Quotes about guilt

It did not seem fair to drown the cabin boy and the captain and all the rest for something he had done, but when had the gods ever been fair?

I am guilty, and yet innocent; wrong, yet right; good in intention, though constrained to shield and aid the bad. Ask me no more questions, sir; but believe that I am rather to be pitied than condemned.

The self-same moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free

The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea.

And I had done an hellish thing,

And it would work 'em woe:

For all averred, I had killed the bird

That made the breeze to blow.

Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,

That made the breeze to blow!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.

What did it mean that all the guilty felt so certain of their own innocence while he felt so uncertain of his own? It was patently wrong that men locked up by the law should laugh while the man who locked them there no longer felt able even to cry. As if those caged there had learned secretly that all men are innocent in a way no captain might ever understand.

The great, secret and special American guilt of owning nothing, nothing at all, in the one land where ownership and virtue are one. Guilt that lay crouched behind every billboard which gave each man his commandments; for each man here had failed the billboards all down the line. No Ford in this one's future nor ever any place all his own.

All things are possible, ... Except the passing of regret.

'He didn't want to come, Dweller. He didn't want to get involved. It should have been me who died.' 'Of course he wanted to come. Why else was he here? You didn't force him, Draig. He came because you were his brother and he loved you. He could have left at any time once the pursuit began. He made his own choices. Just as you did. Just as I knew you would.'

Mother always said that if one must do something unpleasant, one should do it wholeheartedly and not waste effort on regret.

I...regret...what I did. It was wrong. Very wrong. But regret is meaningless.

Just puppies, you know, a couple of weeks old. Scared little babies screaming for their mommies, for anyone, to please come and save them. I heard them die, one by one as their water bottles ran out. The dead never got in. They were still massed outside the gate when I escaped, ran right past without stopping to look. What could I have done? I was unarmed, untrained. I couldn't have taken care of them. I could barely take care of myself. What could I have done? ... Something. I could have done something.