Sunbeams

It’s true that I’ve driven through a number of red lights. But on the other hand, I’ve stopped at a lot of green ones I’ve never gotten credit for.

Glenn Gould

Never ruin an apology with an excuse.

Kimberly Johnson

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until . . . we stop saying, “It got lost,” and start saying, “I lost it.”

Sidney J. Harris

True remorse is never just a regret over consequences; it is a regret over motive.

Mignon McLaughlin

The Schofield Kid (a young gunfighter feeling guilt after his first killing): It don’t seem real. . . . Now he’s dead and the other one too. All on account of pulling a trigger.
Will Munny: It’s a helluva thing, killing a man. You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.
Kid: Well, I guess they had it coming.
Munny: We all have it coming, kid.

David Webb Peoples, in his screenplay for the film Unforgiven

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Every one of us has a bad conscience, which he tries to escape by going to sleep as quickly as possible.

Franz Kafka

[It is] not fair to say that I have misinformed Congress or other cabinet officers. I haven’t testified to that. I’ve testified that I withheld information from Congress. And with regard to the cabinet officers, I didn’t withhold anything from them that they didn’t want withheld from them.

Rear Admiral John Poindexter, in his testimony on the Iran-contra affair

The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.

André Gide

I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.

George W. Bush

The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.

Thomas Carlyle

To the loved ones of the victims of 9/11, to them who are here in the room, to those who are watching on television: Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn’t matter, because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness.

Richard A. Clarke

A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable.

Judith Martin

I will never apologize for the United States of America. I don’t care what the facts are.

George H. W. Bush

Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them.

Duc François de La Rochefoucauld

There is always time to make right / what is wrong.

Susan Griffin

What if we discover that our present way of life is irreconcilable with our vocation to become fully human?

Paulo Freire

No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.

Turkish proverb

To always be intending to live a new life, but never find time to set about it — this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking from one day to another till he be starved and destroyed.

Sir Walter Scott