... Because the writer resented that she had turned to me I became the handsome and dazed narrator, incapable of love or kindness. That's how I became the damaged party boy who wandered through the wreckage, blood streaming from his nose, asking questions that never required answers. That's how I became the boy who never understood how anything worked. That's how I became the boy who wouldn't save a friend. That's how I became the boy who couldn't love the girl.

He wasn't, I realized when I read those scenes concerning Blair and myself, close to any of us-- except of course to Blair, and really not even to her. He was simply someone who floated through our lives and didn't seem to care how flatly he perceived everyone or that he'd shared our secret failures with the world, showcasing the youthful indifference, the gleaming nihilism, glamorizing the horror of it all. But there was no point in being angry with him.

Yes; he had done it. She was in the carriage, and felt that he had placed her there, that his will and his hands had done it, that she owed it to his perception of her fatigue, and his resolution to give her rest. She was very much affected by the view of his disposition towards her, which all these things made apparent. This little circumstance seemed the completion of all that had gone before. She understood him. He could not forgive her, but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed.

Here and there a man respected the operator. Instinctively the man felt in him a glowing resentment of something he had not the courage to resent.

Power breeds resentment and withers the slow-growing plant that is trust, and people who use it to capture others not only fail to make friends but often end up captives themselves. And perhaps what is sadder still is that when you control other people you take away all that there might be in a real encounter with them and replace it with your fears. And while you might get gratitude for a while, or guilt and tears, you won't get what they had to offer if you'd let them give you what was really in their hearts.

Once we are honest about our feelings, we can invite ourselves to consider alternative modes of viewing our pain and can see that releasing our grip on anger and resentment can actually be an act of self-compassion.

If science could comprehend all phenomena so that eventually in a thoroughly rational society human beings became as predictable as cogs in a machine, then man, driven by this need to know and assert his freedom, would rise up and smash the machine. What the reformers of the Enlightenment, dreaming of a perfect organization of society, had overlooked, Dostoevski saw all too plainly with the novelist's eye: namely, that as modern society becomes more organized and hence more bureaucratized it piles up at its joints petty figures like that of the Underground Man, who beneath their nondescript surface are monsters of frustration and resentment.

Forgiveness is the way we break the grip that long-held resentments have on our hearts.

But yester-night I prayed aloud In anguish and in agony, Up-starting from the fiendish crowd Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me: A lurid light, a trampling throng, Sense of intolerable wrong, And whom I scorned, those only strong! Thirst of revenge, the powerless will Still baffled, and yet burning still! Desire with loathing strangely mixed On wild or hateful objects fixed. Fantastic passions! maddening brawl! And shame and terror over all! Deeds to be hid which were not hid, Which all confused I could not know Whether I suffered, or I did: For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe, My own or others still the same Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.

Even as we recognize our resentment, bitterness, or jealousy, we can also honor our own wish to be happy, to feel free.

Leo lowered his screwdriver. He looked at the ceiling and shook his head like, What am I gonna do with this guy? I try very hard to be annoying, Leo said. Don't insult my ability to annoy. And how am I supposed to resent you if you go apologizing? I'm a lowly mechanic. You're like the prince of the sky, son of the Lord of the Universe. I'm supposed to resent you. Lord of the Universe? (Jason) Sure, you're all-bam! Lightning man. And 'Watch me fly. I am the eagle that soars- (Leo) Shut up, Valdez. (Jason) Leo managed a little smile. Yeah, see. I do annoy you. I apologize for apologizing. (Jason) Thank you. He went back to work, but the tension had eased between them. Leo still looked sad and exhausted-just not quite so angry.

With resentment, hearts burn in the fire of hatred. With forgiveness, hearts dance with pure joy.

Resentment is the little fire that can transform and destroy the world by becoming a wildfire.

To forgive is to be free from past resentment to welcome the dawn of peace.

You can never win resentment with an argument— only love can do that.

The worst enemy in life is resentment.

Anger is a fire of resentment which will burn the bearer and not the receiver.

We will not be able to find peace if our minds are burning with the fires of resentment. Let us forgive and forget to create peace.

Never dwell in resentment, but never forget to learn from the reflection.

Resentment lies in the heart of fools.