A Quote by Joyce Carol Oates

The act of sending a letter is an act of generosity, even if, in retrospect, it might seem reckless. Why regret one's generosity? Why regret one's impulsiveness, one's misjudgment of others? The inevitable discovery that someone is selling letters you'd written in trust is simply to discover an obvious human truth: there are those who don't cherish us as we'd cherished them, and had wished to be cherished by them.

Joyce Carol Oates

Quote Topics

Act Cherish Cherished Discover Discovery Even Generosity Had Human Inevitable Judgment Of Others Letter Letters Might Obvious Others Reckless Regret Retrospect Seem Selling Sending Simply Someone Them Those Trust Truth Us Why Wished Written

Quote Author

Joyce Carol Oates
American - Writer
Born: June 16, 1938

What haunted people even, perhaps especially, on their deathbed? What chased them, tortured them and brought some of them to their knees? And [he] thought he had the answer. Regret. Regret for things said, things done, and things not done. Regret for the people they might have been. And failed to be.

Louise Penny

Why do I act as I do? To tell you the truth, I have absolutely no idea why. It is simply my nature to act as I act, and that's all I can say.

Raymond Smullyan

Generosity is not limited to the giving of material things. We can be generous with our kindness and receptivity. Generosity can mean the simple giving of a smile or extending ourselves to really listen to a friend. Paradoxically, even being willing to receive the generosity of others can be a form of generosity.

Gil Fronsdal

The humiliation that Jane had felt turned to something else--grief perhaps, or regret. Regret that she had not known how to act with a boy, regret that she had not been wiser.

Beverly Cleary

Giving material goods is one form of generosity, but one can extend an attitude of generosity into all one's behavior. Being kind, attentive, and honest in dealing with others, offering praise where it is due, giving comfort and advice where they are needed, and simply sharing one's time with someone - all these are forms of generosity, and they do not require any particular level of material wealth.

Dalai Lama

Like humility, generosity comes from seeing that everything we have and everything we accomplish comes from God's grace and God's love for us . . . Certainly it is from experiencing this generosity of God and the generosity of those in our life that we learn gratitude and to be generous to others.

Desmond Tutu

Why does man regret, even though he may endeavour to banish any such regret, that he has followed the one natural impulse, rather than the other; and why does he further feel that he ought to regret his conduct? Man in this respect differs profoundly from the lower animals.

Charles Darwin

There's no regret. You can't regret. I mean, I've felt regret but I've also refused to allow regret to sow a seed and live in me because I don't believe it. You feel it, it's like guilt, it's like jealousy, it's like all those horrible things. You've just got to snip them and get them out, because they're no good.

Jude Law

But what's regret anyway? Regret, I am learning these days, is a lot of things. But mostly, it's a slippery seed of longing, of looking back and asking yourself why you didn't know better when the answers were so obvious all along.

Allison Winn Scotch

Not that I regret saying what I believed to be the truth, but I regret anything that I might have written or spoken that could have been used in a way to help to foster that atmosphere out of which came the loss of life of Brother Malcolm.

Louis Farrakhan

For better or worse, I refuse to live my life with regret. Sometimes, I'll look back on my past mistakes with fondness. But I never wished I wouldn't have made them. That's why I don't like re-takes.

Takashi Miike

Regret is not an apology. I regret that I ran the stop sign, right, but, yeah, I'm not sorry for what I speaking. I regret that because I got a ticket. You can regret things and still not be sorry for them.

Don Lemon

My dearest goose, why didn't you trust me, when I assured you that you might?' he countered. 'I have cherished throughout the believe that you would confide in me, and you see I was quite right.

Georgette Heyer

A love of reading shows empathy, the desire to understand how others live or act or might act - and why.

Celeste Ng

Deeds that seemed unimportant at the time would prove to have been momentous; a tiny act of selfishness and unkindness or, conversely, an unconsidered act of generosity would become the measure of a human life.