Apology may start as a feeling, a desire to make matters right, but it requires a commitment to move that desire into practice, to actually take on the great courageous task of showing compassion to others.

When I accept an apology it means that the part in me that honors our relationship honors the part in you that honors our relationship.

Apologies have more power than most of us realize to restore strained relationships, free us from vengeful impulses, and create possibilities for growth.

An apology informed is good; an apology performed is better.

An effective apology contains within it the answer to the question, "How am I to be held accountable?"

One of the most useful tasks of apology is to bring home to us how keenly, honestly, and painfully past generations pursued aims that now seem to us wrong and disgraceful. It behooves us to consider if future geenrations will similarly regard the aims we most defend today.

"I would like to apologize" may sound like an apology, but it is no more an actual apology than saying "I would like to lose weight" makes you suddenly slimmer.