Life Review Quotes

Is everybody in?... Is everybody in?... Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin... The program for this evening is not new. You've seen this entertainment through and through. You've seen your birth, your life and death. You might recall all the rest. Did you have a good world when you died? Enough to base a movie on?

Now I am in my eighties, and I have known the joys and sorrows of a full life. Age, however, has its privileges. One is to reminisce, and another is to reminisce selectively.

Personally of course I regret everything. Not a word, not a deed, not a thought, not a need, not a grief, not a joy, not a girl, not a boy, not a doubt, not a trust, not a scorn, not a lust, not a hope, not a fear, not a smile, not a tear, not a name, not a face, no time, no place...that I do not regret, exceedingly. An ordure, from beginning to end.

I thought if I looked back and evaluated my life, it would help me in the future.

Do I have any regrets about my life? No.

To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice.

At the solemn moment of death, every man, even when death is sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before him, in its minutest details. For one short instant the personal becomes one with the individual and all-knowing ego. But this instant is enough to show to him the whole chain of causes which have been at work during his life.

I did my 40 years in Washington, 40-plus, and it's time to pause and reflect and think about what I've seen and done.

Let every man in mankind's frailtyConsider his last day; and let nonePresume on his good fortune until he findLife, at his death, a memory without pain.

My life has been such a blur since I was 18, 19 years old. I haven't even had time to contemplate my own life. By forcing yourself to write your life story you learn a great deal about yourself.

When we dead awaken ... we see that we have never lived.

At sixty I look back on a life of deep disappointments, of withered hopes, of unlooked for suffering, of severe discipline.

When I look back on everything, I'm really amazed by my career.

It has been an ache and a joy both to look over this big shoulder of mine at all my yesterdays.

It's taken me longer still to realize what a short span there is between those life experiences and the rest of your life. That's a job for the people who lived through it.

But I knew that someday I was going to die. And just before I died two things would happen; Number 1: I would regret my entire life. Number 2: I would want to live my life over again.

I always keep my head down, working, doing things, moving forward. That's what I've done all my life. Then you stop and realize what you've done.

I've had a great ride. I've got no complaints.

Discovering, for example, that as witnesses to your life diminish, there is less corroboration, and therefore less certainty, as to what you are or have been. [p. 65]

I try not to look back on my life and be regretful.

But let's face it, I still have to look at my self and look at the things I've done down the stretch.

At the end of life thoughts hitherto impossible come to the collected mind, like good spirits which let themselves down from the shining heights of the past.

I saw my whole life flash before my eyes, boss. It was horrific. I haven’t done anything to regret yet and it’s been way too brief. I at least want a license before I check out, you know?

As I review my life, I feel I must have missed the point, either then or now.

Turning 50 is making me reflect on my life in a way that's more compassionate and forgiving.