Unreliable Narrators Quotes

I have often said I come from a family of unreliable narrators. I tend to believe their struggles with racism, identity, nationality do dovetail with my motivation to write.

I do not repeat conversations that I can't remember. And it's something that irritates me a great deal, because I think most memoirs are false novels.

I write unreliable narrators because - paradoxically - they're the most honest, true-to-life kind there is.

Literature is composed of quarter truths, and the quarters are often spent on penny candy.

Ask two people to tell you anything, you’ll get two versions. Even easy things like directions, let alone important or semi-controversial topics like why a fight started or what a person was generally like. If you don’t know something for yourself, you just can’t be sure.

I've always regretted that I never was able to talk openly with my parents, especially with my father. I've heard and read so many things about my family that I can no longer believe anything; every relative I question has a completely different story from the last.

I think we've told a lot of lies about human behavior through film.

Different people remember things differently, and you'll not get any two people to remember anything the same, whether they were there or not.

Ezra clapped his hands. "all right," he said. "In addition to the books we're reading as a class, I want to do an extra side project on unreliable narrators." Devon Arliss raised her hand. "what does that mean?" Ezra strode around the room. "well, the narrator tells us the story in the book, right? But what if... the narrator isn't telling us the truth? Maybe he's telling us his skewed version of the story to get you on his side. Or to scare you. Or maybe he's crazy!

All the kids in school taunted me, 'Your dad's going to jail,' and I believed my parents when they said no it wouldn't happen. Then one day I was driving into school with him, which was weird because my mom always took us. And he was like, 'yeah, I'm going to jail.'

History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there.

Ambiguity and the horror of possibility play a part in so many of my favorite horror stories: Shirley Jackson's 'We Will Always Live in the Castle,' Mark Danielewski's 'House of Leaves,' Victor LaValle's 'Big Machine,' Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper,' Stewart O'Nan's 'The Speed Queen,' and so many more.

One of the fun things about unreliable narrators is they can be funny. You can admire things about them and laugh with them.

We are unreliable narrators - all of us.

There is a set of harmless liars, frequently to be met with in company, who deal much in the marvellous. Their usual intention is to please and entertain; but as men are most delighted with what they conceive to be the truth, these people mistake the means of pleasing, and incur universal blame.