"Most maxims are lies, or at any rate misleading. A rolling stone gathers moss. A stitch in time doesn't save nine. The knowledge that you have been a fool hurts just as much, is just as hard to admit to yourself if you are young as when you are old. Every error that people make is repeated over and over again, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, if they know what they are doing and cannot help themselves. The curtain goes up night after night on the same play, and if the audience weeps, it is because the hero always arrives at the abandoned sawmill in the nick of time, the heroine never gives in to the dictates of her heart and marries the man with the black moustache. There is not only a second chance, there are a thousand second chances to speak up, to act bravely for once, to face the fact that must sooner or later be faced. If there is really no more time, it can be faced hurriedly. Otherwise, it can be examined at leisure. The result is in either case the same. Windows that have been nailed shut for years are suddenly pried open, letting air in, letting love in, and hope. Cause is revealed to be, after all, nothing but effect. And the long, slow, dreadful working out of the consequences of any given mistake is arrested the very moment you accept the idea that for you (and for your most beautiful bride, who with garlands is crowned, whose lightness and brightness doth shine to such splendour) there is an end."
