okay. It'll be okay, sweetheart." He sits me on a length of broken marble pillar and keeps an arm around me while I sob. "I can't do this anymore," I say. "I know," he says.
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Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
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Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you'll never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. Even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope for something good to come along. Something to make you feel connected, to make you feel whole, to make you feel loved.
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Charlie Kaufman (Synecdoche, New York: The Shooting Script)
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To my babies, Merry Christmas. I'm sorry if these letters have caught you both by surprise. There is just so much more I have to say. I know you thought I was done giving advice, but I couldn't leave without reiterating a few things in writing. You may not relate to these things now, but someday you will. I wasn't able to be around forever, but I hope that my words can be. -Don't stop making basagna. Basagna is good. Wait until a day when there is no bad news, and bake a damn basagna. -Find a balance between head and heart. Hopefully you've found that Lake, and you can help Kel sort it out when he gets to that point. -Push your boundaries, that's what they're there for. -I'm stealing this snippet from your favorite band, Lake. "Always remember there is nothing worth sharing, like the love that let us share our name." -Don't take life too seriously. Punch it in the face when it needs a good hit. Laugh at it. -And Laugh a lot. Never go a day without laughing at least once. -Never judge others. You both know good and well how unexpected events can change who a person is. Always keep that in mind. You never know what someone else is experiencing within their own life. -Question everything. Your love, your religion, your passions. If you don't have questions, you'll never find answers. -Be accepting. Of everything. People's differences, their similarities, their choices, their personalities. Sometimes it takes a variety to make a good collection. The same goes for people. -Choose your battles, but don't choose very many. -Keep an open mind; it's the only way new things can get in. -And last but not least, not the tiniest bit least. Never regret. Thank you both for giving me the best years of my life. Especially the last one. Love, Mom
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Colleen Hoover (Slammed (Slammed, #1))
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We stood there, looking at each other, saying nothing. But it was the kind of nothing that meant everything. In his eyes, there was no trace of what had happened between us earlier and I could feel something inside me break. So that was that. We were finally, finally over. I looked at him, and I felt so sad, because this thought occurred to me: 'I will never look at you the same way again. I'll never be that girl again. The girl who comes running back every time you push her away, the girl who loves you anyway.' I couldnโ€™t even be mad at him, because this was who he was. This was who heโ€™d always been. Heโ€™d never lied about that. He gave and then he took away. I felt it in the pit of my stomach, the familiar ache, that lost, regretful feeling only he could give me. I never wanted to feel it again. Never, ever. Maybe this was why I came, so I could really know. So I could say good-bye. I looked at him, and I thought, 'If I was very brave or very honest, I would tell him.' I would say it, so he would know it and I would know it, and I could never take it back. But I wasnโ€™t that brave or honest, so all I did was look at him. And I think he knew anyway. 'I release you. I evict you from my heart. Because if I don't do it now, I never will.' I was the one to look away first.
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Jenny Han (It's Not Summer Without You (Summer, #2))
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In the time of your life, liveโ€”so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart. Be the inferior of no man, or of any men be superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, liveโ€”so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.
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William Saroyan (The time of your life (RSC playtext))