Error ... is less an intellectual problem than an existential one - a crisis not in what we know, but in who we are. We hear something of that identity crisis in the questions we ask ourselves in the aftemath of error: What was I thinking? How could I have done that?

Thirty-three percent of all of our regrets pertain to decisions we made about education.

Regret doesn't remind us that we did badly, it reminds us that we know that we could do better.

Take away the ability of an intelligent, principled, hard-working mind to get it wrong, and you take away the whole thing.

Parading our own brilliance and exulting in other people's errors is not very nice. For that matter, even wanting to parade our own brilliance and exult in other people's errors is not very nice, although it is certainly very human.

If you want to live a life free of regret, there is an option open to you. It's called a lobotomy.

We're terrified of not having the answers, and we would sometimes rather assert an incorrect answer than make our peace with the fact that we really don't know.