Art is not truth; art is the lie which makes us see the truth.
Maybe honesty is overvalued. What's truly priceless is picking out from a stream of falsehoods the ones you most need to hear.
My great longing is to make those very incorrectnesses, those deviations, remodellings, changes in reality, so that they may become, yes, lies if you like - but truer than the literal truth.
A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way.
All writing is the same: It's just making up lies until it starts to sound like the truth. That's what I do.
Truth has scarce done so much good in the world as the false appearances of it have done hurt.
Malice often takes the garb of truth.
A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. It's a lie if you make something up. But you make it up in the name of truth, and then you give your heart to expressing it clearly.
The closer to the truth, the better the lie, and the truth itself, when it can be used, is the best lie.
