Gabby
https://www.goodreads.com/nonchalant_girl
“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
― The Midnight Library
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
― The Midnight Library
“It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”
― Far From the Madding Crowd
― Far From the Madding Crowd
“The greatest gift you can give anyone is your undivided attention...”
― The End of Your Life Book Club
― The End of Your Life Book Club
“Reading isn't the opposite of doing, it's the opposite of dying.”
― The End of Your Life Book Club
― The End of Your Life Book Club
“Only the ship is made of books, its sails thousands of overlapping pages, and the sea it floats upon is dark black ink.”
― The Night Circus
― The Night Circus
Books on the Nightstand
— 6095 members
— last activity Jan 01, 2026 07:09PM
A group to discuss books and topics mentioned on Books on the Nightstand, a blog and podcast about books and reading.
C2 Book Club
— 14 members
— last activity Mar 21, 2014 08:35AM
Share and see the books the members of our book club are reading
Gabby’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Gabby’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Gabby
Lists liked by Gabby





















