29 Orson Scott Card Quotes on Regret

Orson Scott Card quotes on regret

76. [He] wondered if it was already too late to teach her how to be a human

91. I wish I had died before seeing him, he will surely undo me before he's through

94. Time, time is such a fleeting, insubstantial thing. As Shakespeare said, 'I wasted time, and now doth time waste me'

115. How clever of me. I have found such a pathway into hell that I can never get back out.

119. I never thought id lose you again But I knew we had lost each other on the day you first loved [him]. Then you should have told me! I wouldn't have done it That's why I didn't tell you. But it isn't true ... You would have done it anyway. And I wanted you to. You've never been happier.

173. The mob still had anger in it, some of them at least. Yet there were so many who were sick of it all, many who were already ashamed, already discovering in their hearts the terrible acts they had performed tonight, when their souls were given over to the will of the mob.

184. A male does his best, reproductively, if he wanders and copulates as widely as possible. I've done the wandering. Somehow I missed out on the copulating.

202. It's the worst thing you'll ever do in your life, helping the people you love to something that in your heart you know is deeply wrong.

374. To face death, that's nothing much. But to feel really stupid when you die, well, that would be insufferable.

598. Do you begrudge her this: that once in her life she had a man who loved her with his whole heart, if only for that moment?

601. If only we could stand outside our lives and look at what we do, we might repair so many injuries before they're done.

610. That was what she knew of love. No wonder [he] never recognized her love when she gave it to him. Even now, if he knew that she had loved him, it would break his heart

613. This is the way the paths of our lives entwine and cross and go apart: if she sent for him the day before, even then he might have loved her. But she did not send for him until she was afraid; she was not afraid until he undid her work; he did not undo her work until he was past loving her. If only we could stand outside our lives and look at what we do, we might repair so many injuries before they're done

643. If he hadn't been so angry...he would have stopped and thought about it...

654. That's what's eating you alive. That you aren't the kind of guy who takes the law into his own hands. You left the law in other hands and it screwed you over pretty badly

659. I found her and then I lost her

705. Wishes are a waste of time... They only make you unhappy

730. How is it less bearable than that beautiful boy who wanted so badly to do the right thing that he did it all wrong, lost his chance, and now is caught in the sum of all his wrong turns? I got on the road they all wanted to take, and I reached the top, but it wasn't where I should have gone, I'm still that boy. I did not have to lie when I went home to her

735. I don't ever want to see you again. You've made me regret the one unregretable decision of my life - [her]. You've made me wish, somewhere in my heart, that id never married her. Which is like making me wish id never been born

748. Then [she] wept with all her heart. Not for the cruel and greedy man who had warred and killed and savaged everywhere he could. But for the boy who had somehow turned into that man, the boy whose gentle hand had comforted her childhood hurts, the boy whose frightened voice had cried out to her at the end of his life, as if he wondered why he had gotten lost inside himself, as if he realized that it was too, too late to get out again

768. She felt a dizzying vertigo, as if she stood on the edge of a great chasm, and the ground had just shifted a little under her feet. What sort of arrogance did she have, even to imagine reaching back into the past and making changes? Who am I, she thought, if I dare to answer prayers intended for the gods?

820. She thinks it's all better now, Josif thought bitterly. She thinks she's kept me. She would have kept me better if she had let me go now.

888. I hadn't know that. I hadn't known what price they would pay 'I'll do my best without your help'

895. I wondered for a frightening moment how I dared to make such a decision for the whole world, without consulting anyone else. Then I laughed at myself. It was a little too late to wonder if I ought to play god. The game was already over

921. So there he was with... No career, and, to put it candidly, no life. It was as if he had been running a long, long race and finally realized that there was nobody else in it with him, he had crossed the finish line years ago and didn't notice it because not a soul was there to cheek for him and clap him on the back and say 'Good run... Good run!' Or come to think of it, maybe they were there, only [he] himself didn't care what they thought of him and so he sloughed off their praise and their friendship because he was waiting for the one voice he'd never hear again.

928. He felt sick with the sense of loss. What have I been doing all these years? How stupid can a reasonably bright guy be?

986. Once you duct-tape a Ziploc bag to a man's chest, there's no going back.

1007. I wish I had been like you I wish I had been like you

1025. I never knew I love father till he lay there at the brink of death. Perhaps I never did love him, until he was nearly gone. It seemed a very powerful thought, until it occurred to him that justice probably put it into his mind