“He felt that he was himself and did not wish to be anyone else. He only wished now to be better than he had been formerly”

“The hemulen woke up slowly and recognised himself and wished he had been someone he didn't know.”

“He … got the better of himself, and that's the best kind of victory one can wish for.”

“He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.”

“It was a subtle refinement of God to learn Greek when he wished to write a book – and that he did not learn it better.”

“A man´s study reflects himself as he wishes to be seen publicly, but his journal, if he is honest, reflects something else.”

“He had wished to convince himself that Comarre was evil. Now he knew that it was not. There would always be, even in Utopia, some for whom the world had nothing to offer but sorrow and disillusion.”

“Thinking back, he recalled events he wished he could change, tears he wished had never been shed, time that could have been better spent, and frustrations he should have shrugged off. Life, it seemed, was full of regret, and he yearned to turn back the clock so he could live parts of his live over again. One thing was certain: He should have been a better husband.”

“And at that moment Jude thought something that he would never forgive himself for.
He wished that he had never met any of them.”

“What had happened? As he asked himself the question, he knew the answer. That no one had thought fit to tell him! No one! It was a bitter pill for him to swallow. He had been forgotten. Yet he had always wished to be forgotten. He could not have it both ways.”