Ellen Goodman Quotes

Like many people, I have a fascination with lies and the people who tell them. I wouldn't say I've never told a lie, but I don't think I've ever told one without both assuming I would be found out and feeling absolutely rotten about it.

Anybody can make something up and have it sound believable. The hard part is remembering all the lies you've told, and all the people you've told them to, and then living the lies that have become your life.

I want to tell more stories about lying, dual lives, self-deception - those are my favorites.

I didn't live a lot of lies, but I lived one big one.

I lied all my life.

I'd lied many times: to bolster my credentials, to elicit sympathy, to make myself appear less ordinary.

Matilda told such dreadful lies, It made one gasp and stretch one's eyes Her aunt, who, from her earliest youth, Had kept a strict regard for truth, Attempted to believe Matilda The effort very nearly killed her.

A lie is like a snow-ball; the longer it is rolled, the larger it is.

Whatever others may say, they say it to deceive and comfort themselves, not help you.

The most offensive is not their lying - one can always forgive lying - lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth - what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying.

It was what you did, Wolgast understood; you started to tell a story about who you were, and soon enough the lies were all you had and you became that person.

Lies can destroy, but not create.

You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a realist he is preparing to do something that he is secretly ashamed of doing.

Memory is a mirror that scandalously lies.

Those who cook up stories will get into hot water.

I realize how quickly lies compound. They cover like a coat of paint, one on top of the other, until you cannot remember what color you started with.

Nothing is rarer than a solitary lie; for lies breed like Surinam toads; you cannot tell one but out it comes with a hundred young ones on its back.

Most people who have told a lie think they got away with it … when in fact, they didn’t

Truth is the lie you once told returning to haunt you

Whatever convenience may be thought to be in falsehood and dissimulation, it is soon over; but the inconvenience of it is perpetual, because it brings a man under everlasting jealousy and suspicion, so that he is not believed when he speaks the truth, nor trusted when perhaps he means honestly.

A lie is like a snowball: the further you roll it the bigger it becomes.

But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed, while others reap and sow in his stead.

Lying is like trying to hide in a fog: If you move about you're in danger of bumping your head against the truth, and as soon as the fog blows off, you are gone anyhow.

Lies save trouble now, but may return in thunder and lightning.

Woe to falsehood! it affords no relief to the breast, like truth; it gives us no comfort, pains him who forges it, and like an arrow directed by a god flies back and wounds the archer.