American self-help author · earliest documented form of the saying, 1982
James R. Sherman is an American self-help writer whose 1982 book Rejection contains the earliest version of this saying that researchers have located: “You can’t go back and make a new start, but you can start right now and make a brand new ending.” Whether Sherman coined the line or repeated an existing one is not established — but no earlier printed source has been found. The polished modern wording usually pinned on Zig Ziglar or C. S. Lewis is a later reworking of Sherman’s sentence.