"What is done is done, and cannot be altered by regret."
"A man of quality does not allow his personal inclinations to govern his actions."
"The years have not brought me clarity, only resignation."
"One cannot fault a man for doing his duty as he understood it."
"The pursuit of perfection in one's work may well be the pursuit of emptiness."
"A butler's reputation rests upon the smallest details of conduct."
"One has to wonder, at times like these, what one has been living for."
"The best one can hope for is to have served with dignity."
"I have spent my life maintaining standards of which I am no longer sure."
"One cannot rewrite one's history, only accept it."
"The decisions I did not make may have been more significant than those I did."
"A professional must always maintain a certain emotional distance."
"The evening of one's life is perhaps not the time for recriminations."
"One attempts to be a good servant, and perhaps that must suffice."
"What does one's professional achievement amount to in the end?"
"The past is a foreign country; we cannot revisit it."
"One must live with the consequences of one's understanding, however flawed."
"Dignity is perhaps all a man of my position can hope to maintain."