Vita Sackville-West Quotes

I think the philosophy that you have to have if you travel frequently is, stuff is just stuff. Even if it has some sentimental or family connection, if you lose it in the world, it's still just a thing, and I think if you don't have that attitude, you will get incredibly stressed out and not enjoy your travels.

When I left school I went on trip around the world - I only got as far as Australia, but like a bloody fool I cut it short because of a girl. It's probably one of my big regrets in life.

Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.

We would go back and maybe not say that thing to our dad that we said, or maybe be a little nicer to someone who we cared about and had a relationship with when we were young. You know, they're subtle things, but we carry those with us forever. And I think that regret and time travel are intrinsically linked to me.

It's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace, and a wound that will never heal. No prima donna, the perfume is on an old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey. Goodnight to the street sweepers, the night watchmen flame keepers and goodnight, Matilda, too.

The only regrets I have are rather prosaic - like I wish I went for a swim in the Pacific.

I fear looking back and wishing I had done things I hadn't.

I never wanted to see half the things I've seen, and I've never seen half the things I wanted to. I don't think wanting comes into it. You'd best go all the same.

Sometimes I wish we could rub out all of our mistakes and start fresh, from the beginning,' I said. 'And sometimes I think there isn't anything to us but our mistakes.

Don't wish,"said Rain, "don't start. Wishing only...

Obligations, hatreds, injuries; what did I expect my memories to be? I was forgetting remorse. Now I have a complete past.

We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable. -Suyuan

I've learned so much from all my mistakes. I just wish I had gotten my education.

The weekend break had begun with the usual resentment and had continued with half-repressed ill humour. It was, of course, his fault. He had been more ready to hurt his wife's feelings and deprive his daughter than inconvenience a pub bar full of strangers. He wished there could be one memory of his dead child which wasn't tainted with guilt and regret.

The origin of sorrow is this: to wish for something that does not come to pass.

Our studies will be forever, in a very great degree, under the direction of chance; like travelers, we must take what we can get, and when we can get it - whether it is or is not administered to us in the most commodious manner, in the most proper place, or at the exact minute when we would wish to have it.

I am I, and I wish I weren't.

Catch up with your past, before it catches up with you.

I wish... that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it.

Unless you're very boring, I think most people who've lived long enough have something in their past which will never go away. As a writer, my interest has become in writing about much more emotional, personal topics. I'm trying to reach into subjects I have never written about before.

No use wishing now for any other sin.

I still feel as if I weren't a good enough mother. I didn't break any rules. I didn't cause my son any pain. But I did bring to my life some of my father, who was very controlling and very remote. I was working a lot. I wasn't there enough.

How wicked I was to wish that something dramatic would happen!' she thought. 'Oh, if we could only have those dear, monotonous, pleasant days back again! I would *never* grumble about them again.

That's what a conscience is made of, scar tissue ... Little strips and pieces of remorse sewn together year by year until they formed a distinctive pattern, a design for living.

The past is nothing but a weight. It will build inside of you like a stone.