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.
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
You must purge yourself before finding faults in others.
For pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.
originality and a feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.
I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it.
People should not worry as much about what they do but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good, then their deeds are radiant. If you are righteous, then what you do will also be righteous. We should not think that holiness is based on what we do but rather on what we are, for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works.
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