“Regrets are the most useless form of guilt. They always arrive too late to do any good.”

“Well, it was most likely too late; there would not be time for me to flagellate myself for every dishonorable deed in that list, nor any chance to make good the harms I’d done. Minor harms, to be sure, in the scheme of things; but large enough to regret.”

“Regrets are illuminations come too late.”

“Well, the traveling teachers do come through every few months," said the Baron."Yes, sir, I know, sir, and they're useless, sir. They teach facts, not understanding. It's like teaching people about forests by showing them a saw. I want a proper school, sir, to teach reading and writing, and most of all thinking, sir, so people can find what they're good at, because someone doing what they really like is always an asset to any country, and too often people never find out until it's too late.”

“Any thoughts of guilt, any feelings of regret, had faded. The desert had baked them out.”

“There is a fatality about good resolutions – that they are always made too late”