The Collected Regrets Of Clover Quotes
"The first time I watched someone die, I was five."
"Mostly, I was fine. But I’ve wondered ever since what Mr. Hyland would have liked his last words to be if they hadn’t been about the antics of a particularly naughty rabbit."
"New York is a city of lonely people full of regrets."
"Shepherding a dying person through the last days of their life is a privilege—especially when you’re the only thing they have to hold on to."
"The most important thing is never to look away from someone’s pain."
"Grief plays tricks on you that way—a familiar whiff of cologne or a potential sighting of your person in a crowd, and all the knots you’ve tied inside yourself to manage the pain of losing them suddenly unravel."
"That’s the thing about loneliness: no one ever chooses it."
"Knowing that death was impending seemed to allow them to deal in absolutes—as if they had one last piece to fit into the puzzle of their life and they knew exactly where it went."
"Messages of love always make their way through, even when someone is unconscious."
"And once in a while, he’d pat me on the head, as if to reassure me he was still there."
"And as I predicted, seven people were soon shuffling shoulder to shoulder along the front of the buffet, competing for the choicest bits of chicken."
"A symptom of spending a lot of time alone with your thoughts like I did was that sometimes they could run a little wild."
"Who has something they want to discuss?"
"Have you ever wondered if we all have a specific time we’re meant to die?"
"If you could know the date of your death in advance, would you want to?"
"The reason so many people die with regrets is because they live like they're invincible."
"People tell themselves they've got plenty of time, until they're at the mercy of a careless action."
"Funerals aren't for the dead. They're for the people left behind to have closure."
"Infinite curiosity and a keen sense of observation."
"Your grieving process shouldn’t last longer than six months."
"There's nothing like being in love—even if it doesn't last as long as you want it to."
"It’s rare that I get to meet any of Sebastian’s friends."
"What kind of life are you living if you’ve never let anyone see the real you?"
"Sometimes, but it’s not always our place to do so."
"Almost anything can be understood if you study it hard enough."
"It’s my grandmother. We found out a few weeks ago that she’s dying, but nobody in my family wants to talk about it."
"I thought you’d disappeared into thin air."
"But that’s because you’re missing the most important element of observation."
"But you’re so good with people—just look at the work you do."
"Don’t you ever want to settle down with somebody one day?"
"I get it. It’s a little strange that I’m thirty-six and don’t have any friends except for my eighty-seven-year-old neighbor."
"You can’t understand someone completely—we humans are a complex bunch."
"But remember, those binoculars come with a caveat."
"I’m always one for airing it all out versus bottling it up."
"This was the longest I’d spent socializing outside of my job with someone who wasn’t Leo."
"The saddest part is that most of us are guilty of that with our loved ones."
"Nobody ever understands love—anyone who says they do is lying or in denial."
"Love is kind of like scratching a mosquito bite—painful and euphoric at the same time."
"I’m sure you’ve already found someone special."
"I’ve been craving a little bit of a treat."
"Making people feel seen... that's what photography is all about."
"It’s liberating to open yourself up and be truly seen by someone else."
"I regret having left it this long—it would have made things far easier."
"I needed those two years for my sanity," Claudia continued. "I told myself that I’d pack as many experiences and memories into those years as possible so that they could last me the rest of my life."
"Sometimes I feel like I’m just sitting around waiting to die, and that everyone else around me—you included—is waiting for it too. Some mornings I wake up almost disappointed that I’m still here."
"Selfish as it sounds," Claudia said, "I mostly regret putting the needs of others ahead of my own. But as a woman, that’s what I was taught to do."
"But once you’ve lived a long life, I think you might see things differently."
"I read about a woman once who asked for a divorce on her deathbed because she didn’t want to meet her death while unhappily married."
"Just because no one’s there to witness it, doesn’t make it okay."
"There’s a difference between being alone and never letting anyone else in."
"It’s a privilege to be with someone as they leave this life."
"I guess it made all of my fears about death come up to the surface."
"But the truth is, grief never really goes away. Someone told me once that it’s like a bag that you always carry."
"Sometimes it’s just about them not being alone or helping them get their affairs in order before they go."
"While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die."
"Most of us don’t ever learn our real lessons in life until it’s too late."
"Observing the world, rather than engaging with it, meant I didn’t have to invest emotionally."
"The truth was, I wasn’t trying my best—I was only living a shell of the life I knew was possible."
"Sadly it happens more often than you’d think—people don’t realize how they feel about someone or something until their lives are almost over."
"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."
"Some people just didn’t get a happy ending, even if I tried my best to give them one."
"Instead of following in his footsteps, engaging my curiosity by traveling the world and decoding its patterns, I’d become a loner with an increasing penchant for dishonesty."
"Grief is just love looking for a place to settle."
"The secret to a beautiful death is living a beautiful life."