Wednesday 6 July 2011

Regretting Rien

As well as collecting quotes from novels in my note books there are also a few from newspaper articles. This one is from The Times (2oth November 1999)

Alan Jackson: "And when you look back at your life, meanwhile, are you Frank Sinatra-ish 'Regrets? I've has a few.' Or do you come down on Edith Piaf's side, regretting rien?"

Qunetin Crisp: "Dear boy, you can only regret things if you turned down alternatives. Why did I marry such an awful woman when I had the chance of this one or that? Why did I stay so long in this dreary job instead of taking the offer of that one? ...No alternatives, and so nothing to regret."

Edith Piaf

Are you Sinatra or Piaf?

7 comments:

  1. Thank you for this. So true.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Piaf - all choices, good or bad, led me to where I am now, so how could I possibly regret any of it?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, I'd have to say Sinatra, but only because his song "My Way" is one of my absolute favorites ever ;)

    To be serious though, I'm definitely a Piaf. Every choice I make led me to where I am today, good or bad.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Some days Piaf some days I'm Sinatra. And I love the Quentin Crisp quote, love love love it. More people should ascribe to that way of thinking.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm mostly Sinatra. I don't really believe in not having regrets, I think it is good to regret some things and learn from those experiences. And Quentin is right the only regrets I have are ones where there was a concrete alternative.

    ReplyDelete
  6. So pleased you all like the quote - it's stayed with me all this time and your interest in it has reignited it for me.

    ReplyDelete

Ooh how lovely more stripes on the page...
Thank you for taking the time.