John le Carre Quotes

When we grow older and begin to realize that our omnipotence is really not so omnipotent, that our strongest wishes are not powerful enough to make the impossible possible, the fear that we have contributed to the death of a loved one diminishes - and with it, the guilt.

My wife's dying upstairs and I can't do anything about it. I look in her face and I see the memories there. I see how I hurt her and how I said the wrong things and how I got angry and how I wasn't the man she hoped I'd be. I see that in her face and I see she's going to die with that. You think I'm not preoccupied?

O the anguish of that thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, for the light answers we returned to their plaints or their pleadings, for the little reverence we showed to that sacred human soul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing God had given us to know!

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.

Society isn't good at dealing with people who have something concrete to feel guilty about or who are dealing with a loss.

My uncle died in 1987. I unfortunately - I saw it happen before it happened, which was really, really hard because I was 16 years old and I thought, like, Well, I'm seeing this. I'm supposed to stop this. And I couldn't.

My father died. It is still a deep regret to me this day that in choosing acting as my career I was forced to hurt him. He died too early to see I had done the right, the only thing.

I don't understand why God took him and didn't take me.

All I know is it destroyed my family, it destroyed my marriage to Sylvester and I will never get over it.

I was sick. I guess I was about to crack up thinking about all my good buddies. They were better men than me and they're not coming back. Much less back to the White House, like me.

It's unnatural to believe death usually has a beauty and a concordance and is usually a coming together of your life's work. It leads to frustration for the patient. And it leaves grieving families convinced they did something wrong.

I hope when I'm on my deathbed, people forgive me, because there is a lot to forgive.

My greatest regret is that my mother died before I could help her materially.

I prayed often for deliverance from the pain caused by my decision to abort my baby. I suffered the threat of cervical and breast cancer and experienced the pain of empty arms after the baby was gone. And truly, for me, and countless abortive mothers, nothing on earth can fully restore what has been lost; only Jesus can.

My grandfather was terminally ill, and any interaction with him felt so incomplete. It seemed impossible to say or do anything that was enough. And, of course, that was true. Nothing could have been enough.

You don't get dead and there not be consequences.

It happened. It was awful. You aren't perfect. That's all there is. Don't confuse your grief with guilt.

O the anguish of the thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them.

Kisten, please don't leave me," I begged, and his eyes opened. "I'm cold," he said, fear rising in his blue eyes. I held him tighter. "I'm holding you. It's going to be okay." "Tell Ivy," he said with a gasp, clenching in on himself. "Tell Ivy that it wasn't her fault. And tell her that at the end... you remember love. I don't think... we lose our souls... at all. I think God keeps them for us until we... come home. I love you, Rachel." "I love you, too, Kisten," I sobbed, and as I watched, his eyes, memorizing my face, silvered, and he died.

I didn't cry at my father's funeral, and I felt guilty about that. Of course, he got sick not too long after he and I had had that final altercation, and I felt real guilty because of that, too. Then years later, one day, I was probably in my late twenties, early thirties, and I just broke down crying, because I finally got my father.

He who has once stood beside the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been forever closed, feeling how impotent there are the wild love, or the keen sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart which can only be discharged to the dust.

She was nothing but good and I was nothing but bad, but then she died, and I didn't.

I wanted something that I could look back on and say, yes, you were fighting too, you burned to be alive, and whatever failure or accident of nature caused you to be killed could be explained by something other than the fact that I'd missed your giving up.

I’ve lost someone, too,” he reminded her. “It’s not the same!” She squeezed the bridge of her nose, trying to stifle her tears. “I was so mean to him. I quit the piano! I blamed him for everything, and I didn’t say more than a few words to him for three years! Three years! And I can’t get those years back. But maybe if I hadn’t been so angry, he might not have gotten sick. Maybe I caused that extra… stress that did all this. Maybe it was me!