Tana French Quotes

Better to have loved and lost than to live with regret.

What was the point of being able to forgive, when deep down, you both had to admit you'd never forget?

I had learned that there were substitutes for a mother who couldn't be a mother. You could find love with other people. You could find it in places you weren't even looking. But the original wound would never heal. I would carry it with me forever, and so would Tara. That was the trick . . . accepting it, going on with your life, knowing it was part of you.

I have discovered, passionate grief does not link us with the dead but cuts us off from them. This becomes clearer and clearer. It is just at those moments when I feel least sorrow - getting into my morning bath is usually one of them - that H. rushes upon my mind in her full reality, her otherness. Not, as in my worst moments, all foreshortened and patheticized and solemnized by my miseries, but as she is in her own right. This is good and tonic.

It's time to live with what we have and mourn what we lost.

Out of love, No regrets-- Though the goodness Be wasted forever. Out of love, No regrets-- Though the return Be never.

I had to cease to mourn what could never be and make the most of what was possible. And I would begin doing that by trying to mend the hurts of the past.

The past was gone. Nothing could change what had already been. Looking back at it, letting its wounds fester, indulging in regret was just a different, slower way to die. The living moved forward.

To mourn a mischief that is past and gone Is the next way to draw new mischief on.

I have some girls who I look back on and I think, 'Wow, they were really horrible to me.' I would love an apology from a few girls, but whatever. I'm not holding any grudges. I'm over it.

It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wished I could stop trying.

If I could undo what's been done, But I guess everyone is living, With water and bridges.

Learning from our mistakes is critical for improving, but even I don't have patience for ranking my regrets. Regret is a negative emotion that inhibits the optimism required to take on new challenges. You risk living in an alternative universe, where if only you had done this or that differently, things would be better. That's a poor substitute for making your actual life better, or improving the lives of others. Regret briefly, analyze and understand, and then move on, improving the only life you have.

...forgiving is not the same as forgetting.

Everything we love goes. So to be able to grieve that loss, to let go, to have that grief be absolutely full, is the only way to have our heart be full and open.

Suffering over things that have happened to us is nothing more than an argument with the past.

Bones mend. Regret stays with you forever.

You can't dwell on what happened. You can't live even a moment stewing in bitterness.

In the photograph by my bed my mother is perpetually smiling on me. I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again.

There are certain people in my life who didn't care to be in my book. And so I cut them out. And I had broken up with somebody. And I was, you know, really upset and depressed. And so that was, you know, reasons to keep going.

It isn't up to me to break his heart; that's time's job.

Don’t waste another day of your life grieving over something that you cannot do anything about. Let God give you a new beginning. Your mistakes are not enough to stop God if you don’t let them.

Wisdom will never let us stand with any man on an unfriendly footing. We refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as if we waited for some better sympathy or intimacy to come. But whence and when: Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live.

One can forgive but one should never forget.

No need to be sentimental to mourn the loss of Paradise.