Mary Balogh Quotes

I am not the kind of woman who excuses her mistakes while reminding us of what used to be.

I don't think there's a person out there who can say they haven't done something they regret.

If a man lived long enough, his past would always overtake him, no matter how fast he ran or how morally he tried to live subsequently. And how men dealt with that law ultimately revealed their true natures.

It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.

We cannot go back in time and change the past but we can repent.

We only have the past that we have. Not all of our deeds were incorrect.

The worst sinner has a future, even as the greatest saint has had a past. No one is so good or bad as he imagines.

The past is the past. As long as it's not a mass-murderer past! You're with the person who you're with as they are now.

As long as you are carrying a secret, as long as you are trying to ease your conscience by telling God how sorry you are, you are setting yourself up to repeat the past.

Let this be a lesson to us all, said the preacher. You will be walking someday in the dark and the truth will come shining through, and behind you will be a life that you never want to see again.

A second chance doesn't mean anything if you haven't learned from your first mistake.

Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.

The past is a life sentence, a blunt instrument aimed at tomorrow.

I guess it's a sequel to our story From the journey 'tween heaven and hell With half the time thinking of what might have been and half thinkin' just as well. I guess only time will tell.

The mistakes I've made are dead to me. But I can't take back the things I never did.

Don't regret the past or fear the future. Both bring misery through self-doubt.

I wish I had a nickel for every time I fell and blamed someone else. I'd give a ton of money to the ones I've hurt.

I don't want to be in my meetings all sore or be at my son's graduation all sore just because of something I did in the past. (I'm) just learning and being smart.

Odd that the future should be so difficult to bring into focus when the past, uninvited, offered itself up so easily for inspection.

Until we have finally accepted the fact that there is nothing we can do to change the past, our feelings of regret and remorse and bitterness will prevent us from designing a better future with the opportunity that is before us today.

I think being able to age gracefully is a very important talent. It is too late for me. The horse is out of the barn... In past generations, people would try to play younger than they really are. My trick is, I don't try to play younger than I really am.

"I won't apologize for my past. A man is supposed to have experience." "From all indications, you've acquired enough for ten men".

Things without all remedy should be without regard: what's done is done.

I think some of the biggest time sucks are regret and guilt, and I have to fight against those things all the time. In a way, it's a good thing, because it can motivate you to make amends and forgive, but regrets are really, I think, a supreme waste of time in many ways.

In the past two years, I've started the process of becoming a new man. I am much chastened and profoundly remorseful over the reckless and hurtful things I have done in my life, especially those which have brought me before you today.