Stephen Chbosky Quotes

My father never saw me play ball, and I was an outstanding ballplayer. I missed all that adoration.

My father never put me on his lap and said he loved me.

The regret of my life is that I have not said 'I love you' often enough.

I grew up in a house of no love or emotion - it kind of sticks with you.

I don't know a single person who doesn't regret the things that they did to hurt their parents, or the things they didn't say to them.

I remember when I was a little boy my father didn't love me; he couldn't. He loved my older brother but he couldn't love me somehow, at least not in a way I could understand it.

I've always wanted to be what my father never was to me.

I love my son, but I was never there for him, so I understand why he hates me.

I'm upset when I miss.

Things said or done long years ago Or things I did not do or say But thought that I might say or do, Weigh me down, and not a day But something is recalled, My conscience or my vanity appalled.

Then he left her there, standing alone, surrounded by word ghosts; things she could have said.

I'll just go over to the Duke's," I said. "Her parents already told me I could stay there. I'll go over there and open all my presents, and talk about how my parents neglect me, and then maybe the Duke will give me some of her presents because she feels so bad about how my mom doesn't love me.

In this moment she felt that she had been robbed of an enormous number of valuable things, whether material or intangible: things lost or broken by her own fault, things she had forgotten and left in houses when she moved: books borrowed from her and not returned, journeys she had planned and had not made, words she had waited to hear spoken to her and had not heard, and the words she meant to answer with. . . .

All of life like a series of tableaux, and in the living we missed so much, hid so much, left so much undone and unsaid.

Little things I should have said and done I just never took the time You were always on my mind

Once upon a time I would’ve leaped at the rare opportunity of curling up with Mom on the couch. But now it sort of felt like too little too late. I had someone else waiting for me.

Over time, the ghosts of things that happened start to turn distant; once they've cut you a couple of million times, their edges blunt on your scar tissue, they wear thin. The ones that slice like razors forever are the ghosts of things that never got the chance to happen.

I was supposed to be having the time of my life.

This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. Two old women giggling over their tea.

My mom was a frustrated woman, like so many unhappy women who didn't get the opportunities they wanted.

If only' repeated again and again in her head like a battering ram...'if only' could break your heart.

It is folly to pretend that one ever wholly recovers from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar. There are faces I can never look upon without emotion, there are names I can never hear spoken without almost starting.

every death diminishes us, but those that leave differences unresolved and things unsaid are the most painful of all.

When my father passed, I was still an unsuccessful cook with a drug problem. I was in my mid-thirties, standing behind an oyster bar, cracking clams for a living when he died. So, he never saw me complete a book or achieve anything of note. I would have liked to have shared this with him.

All of us growing up have come to terms with too much pain. Although we repress it, it's still there. The worst pain is that of not being wanted, of realising your parents do not need you in the way you need them.