c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Worry and regret are both useless weights that provide no drag. They never did anything to slow down the planet for one goddamned second.
— Andrew  Smith, 100 Sideways Miles
My animal howlsMy angel's upsetBut I'm not allowedA trace of regret
— Leonard Cohen, Book of Longing
It all feels so different than it did yesterday. Is it because I'm aware of your feelings now? Or is it something else? Is it that...I know...what love is?
— Rei Tōma, Dawn of the Arcana, Vol. 9
I've lived the life of a man without teeth, he thought about it. A life of a man without teeth. I've never bitten, I've been waiting, keeping myself for later - and now I've just ascertained that I don't have teeth anymore.
— Jean-Paul Sartre, The Age of Reason
It was really over, I thought. There was no way to go back, to make it stay. There was never that.
— Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Wait, I almost shouted, but didn’t, and that would be my burden to bear. Instead, I stood on the curb and I watched him disappear, lights fading in the distance like waking up from a dream.
— Katie Cotugno, How to Love
There are things that have to be done and you do them and you never talk about them.They can't be justified.You just do them.Then you forget it.
— Mario Puzo, The Godfather
there is no pain in leaving as in being left behind
— db.
What I mean is, right from that first time, there wassomething in Tommy's manner that was tinged with sadness, that seemed tosay: “Yes, we're doing this now and I'm glad we're doing it now. But what apity we left it so late.
— Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
And I am nothing if not a stupid, stupid man.
— Paul Auster, Station Hill Blanchot Reader
The pleasure is there
—  between your expectations and regrets.
They don't give gold bracelets for regrets.
— Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death
We are now left to choose between danger and regret, neither of which can restore the lives we have lost.
— Anne Fortier, The Lost Sisterhood
Kahneman’s evidence shows that we suck at remembering and predicting our own well-being. We as a culture still ignore this empirical evidence, recommending to live our lives so as to avoid deathbed regrets. Deathbed regrets are like Hollywood films: they stir passions for a couple hours, but are poorly connected to reality. They are not good criteria for a well-lived life.
— Nick Winter, The Motivation Hacker
They had both wanted it to happen and they both wished it had not
—  what mattered now was that nobody else should ever know.
It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day.
— Yann Martel, Life of Pi
It seemed to Rosa Lublin that the whole peninsula of Florida was weighted down with regret. Everyone had left behind a real life. Here they had nothing. They were all scarecrows, blown about under the murdering sunball with empty ribcages.
— Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl
I'd felt the pop of the needle sliding into my veins, like a fang into flesh. I'd been enveloped in the golden haze where nothing is wrong even when everything is falling apart. A dance with a hypodermic fiend, my hands in the claws of a vulture.
— Taylor Rhodes, Sixteenth Notes: The Breaking of the Rose-Colored Glasses
Unanswered? I would've answered any question, Hannah. But you never asked.
— Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why
I’ve been so careful my whole life that I don’t even want to imagine what I’ve missed.” Sara realized she was speaking so quickly she hadn’t taken a breath, and suddenly felt lightheaded. “I can’t miss you.
— Heather McVea, Waking Forever
What I do know is that there are two kinds of pain in this life: risk and regret. I'd rather live with the first than the second.
— Holley Gerth, You're Made for a God-Sized Dream: Opening the Door to All God Has for You
The cost of not following your heart is spending the rest of your life wishing you had.
— Anonymous
People live, and then they die, and as long as they do both things propertly, there's nothing much to regret.
— Child, Lee
I didn't actually know what regret tasted like—but I imagined if it did have a flavor, it would be lutefisk.
— Angela N. Blount, Once Upon an Ever After
She could, she thinks, have entered a different life. She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.
— Michael Cunningham, The Hours
He felt what a murderer must feel, when he sees the body he has robbed of life. That body, robbed by him of life, was their love, the first stage of their love. There was something awful and revolting in the memory of what had been bought at this fearful price of shame. Shame at their spiritual nakedness crushed her and infected him.
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
But now it’s too late.And that’s why, right at this moment, I feel so much hate. Toward myself. I deserve to be on this list. Because if I hadn’t been so afraid of everyone else, I might have told Hannah that someone cared. And Hannah might still be alive.I pull my gaze back from the neon sign.
— Jay Asher
It hurt her to stir up these feelings, but yet she knew that that was the best part of her soul, and that that part of her soul would quickly be smothered in the life she was leading.
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Regret is a self-inflicted emotional scar.
— Steve Maraboli
But as Rianne walked away from him, he could only stand there and watch, tearing at the earth withrestless claws.Wishing with all his heart that he could go after her.Eiona’s presence kept him locked in place and for the first time, he found himself resenting thebond that held them so tightly together.
— Shiloh Walker, The Dragon’s Woman
Nothing to be proud of, nothing to regret.
— Rawi Hage, Carnival
I am your little ram,burying his muzzle in thick grass of your pasture,folded by you at night, herded by day,a dedicated dog nipping at my hocks.The day will come for you to drawthe bright sickle of the moonacross my wooly throat.Do it with love, without regret.
— Mark Wunderlich, The Earth Avails: Poems
How quickly he fell
—  how soon it was over.
Maybe I could use a little metal on the inside, I thought. If I'd kept my heart better armored, where would I be now?Easy—I’d be at home, medicating myself into a monotone. Drowning my sorrows in video games. Working shifts at Smart Aid. Dying inside, day by day, from regret.
— Ransom Riggs, Hollow City
Nothing helps a man to reform like thinking of the past with regret.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot
I shouldn’t have gone out so far, fish,” he said. “Neither for you nor for me. I’m sorry, fish.
— Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
As he left Yata’s home that morning, he knew that a part of his life was complete and that whatever path he chose, he would experience the ache of unfulfilled dreams. For a moment he allowed himself to feel regret at the thought of never building a cottage by the river with Trevanion. Or living the life of a simple farmer connected to the earth. Or traveling his kingdom, satisfying the nomad he had become. To be Finnikin of the Rock and the Monts and the River and the Flatlands and the Forest. To be none of those at all.Yet he also knew that to lose her to another man would be a slow torture every day for the rest of his life.
— Melina Marchetta, Finnikin of the Rock
I was so ashamed for a mistake I made unknowingly when I was completely out of control and lost my mind for some reasons. I thought about to end my life next day at some point. I was struggling to cope with my pain, shame and thinking about others who I had hurt unintentionally. The worst moment came when people who I loved most had pulled out their support and threatens me to end relationships. Lesson learns hard way that people who are not with you at worst time of your life have no right to stand beside you when you are at best. Life goes on...........
— Sammy Toora Powerlifter
Live your life so you don´t have to have any regrets when you throw your 70 year old birthday party
— Herdis Pala
These Days, Keeping Anything "Simple" Is The Most "Complex" Task To Do....
— Muhammad Imran Hasan
They say, the sun brings life to the world. The sun will rise and look is it not a corpse? Everything is dead and there are corpses everywhere. Just people and around them silence__that is the world! "Love one another"__who said that? Whose command is that? The pendulum swings unfeelingly, antagonistically. It's two o'clock at night. Her slippers are standing by her bed, as if waiting for her.... No, seriously, when they take her away tomorrow, what shall I do?
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Three Tales
You may have something wise to say, but HOW YOU SAY IT may make it unwise! RECREATE it, else you'll REGRET it!
— Israelmore Ayivor, The Great Hand Book of Quotes
Sometimes it took death for me to see life, don't live with regrets keep your head high. In a world filled with beauty I don't want to blink twice; soak up every moment because you can't stop time.
— Puerto Rican Princess
Because any guilt the sizeof a speck of dust, or shame,can crush even the best of men,in mountains of weight
— Phil Volatile, White Wedding Lies, and Discontent: An American Love Story
That night, when you kissed me, I thought you did it because you were drinking. All I could focus on was getting you home before you did something you’d regret in the morning. I didn't want to be your regret, Serenity. My heart couldn’t handle it. Shit, it's been two years and my heart still can't handle the fact that we don’t talk anymore.
— Melyssa Winchester, Holding on to Heaven
There is no regret in planting a seed of love in someone’s heart.
— M.F. Moonzajer, LOVE, HATRED AND MADNESS
If you are aware of the kind of hunger, regrets and frustrations that follows rumpy pumpy, you would stir clear from hanky panky.
— Michael Bassey Johnson
Revenge is a bittersweet fruit that leaves the foul aftertaste of regret.
— Michael J. Sullivan, Heir of Novron
She had dispersed. She was the garden at Prem Nivas (soon to be entered into the annual Flower Show), she was Veena's love of music, Pran's asthma, Maan's generosity, the survival of some refugees four years ago, the neem leaves that would preserve quilts stored in the great zinc trunks of Prem Nivas, the moulting feather of some pond-heron, a small unrung brass bell, the memory of decency in an indecent time, the temperament of Bhaskar's great-grandchildren. Indeed, for all the Minsisster of Revenue's impatience with her, she was his regret.And it was right that she should continue to be so, for he should have treated her better while she lived, the poor, ignorant, grieving fool.
— Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
Don't make me regret this," I said, breathless."You haven't regretted me once.
— Becca Fitzpatrick, Crescendo
I'd chosen the regret I could live with best, that's all. I'd chosen the life I belonged to.
— Sue Monk Kidd
I am constantly reminded that we are a products of the choices we make
— Oche Otorkpa, The Unseen Terrorist
Too often we look back on our lives with regret. What is done, is done. We learned lessons from those mistakes. Every day is a new beginning.
— Kitt Weagant, Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women
So many men and women I have wronged, reduced to ghosts and shades. They surround me, but I can never let them know I regret what I have cost them, both the living and the dead.
— Laura Lam, Shadowplay
I don't dwell in the past, I just can't forget what's passed.
— Nigar Siddiqui
I lost myself in finding you, nothing has made me feel so wasted ever.
— Nigar Siddiqui
His palm presses against my cheek, stroking away stray strands of hair, “Eve, I’ve never been so scared. The thought that I’d never get to see you again, to apologise for the way I treated you, I couldn’t bear it. When they dragged you out I was so relieved, knowing that I had a chance to get you back.” He squeezes me tightly against his body as he admits, “I can’t lose you Eve. Them taking you made everything so clear. I love you and I thought I wasn’t going to get the chance to prove how much. I couldn’t let that happen.
— Angela Louise McGurk, Absolution
I don't dwell in the past I just can't forget what's passed.
— Nigar Siddiqui
Never regret on something you can fix.
— Sam Houssami
In the end, we only regret the chances we didn't take.
— Ziad K. Abdelnour, Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics
Perhaps. But it is childish to think of what might have been.
— Chaim Potok, The Promise
I spent the past two years fearing the worst, that I chose safe arms to hold me when his arms weren’t the arms I longed to be in, nor were they really safe. I thought it’s what I deserved. I thought I couldn’t belong in the arms I wanted to really hold me.
— Andrea Michelle, Escape the Doubt
Each year's regrets are envelopes in which messages of hope are found for the New Year.
— John R. Dallas Jr., We Need to Have a Word: Words of Wisdom, Courage and Patience for Work, Home and Everywhere
Don't let things go, if you truly don't want them to go, trying again is far better than regret.
— Magith Noohukhan
Too late... everything's always too late.
— E.M. Forster, Maurice
We all have regrets. Anyone who says they have none is a liar, and anyone who thinks they'll live without acquiring some is a fool.
— Karen Amanda Hooper, Dangerous Depths
There's a time in your life when you have to stop looking back and start looking forward because otherwise you're going to walk down the road one day and bump into a lamppost. But it's not easy.
— Anna Maxted, Getting Over It
Nothin's what it seems, drow!" Bruenor declared. "Nothin'! Ye try to follow what ye know, ye know? But then ye find that ye know not what ye thought ye knowed! Thought a dog'd be tastin' good - looked good enough - but now me belly's cursing me every move!
— R.A. Salvatore, Exile
I'm afraid that the gift of visiting the past is all that we have. We can revisit it, but only as it happened.
— Karen Essex, Dracula in Love
Don’t choose to walk the well-worn path to regret.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
We only understand the true love of our lives when we bound ourself within the boundries of right and wrong.
— jitendra bhardwaj
Save the contrition for the confessional. Regret isn't worth a damn to anyone.
— Elizabeth Kelly, The Last Summer of the Camperdowns
What if I had told the boy I loved to leave and it ended up being for nothing?
— Gabrielle Zevin, In the Age of Love and Chocolate
Cemeteries are full of unfulfilled dreams... countless echoes of 'could have' and 'should have'… Don’t choose to walk the well-worn path to regret.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
I've come to accept that parts of life are constant, that just because something happens on two different days doesn't make it a goddamn miracle.
— Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds
Appreciate what you have instead of regret ting for something you don't have.
— rah_U
If you aren't in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.
— Jim Carrey
Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on.
— Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions
You could continue to repress and think about the life you could have had or you can take what you want from life and see that the world finds that person infinitely more irresistible...
— Roberto Hogue, Real Secrets of Sex: A Women's Guide on How to Be Good in Bed
I may have had moments of regret in my life, but you know, they wouldn't add up to an hour.
— Emma Donoghue, Slammerkin
In my dream, people apologized for things that were about to happen, and lit candles by inhaling.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
I'll go from world to world until I find a time and place where you can come awake in safety. And I'll tell your story to my people, so that perhaps in time the can forgive you, too. The way that you've forgiven me.
— Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
Not only a few times, but every time he did not give in to his urge to go look for her, he resented the moment that came in its place. Even if the moment was beautiful and was something he valued, and made him who he was. He could not help but also long for that other life in which he lived with Della, even if she abused him.
— Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist
You are the last hope of humanity
—  don’t make the world regret.
Don't let your fear help you birth a well-nourished regret
—  take action today!
He dressed quickly in silence, refusing her tissues. He shakily pulled a wad of uncounted notes from his wallet, abandoned them in the no man’s land between, and escaped in an indecent haste, leaving the shameful tableau in his wake.
— Darren White, Memes of Loss and Devotion
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.
— André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name
I made an oath to myself:as long as I liveas long as my soul remains in this bodyI won't deviate from the right waybut later I looked to my left and then to my rightand I saw our beloved everywherehow could I make a wrong turn?
— Jalaluddin Rumi, The Rubais of Rumi: Insane with Love
Over the years I'd lodged him in the permanent past, my pluperfect lover, put him on ice, stuffed him with memories and mothballs like a hunted ornament confabulating with the ghost of all my evenings. I'd dust him off from time to time and then put him back on the mantelpiece. He no longer belonged to earth or to life. All I was likely to discover at this point wasn't just how distant were the paths we'd taken, it was the measure of loss that was going to strike me--a loss I didn't mind thinking about in abstract terms but which would hurt when stared at in the face, the way nostalgia hurts long after we've stopped thinking of things we lost and may never have cared for.
— André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name
But if you never did anything you couldn't undo you'd end up doing nothing at all.
— Anne Tyler, Ladder of Years
Maybe that’s why I get frustrated sometimes, because there’s no one to blame for how our lives have turned out. I wouldn’t change any of the things I’ve done, but at the same time I wish things were different than they are. I have no regrets, but there’s also no satisfaction in where I am.
— Chris Dietzel, The Man Who Watched The World End
It was a night of early spring,The winter-sleep was scarcely broken;Around us shadows and the windListened for what was never spoken.Though half a score of years are gone,Spring comes as sharply now as then—But if we had it all to doIt would be done the same again.It was a spring that never came;But we have lived enough to knowThat what we never have, remains;It is the things we have that go.
— Sara Teasdale
Tex's head snapped in my direction.Fuckin' A, woman, you've never had a s'more? he boomedI shook my head.Christ, everyone's gotta have a s'more before they die. Fuck that shit, I'll build a fire in my backyard tonight and I'll stop by Kumar's on the way home to get the stuff. Everyone can come by-
— Kristen Ashley, Rock Chick Regret
Aw, Poke, you poor, kind, decent, stupid girl. You saved me and I let you down.
— Orson Scott Card, Ender's Shadow
The trouble with ‘if only’ is that it doesn’t change anything. It keeps the person facing the wrong way – backward instead of forward. It wastes time. In the end, if you let it become a habit, it can become a real roadblock – an excuse for not trying anymore.
— Arthur Gordon, A Touch of Wonder
Every damn fool thing you do in this life you pay for.
— Édith Piaf
He died at the wrong time, when there was much to be clarified and established. They hadn’t even started to be grown-ups together. There was this piece of heaven, this little girl he’d carried around the shop on his shoulders; and then one day she was gone, replaced by a foreigner, an uncooperative woman he didn’t know how to speak to. Being so confused, so weak, so in love, he chose strength and drove her away from himself. The last years he spent wondering where she’d gone, and slowly came to realise that she would never return, and that the husband he’d chosen for her was an idiot.
— Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia
She had lost him. Lost him because she'd let him go. And she could not allow herself to regret that decision.
— Harriet Evans, Happily Ever After
We all have different lives, Martin believes – but in the end probably feel the same things, and regret the fear we thought might somehow sustain us.
— Simon Van Booy, The Illusion of Separateness
I prefer to love the one my heart has chosen for me, and I won’t regret it
— M.F. Moonzajer
It is foolish to regret anything form one's past.
— Mary Balogh, Web of Love
This is one of those rare moments when, while doing that which it is one's duty to do, one feels something which disconcerts one, and which would dissuade one from proceeding further; one persists, it is necessary, but conscience, though satisfied, is sad, and the accomplishment of duty is complicated with a pain at the heart.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Enjoy your freedom today, leave the regret for tomorrow.
— M.F. Moonzajer
I like to live in 'fear'becauSe, you are ready to faceany unexpected thing to become and you have 'no regret' for it.
— Sumit Lakhani
Things always happen for a reason, that’s what everybody says.”“But often, not for the reasons we wanted.”“Yeah, it’s like a rule of life, or something.” Dia menghela napas. “But I think believing that things happen for a reason makes it easier for us to keep going. Dengan menerima kenyataan, kita akan lebih mudah bergerak maju, mengecilkan ruang untuk rasa sesal.
— Winna Efendi, Melbourne: Rewind
You loved me as hard as you knew how. I'd give anything to go back and love you better...
— Joe Hill, NOS4A2
My attitude is born out of necessity. I've made mistakes. I've made decisions I regretted. I know what it's like to live with regret. I live with it everyday. But if I let it take over, I'd never get out of bed in the morning.
— Maya Banks, Hidden Away
My mind is huge with little stories that I never told you.
— Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin
You are not going to be the girl I’m going to marry are you? You are going to be the girl that got away.
— Angela Richardson, Pieces of Truth
Ain't no deserving, or otherwise,' Silo said, his bass voice rolling out from deep in his chest. 'There's what is, and what ain't, and there's what you do about it. Regret's just a way to make you feel okay when you're not making amends. A man can waste a life with regrets.
— Chris Wooding, Retribution Falls
Regret, Joss. Regret does awful things to a person.
— Samantha Young, On Dublin Street
No pain is unbearable except that of regret.
— Jan Cox Speas
We find that one person in life that will stand by us through everything, support us, love us regardless of yourself. That one person that will stand by your side through everything. Grab onto that person with everything for if you don't then one day you will look to your side expecting him to be there and you will find that he is not. So don't take the one for granted that makes you his life. If you do then he will remove you from his...
— Albert Besselaar
It’s easy to point out someone else’s mistake, harder to recognize your own. Especially because most people—except the lucky few like ourselves—are forced to live with their mistakes. So they learn to justify their mistakes, build on them, until they can look back and convince themselves that their mistake was inevitable all along, a good choice, in fact. An unwed teenage mother can look back at her unexpected pregnancy fondly six years down the road once the child’s out of her hair and in school all day. She wouldn’t dare go back and fix that mistake because it’s become part of her life.
— Andrea Lochen, The Repeat Year
But harboring regrets is making love to the past, and there is no movement here.
— Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
Just because The Past always hung there upon its hooks on the game-room wall, you didn't have to pull it down and use it on yourself.
— Dennis McFarland, A Face at the Window
Fear waters the weeds of regret.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Did you have any yourself?" she said."Just one."Harold thought of David, but it was too much to explain. He saw the boy as a toddler and how his face darkened in sunshine like a ripe nut. He wanted to describe the soft dimples of flesh at his knees, and the way he walked in his first pair of shoes, staring down, as if unable to credit they were still attached to his feet. He thought of him lying in hit cot, his fingers so appallingly small and perfect over his wool blanket. You could look at them and fear they might dissolve beneath your touch.Mothering had come so naturally to Maureen. It was as if another woman had been waiting inside her all along, ready to slip out. She knew how to swing her body so that a baby slept; how to soften her voice; how to curl her hand to support his head. She knew what temperature the water should be in his bath, and when he needed to nap, and how to knit him blue wool socks. He had no idea she knew these things and he had watched with awe, like a spectator from the shadows. It both deepened his love for her and lifted her apart, so that just at the moment when he thought their marriage would intensify, it seemed to lose its way, or at least set them in different places. He peered at his baby son, with his solemn eyes, and felt consumed with fear. What if he was hungry? What if he was unhappy? What if other boys hit him when he went to school? There was so much to protect him from, Harold was overwhelmed. He wondered if other men had found the new responsibility of parenting as terrifying, or whether it had been a fault that was only in himself. It was different these days. You saw men pushing buggies and feeding babies with no worries at all.
— Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
After that came her biggie: a triple murder--her dealer, the dealer's sister, and the dealer's sister's boyfriend.Reading that made me feel a little funny that we'd fucked and I'd loved her.
— George Saunders, Tenth of December
We can spend today joyously celebrating potential by acting upon our purpose, or we can spend it mourning the days and opportunities gone by… the first will find you amongst the few who are content and accomplished; the latter will find you with the suffering majority as you exhaustedly swim in the ocean of regret.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
She needs to make one phone call, and she wishes she could make it into her past. Into last year. Or two years ago.
— Adele Griffin
There are three things that robots cannot do," wrote Maxon. Then beneath that on the page he wrote three dots, indented. Beside the first dot he wrote "Show preference without reason (LOVE)" and then "Doubt rational decisions (REGRET)" and finally "Trust data from a previously unreliable source (FORGIVE).
— Lydia Netzer, Shine Shine Shine
Why?” I asked him tiredly. “What would it have changed? What could you possibly have said that would have made a difference?”“That I was your brother, Harry,” he said. “That I loved you. That I knew a few things about denying the dark parts of your nature. And that we would get through it.” He put his elblows on his knees and rested his forehead on his hands. “That we’d figure it out. That you weren’t alone.” Stab.Twist.He was right. It was just that simple.
— Jim Butcher, Cold Days
For, like desire, regret seeks not to be analysed but to be satisfied. When one begins to love, one spends one’s time, not in getting to know what one’s love really is, but in making it possible to meet next day. When one abandons love one seeks not to know one’s grief but to offer to her who is causing it that expression of it which seems to one the most moving. One says the things which one feels the need of saying, and which the other will not understand, one speaks for oneself alone. I wrote: 'I had thought that it would not be possible. Alas, I see now that it is not so difficult.' I said also: 'I shall probably not see you again;' I said it while I continued to avoid shewing a coldness which she might think affected, and the words, as I wrote them, made me weep because I felt that they expressed not what I should have liked to believe but what was probably going to happen.
— Marcel Proust, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower
The real regrets in life are the risks you didn't take.
— Habeeb Akande
No such thing as time travel, he'd rumbled patiently, once. Only live with what you've done, and try in the future to do what you're happy to live with.
— Richard K. Morgan, Thirteen
He took her hand without question, without fear, and he never regretted it.
— Jessica Fortunato, The Sin Collector: Thomas
SONG OF DAWNI saw the sun rise by accident.It was a horrible sight.Annoyed by its splendor, I sought refugein a moist pillow, and lay there, alone,at the dawn of another day,that brought me closer to another death,pondering the vanity of my solitude,the vanity of procrastination,and the tiresome inevitability of waking upagain the same person.It might still be possible to change,but obstinately I remain the same,hoping that others might take solacein my consistency.But perhaps they take no solace in it,perhaps they too find it tedious.
— John Tottenham, Antiepithalamia: & Other Poems of Regret & Resentment
Ah, you dumb sonovabitch, why’d you let your warrior go?
— S.W. Frank, Awakening
Regrets of the past can be turned into seeds to grow a more positive future or unlearned, doomed to repeat the same.
— Tambré Bryant
Maybe I might be repeating the same mistake again... But don't you think it is far better to regret what I have done than what I have not done yet...?
— Hiroko Sakai
Could it really be this easy to land a handsome man? If so, why didn't I try it ages ago?
— Steve Hockensmith, Dreadfully Ever After
But of, but what, but whether, but who, but nevertheless, but insofar, but why, but otherwise, but even if-
— Clifford Chase, Winkie
I need you to know that no matter what happens, it was worth it to me. Being with you, loving you. It was all worth it.
— Jenny Han, We'll Always Have Summer
I'd watch her, amazed at just how much a person could accomplish fueled by tea and regret.
— Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility
My phone is on my bed, whispering in my ear like a bottle of scotch to a recovering alcoholic, while the rain continues cackling at me through my window.
— Katja Millay
I'm sorry," I say. "I didn't give you everything you wanted. I wasn't everything you wanted. You were everything I wanted.
— Kaui Hart Hemmings, The Descendants
Don't overthink things. Sometimes you can convince your head not to listen to your heart. Those are the decisions you regret for the rest of your life." Faith Barnett From Texas Tangle
— Leah Braemel
It was like we were both trying to hold onto something that was slipping through our fingers, and we didn't understand why. I understood more than him, of course, but just barely. I would never fully understand how I could have ever strayed from such a warm, sensitive and caring soul.
— S.C. Stephens, Thoughtless
Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.
— Bob Seger
Mr. Upchurch,” she fumbled. “I . . . I must take my leave directly. But before I go, allow me to say how sorry I am for the callous way I treated you in the past. I regret it most keenly.” His heart squeezed even as he felt his brows rise. “Do you?” She swallowed. “I was wrong about you. I was wrong about a great many things.
— Julie Klassen, The Maid of Fairbourne Hall
Regret and pangs of conscience are feelings we assign to others to make the world seem a little more fair, to even things out a little and provide consolation. In reality, those who do wrong to us never think about us as much as we think about them, and that is the ultimate irony: their deeds live inside us, festering, while they live out in the world, plucking peaches off trees, biting juicily into them, their minds on things lovely and sweet.
— Samuel Park, This Burns My Heart
I'm not big on regret - until time travel actually exists, it seems like a waste of making yourself feel bad
— Julie Klausner, I Don't Care About Your Band: Lessons Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, and Other Guys I've Dated
Things that are easily done are often much harder to undo. Sometimes, impossible.
— Janette Rallison
When Olivier had been taken away Gamache had sat back down and stared at the sack. what could be worse than Chaos, Despair, War?What would even the Mountain flee from? Gamache had given it a lot of thought.What haunted people even, perhaps especially, on their deathbed? What chased them, tortured them and brought some of them to their knees? And Gamache thought he had the answer.Regret. Regret for things said, for things done, and not done. Regret for the people they might have been. And failed to be.Finally, when he was alone, the Chief Inspector had opened the sack and looking inside had realize he'd been wrong. The worst thing of all wasn't regret.
— Louise Penny, The Brutal Telling
Until I met you," she said, "I never realized how precious each day could be. When I was working, each day was over before I knew it, and then a week just flew by, and then a whole year...What have I been doing all this time? Why didn't I meet you before? If I had to choose a whole year in the past, or a day with you-I'd choose a day with you...
— Shūichi Yoshida, Villain
I won't regret, because you can grow flowers where dirt used to be.
— Kate Nash
I'm sorry, I say. I didn't give you everything you wanted. I wasn't everything you wanted. You were everything I wanted.
— Kaui Hart Hemmings
Life is short, Isobeli. If we gave time to everything sooner or later we'd run out of it. We only have now. And we would be foolish to not seize it while we have it. So, why would it matter if I love him today or five years from now?
— Nadège Richards, Deceiving Destiny
Let's live to regret this" (Martin Riggs [Mel Gibson] to Lorna Cole [Rene Russo] in Lethal Weapon 3)
— Martin Riggs
Whatever you want, at any moment, someone else is getting it. Whatever you have, someone else is longing for.
— Laura Lippman, The Most Dangerous Thing
Happiness is pleasure without regret
— Leo Tolstoy
Why do we remember the Boys of Summer? We remember because we were young when they were, of course. But more, we remember because we feel the ache of guilt and regret. While they were running, jumping, leaping, we were slouched behind typewriters, smoking and drinking, pretending to some mystic communion with men we didn't really know or like. Men from ghettos we didn't dare visit, or rural farms we passed at sixty miles an hour. Loving what they did on the field, we could forget how superior we felt towards them the rest of the time. By cheering them on we proved we had nothing to do with the injustices that kept their lives separate from ours. There's nothing sordid or false about the Boys of Summer. Only our memories smell like sweaty jockstraps.
— Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer
Don't stop there. I suppose there are also, what, vampires and werewolves and zombies?""Of course there are. Although you mostly find zombies farther south, where the voudun priests are.""What about mummies? Do they only hang around Egypt?""Don't be ridiculous. No one believes in mummies.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
Clary- "How to Come Out to Your Parents," she read out loud. "LUKE. Don't be ridiculous. Simon's not gay, he's a vampire.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes
What is your name?" she murmured.He cocked an eyebrow at her and then went back to staring at his brother. "I'm the evil one, in case you haven't figured it out.""I wanted your name, not your calling.""Being a bastard's more of a compulsion, really. And it's Zsadist. I am Zsadist.
— J.R. Ward, Lover Eternal
Did we have sex?" he asked directly.For about two minutes, this might actually be fun. "Eric," I said, "we had sex in every position I could imagine, and some I couldn’t. We had sex in every room in my house, and we had sex outdoors. You told me it was the best you’d ever had." (At the time he couldn’t recall all the sex he’d ever had. But he’d paid me a compliment.) "Too bad you can’t remember it," I concluded with a modest smile.Eric looked like I’d hit him in the forehead with a mallet. For all of thirty seconds his reaction was completely gratifying.
— Charlaine Harris, Dead as a Doornail
When other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers, I kind of wanted to be a vampire.
— Angelina Jolie
You undo me, Merit. Wholly and completely. You don't take me at my word. You challenge me at every opportunity. And that means when I'm with you, I am less than the head of this House...and I am more than the head of this House. I am a man." He stroked my cheeks with his thumbs. "In my very, very long life, I need you more than I have ever needed anything.
— Chloe Neill, Twice Bitten
Consequently, if you believe God made Satan, you must realize that all Satan's power comes from God and so that Satan is simply God's child, and that we are God's children also. There are no children of Satan, really.
— Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire
But I didn't know about the other story.""What other story?”"About how you and Adrian Ivashkov are—""No, whatever you heard it’s not true.""But it was really romantic""Then it’s definitely not true.
— Richelle Mead, Shadow Kiss
I can smell blood, Elena,” Dmitri drawled, walking back into the room. “Are you trying to flirt?
— Nalini Singh, Angels' Blood
A Vampire!" I stammered. Then I noticed her legs. Below the cheerleader skirt, her left leg was brown and shaggy with a donkey's hoof. Her right leg was shaped like a human leg was it was made of bronze. "Uhh, a vampire with-""Don't mention the legs!" Tammi snapped. "It's rude to make fun.
— Rick Riordan, The Battle of the Labyrinth
The first morning Simon had been at Amatis's house, a grinning lycanthrope had showed up on the doorstep with a live cat for him. "Blood," he'd said, in a heavily accented voice. "For you. Fresh!"Simon had thanked the werewolf, waited from him to leave, and let the cat go, his expression faintly 
— Cassandra Clare, City of Glass
Sticks and stones will break your bones, but failure will get you killed.
— Laurell K. Hamilton, Narcissus in Chains
It doesn't matter if you can't say it right now. I'll say it for both of us. And someday you'll learn.
— L.J. Smith, The Awakening
Ha," I said. "Oh, ha-ha. Yeah, ’cause they love me. You see how many vampires are up here? Zero, right?"One," said Eric, stepping out of the stairwell.
— Charlaine Harris, All Together Dead
How is Angeline?" asked Dimitri. "Is she improving?"Eddie and I exchanged glances. So much for avoiding her indiscretions. "improving how exactly?" I asked. "Improving how exactly?" I asked. "In combat, in following the dress code, or in keeping her hands to herself?" "Or in turning off caps lock?" added Eddie. "you noticed that too?"I asked. "Hard not to," he said.Dimitri looked surprised, which was not a common thing. He wasn't caught off guard very often, but then, no one could really prepare for what Angeline might do. "I didn't realize I needed to be more specific," said Dimitri after a pause. "I meant combat.
— Richelle Mead, The Golden Lily
The sweetest part of being a couple is sharing your life with someone else.But my life, evidently, had not been good enough to share.
— Charlaine Harris, Club Dead
It's healthy to ditch class now and then." To be precise, it was healthier for humans if vampires ditched on days when human blood would be spilt.
— Stephenie Meyer, Midnight Sun
Where do you. come from?" Frank challenged, puffing his chest, a little bolder now that he could breathe. "Some of us are starting to wonder.""I come from civilization," Lucius retorted. "You wouldn't be familiar with the territory. Now pick up the books.
— Beth Fantaskey, Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side
As if Spade's chivalry would allow him to do anything to a woman. The harshest punishment she could imagine him dishing out to Cat would be refusing to open a door for her.
— Jeaniene Frost, First Drop of Crimson
The closer you got to someone, the more it would destroy you when they were inevitably gone.
— Julie Kagawa, The Immortal Rules
He was like Superman, but with fangs and oddly impaired morals.
— Patricia Briggs, River Marked
You look wonderful", Jason said."No compliments, Jason. I'm uncomfortable enough in the lingerie.""Then by all means take it off.
— Laurell K. Hamilton, Narcissus in Chains
He wondered if normalcy was something, like vision or silence, you didn't realize was precious until you lost it.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version
The vampire's eyes were open, and he was staring at her intently. It was as though he were trying to speak to her with simply the power of a glare.Alexia did not speak glare-ish.
— Gail Carriger, Soulless
You really should stay away from me.
— Stephenie Meyer, Twilight
Believe this, Bitch.
— Laurell K. Hamilton, Circus of the Damned
Sorry if I can't be the right monster for you Bella.
— Stephenie Meyer, New Moon
What, no flirting?” I asked, trying to buy time. “Aren’t you going to at least try to be sexy? Think of all those vampire fans out there—they’d be so disappointed.” I pulled out my silver knife. Probably should have paid more attention during my knife training. “Tell you what. Let me go and I promise not to tell anyone that you aren’t suave.
— Kiersten White, Paranormalcy
Edward smiled, I smiled, even Bernardo smiled. Olaf just looked sinister.
— Laurell K. Hamilton, Skin Trade
Embroidery?" I sucked at embroidery. Aunt Hyacinth had tried to teach me, but we'd both given it up as a lost cause.Lucy, strangely, had picked it up really quickly and embroidered a tapestry of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow for my last birthday.
— Alyxandra Harvey, My Love Lies Bleeding
But it was the dark hunger in his tone that got to her. Damn kinky vampire had actually liked the 
— Nalini Singh, Angels' Blood
I am not the kind of girl who trusts a man to tell her everything she needs to know in his own due time, so I did some research on my sire. You can take the girl out of the library, but you can't take the neurotic, compulsively curious librarian out of the girl.
— Molly Harper, Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs
I never knew what life was until it ran out in a red gush over any lips, my hands!
— Anne Rice
You won't find a vampire in a Ford Fiesta
— Charlaine Harris, Dead Until Dark
Krishna was once asked what was the most miraculous thing in all creation, and he replied, "That a man should wake each morning and believe deep in his heart that he will live forever, even though he knows that he is doomed.
— Christopher Pike, Phantom
I mean, it's not like he's Damon Salvatore hot
— M. Leighton, For the Love of a Vampire
Illium, his expression subdued as it had been for too many days, turned to her. “Mind if I have a go?”“Kick his ass.”Stripping off his shirt and boots, Illium held out his hand for one of Venom’s blades. Lips curving, Venom passed it over. “Sure you can handle me, pretty, pretty Bluebell?”“Did I ever tell you about my snakeskin boots?” A savage grin, and she knew Venom was about to bear the brunt of whatever haunted the blue-winged angel.Venom swirled his blade in hand. “I do think I need some new feathers for my pillow.
— Nalini Singh, Archangel's Consort
Do I feel ancient to you now?" he murmered. "Too different from the person you loved before you knew this?" Her eyes were already glowing green, and her full lips parted. "No, you don't feel too ancient." Her voice was husky. "Or too different. You feel like mine. Whoever you were, whoever you are...you're mine." Mencheres smiled, his fangs stretching to their full length. "So you have spoken, so it shall be decreed. For all eternity.
— Jeaniene Frost, Eternal Kiss of Darkness
I glanced at George half naked in his towel, then at Barkley, completely naked in his . . . nothing. A vampire and a werewolf. I shook my head. It was obvious. I was having one of my Anita Blake dreams again. 
— Michelle Rowen, Fanged & Fabulous
I am the Vampire Lestat. I'm immortal more or less. The light of the sun, the sustained heat of an intense fire-these things might destroy me. But then again, they might not.
— Anne Rice
Stop being so...optimistic, its getting on my nerves.""No problem. Do you want me to be all gloom and doom or just shut up?""Just shut up.""Can do.""Really? Doesn't seem like it."-Jacob and seth
— Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn
Damn it," I said. "I don't suppose you have any ideas on how to kill Littleton."He smiled at me, his teeth very white in the darkness of his face. "Eat him," he said.
— Patricia Briggs, Blood Bound
I stroked Eric's hair, tucking some behind his ear. His eyes on mine were intent, and I knew he was waiting for me to speak. "I wish," I said, "I could save orgasms in a jar for when i need them, because I think I had a few extra." Eric's eyes widened, and all of a sudden he roared with laughter. (Dead to the World)
— Charlaine Harris
I sounded like Horton the Elephant. "A person is a person no matter how small." What the hell was I doing standing in the middle of a cave, in the dark, surrounded by wererats, quoting Dr. Seuss, and trying to kill a one-thousand-year-old vampire?
— Laurell K. Hamilton
Let the flesh instruct the mind.
— Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire
Most of the funeral stuff is going to be done during daylight hours,” I said. “I’m not even going to be able to attend the burial. Humans get upset when vampires burst into flames right next to them.
— Molly Harper, Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men
Sleeping with another girl does not always mean you are a lesbian, sometimes it just means the central heating needs fixing
— Amy Mah, Fangs Rule: A Girls Guide to Being a Vampire
She's kind of a, well, you know, a B with an itch.
— Alyson Noel, Evermore
Well, if pirates are bad,And vampires are worse,Then I pray that as long as I beThat though I sing of VampiratesI never one shall see.Yea, if pirates are dangerAnd vampires are death,I'll extend my prayer for thee-That thine eyes never see a Vampirate...and they never lay a hand on thee
— Justin Somper, Demons of the Ocean
Do you know where Jason is?” she asked Dmitri when they exited the morgue. Dmitri pressed the car remote to unlock the flame red Ferrari parked in the employees-only lot. “Tired of your Bluebell already?” A tendril of champagne circled around her senses, cut with something far harder. Never had she felt that harsh edge in Dmitri’s scent. She pitied the woman he took to his bed today.“Yeah, that’s it. I’m building a harem.
— Nalini Singh, Archangel's Consort
I'm looking for someone to quench my thirst-for all eternity" -Luna Maxwell
— Ellen Schreiber, Vampireville
I knew what was like to finally be seduced by the thing you hunted. Mine just happened to be a more traditional seduction. Okay, at least I was still among the living.
— Laurell K. Hamilton, Incubus Dreams
Cole - I just thought of a new game.Jaz - What's that?Cole - Splat the Specter.Jaz - Rules?Cole - You can help me make them up. Right now all I know for sure is that it involves water guns filled with grape Kool-Aid and two ferrets named Biff and Chlamydia.Vayl - Why Ferrets?Jaz - Really? You want to know about his choice of pets when he's named one of them after an STD?
— Jennifer Rardin, One More Bite
Should we put out the light? And then put out the light. But once put out thy light, I cannot give it vital breath again. It needs must wither.
— Anne Rice
She has enough black eyeliner on to outline a corpse, and her skin's so pale she looks like she's just broken dawn.
— John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
I am neither good, nor bad, neither angel nor devil, I am a man, I am a vampire.
— Michael Romkey