Telling The Truth Quotes - Page 14

• But we should ask the question: Why should a writer be more than a writer? Why should a writer be a guru? Why are we supposed to be psychiatrists? Isn't it enough to write and tell the truth? It's not like telling the truth is common. Writers are the earthworms of society. We aerate the soil. That's enough.

  Erica Jong

  Writing, Soil, Common

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• As I got warmed up, and felt perfectly at home in talk, I heard myself boasting, lying, exaggerating. Oh, not deliberately, far from it. It would be unconvivial and dull to stop and arrest the flow of talk, and speak only after carefully considering whether I was telling the truth.

  Bernard Berenson

  Lying, Home, Would Be

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• The sexual organs are the most sensitive organs of the human being. They are not diplomats. They tell the truth.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Diplomats, Sensitive, Organs

  Isaac Bashevis Singer, Grace Farrell (1992). “Isaac Bashevis Singer: Conversations”, p.251, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• ... when caught unawares I usually tell the truth, and what's duller than that?

  Iris Murdoch

  Caught

  Iris Murdoch (1977). “Under the Net”, p.16, Penguin

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• the more a body tries to explode all the foolish myths that have grown up about Texas by telling the truth, the more a body will wind up adding to the mythology.

  Molly Ivins

  Texas, Wind, Trying

  Molly Ivins (2010). “Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?”, p.3, Vintage

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• Tell the truth as you understand it. If you're a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act - truth is always subversive.

  Anne Lamott

  Truth, Moral, Revolutionary

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• Trying every day to tell the truth is hard. There are harder things, of course - arguably, living with lies and meaninglessness, living in despair is harder, but it's hardship disguised as luxury and easier perhaps to grow accustomed to, since truth is usually the enemy of custom. There are harder things than writing, being President Obama, for instance, and having to deal with House Republicans, or trying to fix the leak at the Fukushima reactor, these are harder, but writing is hard.

  Tony Kushner

  Lying, Writing, Luxury

  "We Call That Failure Art" by Tony Kushner, www.newyorker.com. October 31, 2013.

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• Telling the truth after proper investigation is the height of courage.

  Wafa Sultan

  Height, Investigation

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• Judaism for me is a sensibility of collective self-questioning and uncomfortable truth-telling. I feel a debt of responsibility to this past. It is why I am Jewish.

  Tony Judt

  Responsibility, Past, Self Questioning

  Tony Judt (2010). “The Memory Chalet”, p.114, Penguin

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• The conqueror writes history, they came, they conquered and they write. You don't expect the people who came to invade us to tell the truth about us.

  Miriam Makeba

  Writing, People, Conqueror

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• There was in Italy a hidden demand for a boring government which would try to tell the truth in non-political jargon.

  Mario Monti

  Government, Political, Trying

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• Sometimes I don't tell the truth, which is telling the truth about not telling the truth. I think people don't tell the truth when they're afraid that something bad's going to happen if they tell the truth. I say things all the time that I could really get into trouble for, but they kind of blow over.

  Cher

  Blow, Thinking, People

  "Cher Q&A: On her new tour, 'sloppy' Miley, and leather jackets". Interview with Denise Quan, www.cnn.com. September 24, 2013.

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• Tell the truth about who you are, what you feel, what you want, what you're up to. Tell the truth about that first to yourself and then to anybody else that'll listen.

  Iyanla Vanzant

  Want, Firsts, Feels

  "Iyanla Vanzant: Clarity, Forgiveness Key To Tackling Big Transitions". "Tell Me More" with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. July 28, 2014.

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• Normally I tell the truth whether it's nice or not.

  Heikki Kovalainen

  Nice

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• A lot of times in sport if you try to tell the truth it seems like an excuse.

  Sanya Richards-Ross

  Sports, Trying, Excuse

  "'To go from being healthy to having this very rare disease was scary'". Interview with Anna Kessel, www.theguardian.com. May 22, 2010.

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• Oral history is a recipe for complete misrepresentation because almost no one tells the truth, even when they intend to.

  Niall Ferguson

  Recipes, Misrepresentation, Oral History

  "This much I know". Interview with Tom Templeton, www.theguardian.com. January 17, 2009.

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• Ive always seen writing as a way of telling the truth. For me, writing is about truth. I have always tried to be faithful to my own experience.

  Edmund White

  Writing, Faithful, Way

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• Fear is a place where you just tell the truth

  Clive Barker

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• People seldom tell the truths that are worth telling. We ought to choose our truths as carefully as we choose our lies and to select our virtues with as much thought as we bestow upon the selection of our enemies.

  Oscar Wilde

  Lying, People, Enemy

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.197, Wordsworth Editions

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• If there is no God, why bother to tell the truth? Why not steal?

  Ben Stein

  Why Not, Stealing, There Is No God

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• Always tell the truth and be true.

  Emily Saliers

  Being True

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• It is not when it is dangerous to tell the truth that its advocates are hardest to find, but when it is boring.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Truth, Boring, Dangerous

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• If there was twenty ways of telling the truth and only one way of telling a lie, the Government would find it out. It's in the nature of governments to tell lies.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Lying, Government, Twenties

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “George Bernard Shaw: The Collected Plays (Illustrated): 60 plays including Caesar and Cleopatra, Pygmalion, Saint Joan, The Apple Cart, Cymbeline, Androcles And The Lion, The Man Of Destiny, The Inca Of Perusalem and Macbeth Skit”, p.2620, e-artnow

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• I'm actually a very honest person, and sometimes I end up like, 'Man, I said too much.' It's hard for me not to tell the truth when you ask me.

  Drake

  Men, Too Much, Honest

  "Drake: 'Why do you hate me so much?'" by Paul Lester, www.theguardian.com. March 29, 2012.

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• Truth-telling frightens me. Lying confuses me.

  Mason Cooley

  Truth, Lying

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