Moving on can be challenging, but sometimes all it takes is the right words to inspire a fresh start. Whether you’re closing a chapter or embracing new opportunities, these 69 moving on quotes offer powerful insights and motivation to help you let go of the past and step confidently into your future. Let these quotes be your guide as you navigate change and find strength in moving forward.
1. “To be bitter is to attribute intent and personality to the formless, infinite, unchanging and unchangeable void. We drift on a chartless, resistless sea. Let us sing when we can, and forget the rest..” - H.P. Lovecraft
2. “Cry me a river, build a bridge, and get over it.” - Justin Timberlake
3. “Sooner or later we've all got to let go of our past.” - Dan Brown
4. “It happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you've known forever don't see things the way you do. So you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.” - Nicholas Sparks
5. “It was strange, really. A couple months ago, I had thought I couldn’t live without him. Apparently I could.” - Gabrielle Zevin
6. “How many boys like him were out there in the ether, holding on to their big brothers and sisters who were still alive? How many husbands were floating between life and death, clinging to their wives in this world? And how may millions and millions of people were there in the world like Charlie who wouldn't let go of their loved ones when they're gone?” - Ben Sherwood
7. “That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind coming across those empty fields, that I started to imagine just a little fantasy thing, because this was Norfolk after all, and it was only a couple of weeks since I’d lost him. I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that --I didn't let it-- and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.” - Kazuo Ishiguro
8. “There comes a point at which you stop giving things up. That is what i won't give up. None of it will i give up, for my beautiful sister Ivy who lies in bed. Ivy who used to be alive. Ivy who used to be. Ivy who used. Ivy who. Ivy-who-is-not-me.Not me. Not me. Not me.” - Alison McGhee
9. “You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It wont happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.” - Joel Osteen
10. “If I kept saying it; if I kept reaching out. My accident really taught me just one thing: the only way to go on is to go on. To say 'I can do this' even when you know you can't.” - Stephen King
11. “Loss alone is but the wounding of a heart; it is memory that makes it our ruin.” - Brian Ruckley
12. “You can't look back - you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.” - Jodi Picoult
13. “Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.” - Deborah Reber
14. “I demolish my bridges behind me...then there is no choice but to move forward” - Fridtjof Nansen
15. “Someday being with Dex will be a distant memory. This fact makes me sad too. Its the initial stages of grief that seem to be worst but in some ways, Its sadder as time goes by and you consider how much they're missed in your life.” - Emily Giffin
16. “He nods, as if to acknowledge that endings are almost always a little sad, even when there is something to look forward to on the other side.” - Emily Giffin
17. “She shook off the self-recrimination. What-ifs and could-have-beens were not the way to move forward. She knew that from experience.” - Judi Fennell
18. “I don't need to be any place else, because the music takes me to the only place I want to be right now. To the place where I am and have always been wholly me, the only church I've ever belonged to, the only place I've ever prayed.” - Daisy Whitney
19. “I've been burdened with blame trapped in the past for too long, I'm moving on” - Rascal Flatts
20. “We are all failures- at least the best of us are.” - J.M. Barrie
21. “I had to cease to mourn what could never be and make the most of what was possible. And I would begin doing that by trying to mend the hurts of the past.” - Cameron Dokey
22. “For how imperiously, how coolly, in disregard of all one’s feelings, does the hard, cold, uninteresting course of daily realities move on! Still we must eat, and drink, and sleep, and wake again, - still bargain, buy, sell, ask and answer questions, - pursue, in short, a thousand shadows, though all interest in them be over; the cold, mechanical habit of living remaining, after all vital interest in it has fled.” - Harriet Beecher Stowe
23. “Sometimes the hardest part isn't letting go but rather learning to start over.” - Nicole Sobon
24. “How are you, Rory?' [the Doctor] asked.I [Rory]... answered him. 'It's been odd being you.''Isn't it?' The Doctor's smile didn't quite reach his eyes.'How do you cope?''Ah...' The Doctor picked away at a scrap of loose paint on the door. 'Well, I just get as close as I can to a happy ending, then I shut the door behind me and move on.'I nodded.We shut the door behind us and moved on.” - James Goss
25. “Change has to come for life to struggle forward.” - Helen Hollick
26. “Time will make it worse! You're...the other half of his soul. He's never going to get over you. And no matter how much you hope that you will... you'll never get over him. You're going to wake up one day and realize what you've done, and you're going to regret the time you wasted apart from him for the rest of your life.” - Jamie McGuire
27. “The person who hurt you--who raped you or killed your family--is also here. If you are still angry at that person, if you haven't been able to forgive, you are chained to him. Everyone could feel the emotional truth of that: When someone offends you and you haven't let go, every time you see him, you grow breathless or your heart skips a beat. If the trauma was really severe, you dream of revenge. Above you, is the Mountain of Peace and Prosperity where we all want to go. But when you try to climb that hill, the person you haven't forgiven weighs you down. It's a personal choice whether or not to let go. No one can tell you how long to mourn a death or rage over a rape. But you can't move forward until you break that chain.” - Leymah Gbowee
28. “And I'm ill with the thought of your kiss, coffee-laced intoxicating on her lips... shut it out, I've got no claim on you now, I'm not allowed to wear you freedom down” - Fine Frenzy
29. “Now the wren has gone to roost and the sky is turnin' goldAnd like the sky my soul is also turnin'Turnin' from the past, at last and all I've left behind” - Ray Lamontagne
30. “Being different is a revolving door in your life where secure people enter and insecure exit.” - Shannon L. Alder
31. “I drift off for a while. I don't know how long, but when I open my eyes, the Oscars are still on and Alex tells me that Sid has gone and this makes me a little sad. Whatever the four of us had is over. He is my daughter's boyfriend now, and I am a father. A widower. No pot, no cigarettes, no sleeping over. They'll have to find inventive ways to conduct their business, most likely in uncomfortable places, just like the rest of them. I let him and my old ways go. We all let him go, as well as who we were before this, and now it's really just the three of us. I glance over at the girls, taking a good look at what's left.” - Kaui Hart Hemmings
32. “And I told him, I said: "One day you're going to miss the subway because it's not going to come. One of these days, it's going to break down and it's not going to come around and everyone else will just wait for the next one or will take the bus, or walk, or run to the next station: they will go on with their lives. And you're not going to be able to go on with your life! You'll be standing there, in the subway station, staring at the tube. Why? Because you think that everything has to happen perfectly and on time and when you think it's going to happen! Well guess what! That's not how things happen! And you'll be the only one who's not going to be able to go on with life, just because your subway broke down. So you know what, you've got to let go, you've got to know that things don't happen the way you think they're going to happen, but that's okay, because there's always the bus, there's always the next station...you can always take a cab.” - C. JoyBell C.
33. “Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on.” - Criss Jami
34. “Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.” - Steve Maraboli
35. “I will not deny that my heart has long occupied itself with the most tender feelings for another. So strong were these impulses that I indulged myself by thinking that if I could not have him whom I admired whom I will admit it now when I would not before I loved then I would never want another. However those are sentiments best saved for one of Lily's romances. The heart is a far more practical thing and in its life is happily capable of more than a single attachment.” - Galen Beckett
36. “It's me. I chose this. I chose all of this — this rock has been waiting for me my entire life. I’ve been moving towards it my whole life.” - Aron Ralston
37. “Maybe this was what Aunt Peg meant all along - returning was a weird thing. You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe our what came before.” - Maureen Johnson
38. “She bought seeds and raided nurseries and mulched and composted and spent full days with her hands full of earth, coaxing life our of the dry, dull grass my father had spent years pushing a mower over.” - Sarah Dessen
39. “If you have one parent who loves you, even if they can't buy you clothes, they're so poor and they make all kinds of mistakes and maybe sometimes they even give you awful advice, but never for one moment do you doubt their love for you--if you have this, you have incredibly good fortune.If you have two parents who love you? You have won life's Lotto.If you do not have parents, or if the parents you have are so broken and so, frankly, terrible that they are no improvement over nothing, this is fine.It's not ideal because it's harder without adults who love you more than they love themselves. But harder is just harder, that's all.” - Augusten Burroughs
40. “I wore your promise on my finger for one yearI'll wear your name on my heart til I dieBecause you were my boy, you were my only boy forever.” - Coco J. Ginger
41. “I will run every mile, i will saveevery line, i will say i reached thetop and i will fall back down standing.I will write down every thing, the goodand the bad,I will wake up one day andgo back to the start. I will noticethat the good ones were nothing but mybeautiful lines, were everything paintedby my mind. I will notice that the badones were nothing but pieces of mypain that should have been crumbled and thrown away the first time i started torain. I will leave home and i won'tmind, i will miss some beating piecesbut i will survive.the sky will stayin place, mountains won't shake and mymind will go nowhere.the stars will take my side not yours, and the new airin your chest will feel forever cold. Iwill donate a piece of my heart to hurtyou forever and a lifelong lastingquestion about what you have lost.Myhands won't ever fit in yours and myfaith says that crown on your head willhurt you the most.One day i won't overlook anythinganymore. One day i won't rememberanything anymore.I will stoppretending i'm ice cold and i willlearn how to be strong.one day I willgrow out of this, i will grow out ofus.” - Mennah al refaey
42. “Someday, beyond the clouds and all the world's wrongs, there will be love, compassion and justice, and we shall all understand.” - Flavia Weedn
43. “...Love is easy, falling in love is even easier, but letting that love go, is the most difficult thing you’ll ever have to do. Some of us never let it go andsometimes it takes a while to realize what you want. But your heart will always have the right answer in the end. You just have to figure out what it’stelling you.” - Marie Coulson
44. “When a child dies, a parent loses a part of themselves,” he said. “Your whole world ceases to exist and you’re nothing but a shell of the person you once were. Your mom has dealt with it in her way, me in mine, and you in yours.” He lifted his hand off John’s gravestone and rose. “Your mom hates the world, I avoid it, and you try to save it.” - Nicole Williams
45. “Then he remembered Ralph's words--"no point in fighting your war over and over until you get it right.” - M.L. Stedman
46. “Let today be the day you learn the grace of letting go and the power of moving on.” - Steve Maraboli
47. “It was strange walking through the empty apartment. My battered purple room was gone, Brittany’s bruised blue was gone. Two coats covered everything. It was like none of it had ever happened.” - Kimberly Novosel
48. “Never look back; you may only find what you left or let you go.” - Stefanos Livos
49. “Your heart’s strength is measured by how hard it holds on. Your self worth and faith is measured by finally letting go. However, your peace is measured by how long you don’t look back.” - Shannon L. Alder
50. “She has no regrets; she knows now he could never have made her happy, even though he has, apparently, joined AA, is doing better. But sobriety is his journey, not hers; he needs to do it for himself, alone. Still, she misses him hugely, doesn't feel ready for another relationship yet. But as time passes, she hopes that she might be, eventually, with someone new, easier, kinder.” - Sarah Rayner
51. “Because you simply cannot draw these things out forever. At some point, you just pull off the Band-Aid and it hurts, but then it’s over and you’re relieved.” - John Green
52. “The moment of realization is: When what you thought you couldn't be without, becomes a part of the past, rather than the start of the future.” - Melody Carstairs
53. “It is the hardest thing of all, the one thing that will show if you have the one true courage. To know that you have failed, that your best efforts have been defeated, to not be able to stand it, to not be able to go on and yet to go on nonetheless.” - Silvia Hartmann
54. “What's the difference?" You ask meThe difference is, a smile touches my lipsWhen I remember both the memory of you entering my lifeAnd the memory of you leaving my life” - Tammy-Louise Wilkins
55. “Everyone's moving on without me, into a world I don't understand.” - Sophie Kinsella
56. “I loved him in that moment, loved him more than I'd ever loved anyone, and I wanted to to tell them all that I was the snake in the grass, the monster in the lake. I wasn't worthy of this sacrifice; I was a liar, a cheat, a thief. And I would have told, except that a part of me was glad. Glad that this would all be over with soon. Baba would dismiss them, there would be some pain, but life would move on. I wanted that, to move on, to forget, to start with a clean slate. I wanted to be able to breathe again.” - Khaled Hosseini
57. “Explain it to me."But I couldn't. I'd had to learn it my own way, and so had my mother. Jason would eventually, as well. No one could tell you: you just had to go through it on your own. If you were lucky, you came out on the other side and understood., If you didn't, you kept getting thrust back, retracing those steps, until you finally got it right.” - Sarah Dessen
58. “If I wasn't so phenomenal. I would go back to you.” - Coco J. Ginger
59. “It's not a case of the glass being half full or half empty; more that we tipped a whole half-pint into an empty pint pot. I had to see how much was there, though, and now I know.” - Nick Hornby
60. “There's more to life than love.” - Ramon Bautista
61. “I’m positive I wouldn’t consider having sex with Guy if I hadn’t already had sex beforehand. I always knew I wanted my first time to be with someone I loved and who loved me, which it was . . . but shouldn’t I want that for everytime? I disagree with what Amy said about how once you go all the way, you can’t go back to “everything but.” But now that I have done it, it doesn’t seem nearly as big a deal to do it again.” - Daria Snadowsky
62. “Not forever does the bulbul singIn balmy shades of bowers,Not forever lasts the springNor ever blossom the flowers.Not forever reigneth joy,Sets the sun on days of bliss,Friendships not forever last,They know not life, who know not this.” - Khushwant Singh
63. “As long as your name is NOT Jesus,I CAN live without you” - Roezeay Dube
64. “We had our thing. It is a really good memory but now we're older. Things change.” - Abbi Glines
65. “Every relationship that has hit a crossroads has asked, “What is it that you want from me?” - Shannon L. Alder
66. “But with your life you make a few bad decisions, get unlucky a few times, whatever, but you have to keep going, right?” - Cecelia Ahern
67. “I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them.” - Roger Zelazny
68. “Watch me go. Watch me. Because you said i couldn't. Because you thought I wouldn't. Go on, cry now. Cry.” - Kellie Elmore
69. “There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.” - Shannon L. Alder
