Sarah Dessen Quotes

Sometimes you regret the things you do, but they're over and done. Regretting the things you didn't do is tougher because they're still out there, haunting you with the what ifs.

You cannot look back and think what if.

I do not regret the things I've done, but those I did not do.

I don't regret what I've done but some of the things I didn't do.

I could have joined West Brom or Brighton. What would have happened had I joined one of them? I do not want to think about it. I do not think about it.

Should have. Would have. Could have. Didn't.

Regret is a tricky word. Here's a big secret: nobody knows what wasn't.

You can't regret the life you didn't lead.

A person could spend most of a lifetime in retrospective terror, thinking of all the things one nearly didn't do.

You always think "woulda, coulda, shoulda." I wish that I had prosecuted Tot Mom, I wish I'd prosecuted OJ, and I wish I had prosecuted the JonBenet Ramsey case.

This was our common ground, the secret we shared but never spoke aloud. I should have been with him; she should have left him alone. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It's so easy in the past tense.

Regrets are about decisions that you know you should have done different.

I don't want to be one of those could have, would have, should have kind of guys.

Tours always leave us some regrets and thoughts that we could have done better and should have done better.

One of the most difficult things to think about in life is one’s regrets. Something will happen to you, and you will do the wrong thing, and for years afterward you will wish you had done something different.

If you could do tomorrow over again, would you?

The ghosts of things that never happened are worse than the ghosts of things that did.

I've never stayed awake at night over a chance I took that failed, but I've stayed awake over chances I didn't take.

Don't use the past as an excuse to miss out on your future.

The sweetest memory is that which involves something which one should not have done; the bitterest, that which involves something which one should not have done, and which one did not do.

When looking back, usually I'm more sorry for the things I didn't do than for the things I shouldn't have done.

Haven't you ever wished that you could steal back just a few hours of your past?" she asked softly. "That's all I want... just a little taste of what might have been.

There's a lot of regrets about last year - maybe turning up was the biggest regret about it

It's easy to look back and see it, and it's easy to give the advice. But the sad fact is, most people don't look beneath the surface until it's too late.

What happens when you let an unsatisfactory present go on long enough? It becomes your entire history.