“I regret everything because it has just finished, and already when I was twelve, I lamented the time that had gone by. Even in the best of spirits, it's always been as though I wrestle with the present in a vain effort to stop its becoming the past.”

— Andrew Solomon , book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I regret everything because it has just finished, and already when I was twelve, I lamented the time that had gone by. …" by Andrew Solomon?

Andrew Solomon 33

American journalist 1963

Related quotes

“I changed it. I had to. Do you know why?" She studied him, her eyes grave. "Because that was then and this is now. Because the past is gone, even though it defines the present.”

Stephen King book Doctor Sleep

Source: Doctor Sleep

“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.”

Jim Butcher Captain's Fury

Source: Captain's Fury

“There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

“I write in a hurry, because the little one, who has been sleeping a long time, begins to call for me. Poor thing! when I am sad, I lament that all my affections grow on me, till they become too strong for my peace, though they all afford me snatches of exquisite enjoyment.”

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) British writer and philosopher

Letter to Gilbert Imlay (19 August 1794)

“No matter how happy I had been in the past I do not long for it. The present is always the moment for which I love.”

Jamaica Kincaid (1949) Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer

Source: The Autobiography of My Mother

“I don't like that word 'finish'. When something is finished, that means it's dead, doesn't it? I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting – I just stop working on it for a while. I like painting because it's something I never come to the end of. Sometimes I paint a picture, then I paint it all out. Sometimes I'm working on fifteen or twenty pictures at the same time. I do that because I want to – because I like to change my mind so often. The thing to do is always to keep starting to paint, never finishing painting.”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

quote of 1948
1942 - 1948
Source: Movements in art since 1945, Edward Lucie-Smith, Thames and Hudson 1975, p 32

“You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don't plan for it!”

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie

Amanda, Scene Five
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)

“I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered-and that I loved it, that is the unanswered in my life.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

“Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Source: Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Einzelbänden

“A world of "if"s, but it would make no difference. If I could go back in time… but I couldn't. The past was behind me. The best thing now would be to stop looking over my shoulder. It was time to forget the past and look to the present and future.”

Darren Shan book Cirque du Freak

Source: A Living Nightmare

“I regret everything because it has just finished, and already when I was twelve, I lamented the time that had gone by. Even in the best of spirits, it's always been as though I wrestle with the present in a vain effort to stop its becoming the past.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Andrew Solomon 33

Related quotes

Related topics