There is such a thing as the poetry of a mistake, and when you say, "Mistakes were made," you deprive an action of its poetry, and you sound like a weasel.
Interpretation
Acknowledging mistakes allows for growth and understanding, while deflecting blame diminishes their significance.
This quote by Charles Baxter emphasizes the importance of recognizing and owning our mistakes, suggesting that mistakes have a certain beauty or depth that can be appreciated. By saying 'Mistakes were made,' rather than taking personal responsibility, one loses the opportunity to learn from the experience and instead appears evasive or insincere.
In practice
During a team meeting to discuss project outcomes, one might quote this to highlight the importance of owning up to missteps.
Say what you want about it, Hell is story-friendly... The mechanisms of hell are nicely attuned to the mechanisms of narrative. Not so the pleasures of Paradise. Paradise is not a story. It's about what happens when the stories are over.
A novel is not a summary of its plot but a collection of instances, of luminous specific details that take us in the direction of the unsaid and unseen.
The problem with love and God, the two of them, is how to say anything about them that doesn’t annihilate them instantly with the wrong words, with untruth. . . . In this sense, love and God are equivalents. We feel both, but because we cannot speak clearly about them, we end up–wordless, inarticulate—by denying their existence altogether, and, pfffffft, they die.
When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story.
You know, there's something heartsick about parties like this. Look at us. We're all pretending to be smart, as if intelligence were the cure for our anguish.
You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.
Hope is not wishful thinking. It's not a temperament we're born with. It is a stance toward life that we can choose...not not. The real question for me, though, is whether m hope is effective, whether it produces or is just where I hide to ease my own pain.
Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.
There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.
The man was such an intellectual he was of almost no use.
Well done is better than well said.
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