Harlan Coben Quotes

I can't hate for long. It isn't worth it.

What he did was wrong. He doesn't deserve your love. But he does deserve your forgiveness, because otherwise he will grow like a weed in your heart until it's choked and overrun. The only person who suffers, when you squirrel away all that hate, is you.

Resentments are hardened chunks of anger. They loosen up and dissolve with forgiveness and letting go.

We attach our feelings to the moment when we were hurt, endowing it with immortality. And we let it assault us every time it comes to mind. It travels with us, sleeps with us, hovers over us while we make love, and broods over us while we die. Our hate does not even have the decency to die when those we hate die-for it is a parasite sucking OUR blood, not theirs. There is only one remedy for it. [forgiveness]

What we don't recognize is that holding onto resentment is like holding onto your breath. You'll soon start to suffocate.

I had to learn to forgive. I couldn't sleep at night. I got ulcers. I had to let go, to let God deal with it. No one wants to be mad in their own house. I didn't want to be angry my whole life. It takes so much energy out of you to be mean.

Do not grieve yourself too much for those you hate, nor yet forget them utterly.

I don't like to hold on to anger. It eats you up alive.

I can hold on to that, that bitterness and that anger. It won't get me anywhere.

My idea of forgiveness is letting go of resentment that does not serve your better interest, ridding yourself of negative thoughts. All they do is make you miserable. Believe me, you can fret and fume all you want, but whoever it was that wronged you is not suffering from your anguish whatsoever.

When we have painful memories from hurting experiences, we may feel justified in holding on to the resentment. But resentment is corrosive. It doesn't affect the person we feel anger toward, it destroys the host.

Those who have hurt you in the past cannot continue to hurt you now unless you hold on to the pain through resentment.

Forgiveness of the present is even more important than forgiveness of the past. If you forgive every moment - allow it to be as it is - then there will be no accumulation of resentment that needs to be forgiven at some later time.

If you are resentful, you keep the thing alive. So the way to go on is to get rid of it, in order to forgive in order to forget.

Resentment is when you allow what’s eating you to eat you up. Revenge is the raging fire that consumes the arsonist. Bitterness is the trap that snares the hunter. And mercy is the choice that can set them all free.

The worst part of all is that, without forgiveness, bitterness is all that is left

Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.

I never hold a grudge.

I really can't hate more than 5 or 10 years. Wouldn't it be terrible to be always burdened with those primary emotions you had at one time?

Something my mum taught me years and years and years ago, is life's just too short to carry around a great bucket-load of anger and resentment and bitterness and hatreds and all that sort of stuff.

It's not for me to hold any grudges or anything like that.

Hate is a very strong and heavy emotion, probably as strong as love. I don't think I can live with hatred. If something bad happens, you feel bad about it; you forgive and move on. There's no hatred.

But I don't hold grudges.