An Apology Goes A Long Way Quotes & Sayings

He didn't answer, but I wasn't bothered. I was flattered that we'd gotten to this stage already, that our minds could wander without apology. We passed through a long swath of fireflies, thousands of them flashing all round us, and it felt like soaring through stars. — Lily King

He also said that I would never get an apology out of you." There was a long pause. "I want one. Now."
Xcor put aside his soup and found himself searching the wounds he had given himself, recalling all that pain, all that blood - which had dried brown on the floorboards beneath him.
"And then what," he said in a rough voice.
"You'll have to find out."
Fair enough, Xcor thought.
Without grace - not that he had any, anyway - he rose to his feet. At his full height, he was unsteady for too many reasons to count, and the off-balance feeling got even worse as he met the eyes of his ... friend.
Looking Throe in the face, he stepped up and put out his palm. "I am sorry."
Three simple words spoken loud and clear. And they didn't go nearly far enough.
"I was wrong to treat you as I did. I am ... not as much of the Bloodletter as I thought - as I have e'er wanted to be. — J.R. Ward

Two things I learned a long time ago, Cate: Don't hold a grudge longer than it takes to work your way through a pan of brownies all by yourself, and don't begrudge someone an apology if they deserve it. — Alyssa Goodnight

An apology can be a wonderful thing so long as it is infrequent and from the heart. However, beware of the person who justifies bad behavior with apologies. For them it is a means to an end, and quite often at your expense. — Gary Hopkins

Life is one long apology — Marilyn L. Rice

I want your best room,' said Laurent, 'with a big bed and a private bath, and if you send up the house boy, you'll find out the hard way that I don't like sharing.'
He delivered the innkeeper a long, cool look.
He's expensive,' said Damen to the innkeeper, by way of apology. — C.S. Pacat

I had gone into the hospital with the stupid notion that its primary object was the care and comfort of the sick and wounded. It was long after that I learned that a vast majority of all benevolent institutions are gotten up to gratify the aesthetic tastes of the public; exhibit the wealth and generosity of the founders, and furnish places for officers. The beneficiaries of the institutions are simply an apology for their existence, and having furnished that apology, the less said about them the better. — Jane Swisshelm

Dawn, Cillian. That is how long I'll wait for your apology. For you to remember you were nothing but a puppet king who forgot he was on strings. — J.J. McAvoy

He stared and talked at the girl's red hair and amused face for what seemed to be a few minutes; and then, feeling that the groups in such a place should mix, rose to his feet. To his astonishment, he discovered the whole garden empty. Everyone had gone long ago, and he went himself with a rather hurried apology. He left with a sense of champagne in his head, which he could not afterwards explain. In the wild events which were to follow, this girl had no part at all; he never saw her again until all his tale was over. And yet, in some indescribable way, she kept recurring like a motive in music through all his mad adventures afterwards, and the glory of her strange hair ran like a red thread through those dark and ill-drawn tapestries of the night. For what followed was so improbable that it might well have been a dream. — G.K. Chesterton

This morning arrives a letter from my ancient silver-mining comrade, Calvin H. Higbie, a man whom I have not seen nor had communication with for forty-four years ... [Footnote: Roughing It is dedicated to Higbie.] ... I shall allow myself the privilege of copying his punctuation and his spelling, for to me they are a part of the man. He is as honest as the day is long. He is utterly simple-minded and straightforward, and his spelling and his punctuation are as simple and honest as he is himself. He makes no apology for them, and no apology is needed. — Mark Twain

He did not speak; merely looked at her with an expression she had seen traces of before but never fully understood until that moment. It was more apology than accusation
a dark stare of acknowledgment that told her he had long since seen his own fate in her actions, and had long since ceased to hold her responsible. — Anne Fortier

I had a psychiatrist tell me that shyness is a form of hostility. They tell everybody that, you know. That was a couple of years ago, so I have had a long time to think about it. I have persuaded myself that it isn't true. It's fear and laziness and realism. It's an embarrassed apology which says in effect: Hey - I'm sorry, I probably don't like life as much as you do. — Kurt Vonnegut

Alex sat playing with the remote, turning it over in his hand. A long moment passed, and then he cleared his throat."Look ... I'm sorry," he said.
"What I said i that first night- " He stopped and sighed, tossing the remote onto the bed. Scraping his hand through his hair, he said, "When I first found out, it just threw me,OK? For a lot of reasons. I don't-I don't think you're like the angels. And I've been acting like a jerk. I'm sorry."
A smile grew slowley across my face. "Yes you have," I said "But apology accepted. — L.A. Weatherly

Is that all I am to have?" She followed him. "I suppose you consider an apology beneath you."
Rather, he was considering her beneath him, how good she'd felt there, and how he would like that again. He halted. "Madam, I offer my profoundest apology. It shan't happen again." As though his feet moved of their own will, he found himself stepping toward her. "Unless you wish it to."
She backed up. "Not in this life." But her eyes were wary.
Good. He did not wish to frighten her. But keeping her wary could work. And yet the most powerful need to be near her would not leave him. Of course it wouldn't. After two long years he wanted a woman. Among his brother's potential brides was not, however, the place to go searching for one. "That must be to my advantage, then," he said.
She screwed up her brow. "Must it?"
"You wield an impressive pitchfork."

-Ravenna & Vitor — Katharine Ashe

Here the first of the things that happened, happened. The first of the things important enough to notice and to remember afterward, among a great many trifling but kindred ones that were not. Some so slight they were not more than gloating, zestful glints of eye or curt hurtful gestures. (Once he accidentally poured a spurt of scalding tea on the back of a waitress' wrist, by not waiting long enough for the waitress to withdraw her hand in setting the cup down, and by turning his head momentarily the other way. The waitress yelped, and he apologized, but he showed his teeth as he did so, and you don't show your teeth in remorse). — Cornell Woolrich

I'm looking at the head of the household, and the house hasn't been run properly for a long time, ... Clinton was the first person ever to make a formal apology to black people for slavery, which was very warm and appreciated. But African-Americans haven't healed at all . The wound is still very open. And seeing the differences in how people live, it just puts salt in it- constantly . Seeing the way we're treated within these United States ... it burns you even more every day. — Jill Scott

As long as we speak only in response to other people's disapproving silence, and as long as our words are but an apology, we ourselves are unable to judge the world fairly. Our life is an enigma to others, but their lives are an enigma to us, and our attempts to communicate with them are futile: we see them always as an audience, and in their eyes we are actors. No mind or character can withstand such false relations. They affect not only our behaviour but also our most intimate feelings. — Astolphe De Custine

Since our awareness of others is considered our duty, the price we pay when things go wrong is guilt and self-hatred. And things always go wrong. We respond with apologies; we continue to apologize long after the event is forgotten - and even if it had no casual relation to anything we did to begin with. — Nancy Chodorow

This is an apology letter to the both of us for how long it took me to let things go. — Buddy Wakefield

All he wanted was to show her she was worthy of a long journey, worthy of an apology, worthy of love. She didn't have to accept any of it, but she needed to know. — Sarah Sundin

As she relaxed against his chest, he pulled her in closer. Turning her face into his shirt, she breathed in the calming scent that was him. "I'm sorry," she mumbled into the fabric.
One big hand stroked over her head, down her long ponytail to rub her back in soothing circles. "No, I'm sorry. You've told me before it made you uncomfortable and I pushed. That was an asshole move. You're entitled to your feelings and I shouldn't fight against them. I'm sorry." He dropped a kiss on her temple.
And with that little apology, she stepped off the cliff of denial and fell headfirst into love with Brett Wallace. — Jeanette Murray

[David] Salle's studio, on the second floor of a five-story loft building, is a long room lit with bright, cold overhead light. It is not a beautiful studio. Like the streets outside, it gives no quarter to the visitor in search of the picturesque. It doesn't even have a chair for the visitor to sit in, unless you count a backless, half-broken metal swivel chair Salle will offer with a murmur of inattentive apology. Upstairs, in his living quarters, it is another story. But down here everything has to do with work and with being alone. — Janet Malcolm

Revolution is the sound of your heart still beating. and as long as it is, you have work to do. Do it. Without apology. Do it. Bravely and nobly. Do it. Exist, insist, and by all means, resist. — Dominique Christina

"Dark Fantasy" was my long, backhanded apology. You know how people give a backhanded compliment? It was a backhanded apology. It was like, all these raps, all these sonic acrobatics. I was like: "Let me show you guys what I can do, and please accept me back. You want to have me on your shelves." — Kanye West

He made what apology he could and hurried home, overjoyed that the satisfaction of his curiosity had preserved their love intact, and that, having feigned for so long, when in Odette's company, a sort of indifference, he had not now, by a demonstration of jealousy, given her that proof of the excess of his own passion which, in a pair of lovers, fully and finally dispenses the recipient from the obligation to love the other enough. He never spoke to her of this misadventure, he cased even to think of it himself. But now and then his thoughts in their wandering course would come upon this memory where it lay unobserved, would startle it into life, thrust it more deeply down into his consciousness, and leave him aching with a sharp, far-rooted pain. — Marcel Proust

Too long I've owed you this apology
For the apparently unmeaning sorrow
You were afflicted with in those old days.
But it was of the essence of the trial
You shouldn't understand it at the time. — Robert Frost