Joseph J. Ellis Quotes

I was wrong to exaggerate in statements related to my experiences in the White House and the Royal Family. I am truly sorry for misleading people and misstating the facts.

I made a misstatement, and I stand by all my misstatements.

I pray thee, sir, forgive me for the mess/And whether I shot first, I'll not confess. - Han Solo

I'm not saying we're better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person, or God as a thing, or whatever it is. I just said what I said, and it was wrong, or it was taken wrong. And now it's all this.

Last week, I stated this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister, and now wish to withdraw that statement.

Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: 'I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it.

Then I'm sorry to say, I've eat your pie.

I would like to say something, not just to Vietnam veterans in New England, but to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of the things that I said or did. I was trying to help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm...very sorry that I hurt them. And I want to apologize to them and their families.

No matter how explicit the pledge, people will turn and twist the text to suit their own purpose

Truth is the lie you once told returning to haunt you

For years, Mount Holyoke professor Joseph 'Full Metal Jacket' Ellis had been regaling students, interviewers and friends with gripping stories of his service in Vietnam.

The distortion of the truth bothers me.

Enemies carry a report in form different from the original.

Live a lie, and you will live to regret it; that's what livin' is to me.

I have sinned against my brother the ass.

Truth may be stranger than fiction, goes the old saw, but it is never as strange as lies.

I am interested in making up a good case for distortion, as I am coming to believe it is the only way to make people see.

Dreams are distorted representations of desire. So are dream- analyses.

I wasn't under the impersonation you meant me.

It's lies. It's all lies. Some of them are just prettier than others, that's all. People see what they think is there.

I never meant to hurt you, Isabel. Had I known what I would find when I came north, I would never have agreed to Leighton's request... That is a lie. Had I known that I would find you when I came north, I would have come years ago.

Culture is that which falsifies.

Spin' is a polite word for deception. Spinners mislead by means that range from subtle omissions to outright lies. Spin paints a false picture of reality by bending facts, mischaracterizing the words of others, ignoring or denying crucial evidence, or just 'spinning a yarn' - by making things up.

It was the stop that happened when you made up your mind to confess, but your mouth betrayed you in the end.

Ruby, I lied before. I would have run. —CG