William Saroyan Quotes

Many times, the decisions we make affect and hurt your closest friends and family the most. I have a lot of regrets in that regard. But God has forgiven me, which I am very thankful for. It has enabled me to forgive myself and move forward one day at a time.

We cannot go back in time and change the past but we can repent.

We’ve all done stuff we aren’t proud of. If you knew…” He shook his head. “The point is, I don’t know why you did this. I just hope that whatever the reason was, it’s something that you’ve come to terms with. I don’t think any less of you because of it. I never did.

Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here? I want to be. I can. I believe it.

Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.

My children forgave me at a time when I could barely forgive myself.

The prisoner is not the one who has commited a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over.

I think everybody wants to redeem themselves after they've done something that might be considered negative. I don't think anyone wants to go to the grave negative.

One lives with so many bad deeds on one's conscience and some good intentions in one's heart.

The difference between anger and deep remorse - remorse is much fatter. It's a deeper feeling altogether. Anger is too easy an escape for my money.

I am much chastened and profoundly remorseful. I can only hope that the Almighty and those whom I have wronged will forgive me my trespasses.

If I could do one thing over I'd have been nicer to my parents.

I just hope everybody forgives me for whatever I did wrong. And hope they remember some of what I did right.

My heart gets very tender when it comes to playing someone who has wronged someone else. I almost feel like it's easier for me to play having been wronged than it is to actually feel like you had an active part in hurting someone.

In 2006, 2 years ago, I made a very serious mistake. A mistake that I am responsible for and no one else. In 2006, I told Elizabeth about the mistake, asked her for her forgiveness, asked God for his forgiveness.

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

'Caught' is a novel of forgiveness, and the past and the present - who should be and who shouldn't be forgiven. None of my books are ever just about thrills, or it won't work.

Do you ever achieve total forgiveness after screwing up?

I don't regret any of my transgressions, because I believe I paid for them a million times over.

As much wrong as I did in life and as many people as I hurt, I can say that God never stopped talking to me. I just stopped listening.

If you did something in 1975 that you deeply regret and that you now can recognize as having been profoundly irresponsible, for example, the only way to be lifted out of deep regret and the pain over it is through atonement - through the kind of remorse that leads to genuine atonement, the making of amends, and forgiveness of self and others.

Unless you can change the past, you’re wasting the present on this guilt

Sister, I won't ask for forgiveness, my sins are all I have.

Only true remorse and "Will you forgive me?" can press the reset button.