I consider myself something of an expert on apologies. A quiet temper has     1    me with plenty of opportunities to make them. In one of my earliest     2    , my mother is telling me, "Don't watch the     3    when you say 'I'm sorry'. Hold your head up and look the person in the     4    , so he'll know you     5    it."
    My mother thus made the key point of a(n)     6    apology: it must be direct. You must never     7    to be doing something else. You do not     8    a pile of letters while apologizing to a person     9    in position after blaming him or her for a mistake that turned out to be your     10    . You do not apologize to a hostess, whose guest of honor you treat     11    , by sending flowers the next day without mentioning your bad     12    .
    One of the important things we should do for an     13    apology is a readiness to     14    the responsibility for our careless mistakes. We are used to making excuses, which leaves no     15    for other person to     16    us. Since most people are open-hearted, the no-excuse apology is better. Leave both parties feeling     17    about themselves. That, after all, is the     18    for every apology. It     19    little whether the apologizer is wholly or only partly at fault: answering for one's     20    encourages others to take their share of the blame.