Quotes
Being a practiced liar doesn't mean you have a powerful imagination. Many good liars have no imagination at all; it's that which gives their lies such wide-eyed conviction.
What is false creates taste, and reinforces itself by knowingly eliminating any possible reference to the authentic. And what is genuine is reconstructed as quickly as possible, to resemble the false.
At the moment false claims spread on social media far faster than the truth, because of the algorithms that spread outraging material faster and further.
p. 129
Oh, they never lie. They dissemble, evade, prevaricate, confound, confuse, distract, obscure, subtly misrepresent and wilfully misunderstand with what often appears to be a positively gleeful relish and are generally perfectly capable of contriving to give one an utterly unambiguous impression of their future course of action while in fact intending to do exactly the opposite, but they never lie. Perish the thought.
p. 25
Truth does not need to borrow garments from error. (Also translated as: Truth does not need to borrow garments from falsehood.)
The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.
He felt very tired, not from the mental effort, but because he had suddenly seen what the world was like, how there are many lies and truths,
p. 73
No life is without its lies.
p. 172
That it’s possible not to see a lie even when it’s in front of us.
p. 210
“People tell me all kinds of things.” Dowling said. “Some of them are true. Some of them help make the flowers grow.”
p. 379
“He lies. How can you trust a man who lies? You cannot. And any man who comes on the wireless and says, ‘I am going to tell you the truth’—well, what else can he be except a liar?”
p. 473
“I don’t hide anything I aim to do; I just come right out and say it.” An alarm whistle went off in Anne’s head; any man who said something like that was almost bound to be lying.
p. 148
