Quotes & Sayings About Tell The Truth

"I'm going to tell myself that you're just cranky because Chloe's at the mall with Tori, and you weren't allowed to go. I could point out that if you did go, you'd be even crankier, and you'd make everyone miserable. Especially me."
"You wouldn't have to go."
"Sure I would. I'd need to run interference when Tori asked how a new shirt looked and you told her the truth."
"I'm honest. Honest is good."
"Not when it comes to girls and clothes. You need to gauge their reaction first. If they aren't happy with it, you suggest they try something else, even if it looked fine. If they love it and it looks like hell, you say it's not bad and hope they try something else." — Kelley Armstrong

I am not one to brag but to tell you the truth mang,
I am funkier then a locker room after a hoop game. — Mac Dre

Once in a while, when I was younger, I'd lie, then tell the truth, and I'd feel better. — Tyler Hamilton

The best liars are those who tell the truth most of the time. — Brandon Sanderson

I intend to keep writing stories that piss people off, that tell the particular kind of truth I think is valid, that will make me feel more and more like a Writer of Stature, Which I honestly think I am, really, I mean it, I don't doubt it for a second dammit, so stop giggling! Stories that will make Dr Shedd sniff the air and make Lester smile as je thinks, The kid's coming along all right. — Harlan Ellison

We're in a place where no words can tell the truth about what happened ... But they have to. This was hell on earth. — Aleksander Kwasniewski

So you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna do something really outrageous, I'm gonna tell the truth. — John Travolta

Everyday in the heat, rain and cold, I ran, alone in the woods ... in the hills near our home. There I felt the gentle touch of God. And I heard His whisper, You're stronger now. It's time to tell the truth of what happened. Tell your story to give someone hope. — Nikki Rosen

Under torture you are as if under the dominion of those grasses that produce visions. Everything you have heard told, everything you have read returns to your mind, as if you were being transported, not toward heaven, but toward hell. Under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants, but also what you imagine might please him, because a bond (this, truly, diabolical) is established between you and him ... These things I know, Ubertino; I also have belonged to those groups of men who believe they can produce the truth with white-hot iron. Well, let me tell you, the white heat of truth comes from another flame. — Umberto Eco

Character is the starting point from which we go on. When I say a man has character, I mean that when you go to that man and say, 'What are the facts in this case?' he will tell you the truth, justly, truly, and wisely as he knows, with the minimum of exhibitionism and the maximum of devotion to the common cause. — Douglas Southall Freeman

Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves - that's the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives - experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time anyone else has been so caught up and so pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before.
Then we learn our trade, well or less well, and we tell our two or three stories - each time in a new disguise - maybe ten times, maybe a hundred, as long as people will listen. — F Scott Fitzgerald

When you're a kid, they tell you it's all ... grow up. Get a job. Get married. Get a house. Have a kid, and that's it. But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It's so much darker. And so much madder. And so much better. — Elton Pope

We are, largely, who we remember ourselves to be. That's why habits are so hard to break. If we know ourselves to be liars, we expect not to tell the truth. If we think of ourselves as honest, we try harder. — Holly Black

I never trusted the women i was involved with to tell the truth,because the truth never changes,but as i knew so well,people did.I knew it wasn't everyone,some women did have staying power,but it was impossible to tell which ones they were.Women should have come labelled-it would have made life so much simpler. — Mike Gayle

But if the world is watching, we might as well tell the truth. And the truth is, the church doesn't offer a cure. It doesn't offer a quick fix. The church offers death and resurrection. The church offers the messy, inconvenient, gut-wrenching, never-ending work of healing and reconciliation. The church offers grace. Anything else we try to peddle is snake oil. It's not the real thing. — Rachel Held Evans

Rebellion? I don't like hearing such a word from you," Ivan said with feeling. "One cannot live by rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me straight out, I call on you
answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, that same child who was beating her chest with her little fist, and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears
would you agree to be the architect on such conditions? Tell me the truth."
"No, I would not agree," Alyosha said softly.
"And can you admit the idea that the people for whom you are building would agree to accept their happiness on the unjustified blood of a tortured child, and having accepted it, to remain forever happy?"
"No, I cannot admit it. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil. — Walter Lippmann

The truth of relationship healthiness is that water seeks its own level. If you want to know what is missing in you, what unfinished business you have, what your inner struggles are, you need not look further than your partner. If you listen carefully and look closely, usually your choice of mates will tell you what you need to know about yourself. As you grow and change, your choice of mate continues to reflect what you still need to work on. — Susan J Elliott

A person with no children says, "Well I just love children," and you say "Why?" and they say, "Because a child is so truthful, that's what I love about 'em - they tell the truth." That's a lie, I've got five of 'em. The only time they tell the truth is if they're having pain. — Bill Cosby

3-Tell yourself a true lie:
Fake it till you make it,The lie will become the truth. — Steve Chandler

We can lie in the language of dress or try to tell the truth; but unless we are naked and bald, it is impossible to be silent. — Alison Lurie

When all is done, you must look in your own heart to know the truth. It lies at some middle depth, half-truths above, half-truths below. Even my truth, what I tell you know, is colored to fit my vision. Find your own truths as best you can, only remember that few are courageous enough to tell a tale of which they are not the hero. — Alida Van Gores

The conqueror writes history, they came, they conquered and they write. You don't expect the people who came to invade us to tell the truth about us ... — Miriam Makeba

If you listen long enough to the whispers, you will hear the truth. Until then, I will tell you this: the world is made safe by a woman. She bound the monster up and cast him out, and the man who was left was saved. — E.K. Johnston

Don't be sorry for the truth. A harsh truth is less damaging than a tender lie, and the worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves. — Dianna Hardy

Years ago when I served as a missionary, we had a visit from Dr. James E. Talmage of the Council of the Twelve
a great student, a great teacher, great theologian, and a great prophet.. Here we sat at his feet every idle minute that we could find and plied him with questions and listened to his counsel.
On one occasion he said to us, I want to tell you missionaries something. The day of sacrifice is not past! The time will come, yet, when many Saints and even Apostles will yet lose their lives in defense of the truth! — Harold B. Lee

He who wishes to teach us a truth should not tell it to us, but simply suggest it with a brief gesture, a gesture which starts an ideal trajectory in the air along which we glide until we find ourselves at the feet of the new truth. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

It meant nothing. Some people are like that: everything comes out like a lie. Not that they're brilliant liars, just that they're useless at telling the truth. You get left with no way to tell what's the real fake and what's the fake one. — Tana French

[The truth] is what actually happens. Not what you want to happen. Not what you're afraid will happen. We make up stories when we want things to happen or are afraid they may happen. And sometimes we do it for fun-or to scare people or make them do our way or to hurt them. And sometimes we do it because it's a pretty story and we tell it just as we fly a kite or send balloons floating. — Lillian Smith

Just tell the truth, and they'll accuse you of writing black humor. — Charles Willeford

A lie is profanity. A lie is the worst thing in the world. Art is the ability to tell the truth. — Richard Pryor

The person who hurt you
who raped you or killed your family
is also here. If you are still angry at that person, if you haven't been able to forgive, you are chained to him. Everyone could feel the emotional truth of that: When someone offends you and you haven't let go, every time you see him, you grow breathless or your heart skips a beat. If the trauma was really severe, you dream of revenge. Above you, is the Mountain of Peace and Prosperity where we all want to go. But when you try to climb that hill, the person you haven't forgiven weighs you down. It's a personal choice whether or not to let go. No one can tell you how long to mourn a death or rage over a rape. But you can't move forward until you break that chain. — Leymah Gbowee

Memory is a fiction we tell ourselves: just a piece of the truth. — Chelsea Cain

To tell you the truth, it's a complex piece, so I can't really answer your question at present. — Paul Darrow

There is only one sin. and that is theft ... when you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth. — Khaled Hosseini

That guy in the corner. Never tells the truth, as a matter of principle. Why answer a question, he says, if you can tell a good story instead? — Pete McCarthy

Being afraid to tell the truth because of the projected consequences, whatever it may be, shows a lack of faith and an abundance of fear. — Monica Johnson

The stories people tell you about themselves seem to retain the possibility of being false. But what you discover about them by yourself seems to be the truth. — John Verdon

And still the text will remain, if it is really cryptic and parodying (and I tell you that it is so through and through. I might as well tell you since it won't be of any help to you. Even my admission can very well be a lie because there is dissimulation only if one tells the truth, only if one tells that one is telling the truth), still the text will remain indefinitely open, cryptic and parodying. — Jacques Derrida

If the man be really the weaker vessel, and the rule is necessarily in the wife's hands, how is it then to be? To tell the truth, I believe that the really loving, good wife never finds it out. She keeps the glamor of love and loyalty between herself and her husband, and so infuses herself into him that the weakness never becomes apparent either to her or to him or to most lookers-on. — Charlotte Mary Yonge

Write,' she said, 'as if you'll never be read. That way you'll be sure to tell the truth. — Lori Lansens

I made myself a rule: write out of love. And when you love somebody, you have to tell the truth about who they are - not the cute "truth" in your head of who they are, the one where you did everything right and they did everything wrong. — Leigh Newman

I assure you, if Uncle Henry had stepped out from among the trees in a little copse which borders the path at one place, carrying his head under his arm, I should have been very little more uncomfortable than I was. To tell you the truth, I was rather expecting something of the kind. — M.R. James

To tell you the truth, in the old Jewish shtetls, if your husband died, sometimes they'd have you marry the brother, and my grandparents were actually stepbrother and stepsister. — Amy Heckerling

Every time I see this one particular movie star on a magazine, I can't help but feel terribly sorry for her because nobody respects her at all, and yet they keep interviewing her. And the interviews are all the same thing.
They start with what food they are eating in some restaurant. "As _ gingerly munched her Chinese Chicken Salad, she spoke of love." And all the covers say the same thing: "_ gets to the bottom of stardom, love, and his/her hit new movie/television show/album."
I think it's nice for stars to do interviews to make us think they are just like us, but to tell you the truth, I get the feeling that it's all a big lie. The problem is I don't know who's lying. — Stephen Chbosky

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. — Oscar Wilde

The hardest thing to teach young writers is that it's wonderful to tell your truth. And that's what you should do. But it damn well better be beautiful. — Dorothy Allison

But while I'd be their daughter, while I'd eat the roast and come home from dates and wash the dishes, I would also be myself. I would love my mother, but I'd never want to be her again. I would never be what someone else wanted me to be. I would never laugh at a joke I didn't think was funny. I would never tell another lie. I would be the truth-teller, starting today. That would be tough.
But I was tougher. — Judy Blundell

That was horrible. Horrible. That poor little guy."
Pex was unrepentant. "Yeah, well, he asked for it. Calling us ... all those things."
But
buried alive! That's like in that horror movie. Y'know
the one with all the horror."
I think I saw that one. With all the words going up on the screen at the end?"
Yeah, that was it. Tell you the truth, those words kinda ruined it for me. — Eoin Colfer

Don't be afraid to tell the truth. It's better to hurt someone by truth than to make them happy by lies. — Khaled Hosseini

I trust kids far more than I do adults. Kids give you the honest opinion. They tell the truth. — Johnny Depp

Almost universally, the kind of performance we give on social media is positive. It's more "Let me tell you how well things are going. Look how great I am." It's rarely the truth: "I'm scared. I'm struggling. I don't know. — Ryan Holiday

CHARTERIS [unfolding his arms in terror] No, please. Dont. As a philosopher, it's my business to tell other people the truth; but it's not their business to tell it to me. I dont like it: it hurts. — George Bernard Shaw

Roosevelt is dead: a man who would never tell the truth when a lie would serve him just as well. — Douglas MacArthur

To tell the truth, it is regarding the physical side of marriage that I have always been apprehensive...There so seldom seems to be enough of it," said Miss Teatime. — Colin Watson

I didn't tell him. And I never told her the whole truth. What would it matter? There was nothing she could do; nothing anyone can do or will do. — Julie Anne Peters

Some people accused me of being pro-Muslim in Bosnia, but I realised that our job is to give all sides an equal hearing, but in cases of genocide you can't just be neutral. You can't just say, 'Well, this little boy was shot in the head and killed in besieged Sarajevo and that guy over there did it, but maybe he was upset because he had an argument with his wife.' No, there is no equality there, and we had to tell the truth. — Christiane Amanpour

THE MYTH OF THE GOOD OL BOY AND THE NICE GAL
The good of boy myth and the nice gal are a kind of social conformity myth. They create a real paradox when put together with the "rugged individual" part of the Success Myth. How can I be a rugged individual, be my own man and conform at the same time? Conforming means "Don't make a wave", "Don't rock the boat". Be a nice gal or a good ol' boy. This means that we have to pretend a lot.
"We are taught to be nice and polite. We are taught that these behaviors (most often lies) are better than telling the truth. Our churches, schools, and politics are rampant with teaching dishonesty (saying things we don't mean and pretending to feel ways we don't feel). We smile when we feel sad; laugh nervously when dealing with grief; laugh at jokes we don't think are funny; tell people things to be polite that we surely don't mean."
- Bradshaw On: The Family — John Bradshaw

AMONG THE DEMONS that taunt a writer before he can open a vein and write in his own blood are the devils that whisper: Are you brave enough to tell the truth? — Francine Prose

I have, and always will, respect people that keep it real no matter what. Most people say "Just keep it real with me," but the fact of the matter is this: Most people can't handle the truth, don't want to accept the truth, deny the truth, or simply aren't willing to face THEIR truth. The next time that you tell somebody to be honest with you, make sure that you mean what you say. Have the courage to pay more attention, listen, and observe. But have greater courage to acknowledge "what is" and face YOUR truth with boldness. The truth is better than a lie any day. Be fearless! — Stephanie Lahart

There are some people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the truth without lying. — Josh Billings

I turned away from his grip, ashamed that I couldn't tell him the truth. I was the one that wasn't good enough. I would be the one to ruin everything; to ruin him. He would hate me one day, and I couldn't see the look in his eye when he came to that conclusion. — Jamie McGuire

There really can be no peace without justice. There can be no justice without truth. And there can be no truth, unless someone rises up to tell you the truth. — Louis Farrakhan

Life's more important than a living. So many people who make a living are making death, not life. Don't ever join them. They're the gravediggers of our civilization - The safe men. The compromisers. The moneymakers. The muddlers-through.
Politics is full of them ... so is businesses ... so is the church. They're popular. Successful. Some of them work hard, other are slack, but all of them could tell a good story.
Never where there such charming gravediggers in the world's history. — James Hilton

spirit deal only in truth, and they come through to tell the greatest truth of all: that love goes on after their passing. — Jayne Wallace

Good evening, London. I would introduce myself, but truth to tell, I do not have a name. You can call me "V". Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse. In anarchy, there is another way. With anarchy, from rubble comes new life, hope reinstated. They say anarchy's dead, but see ... reports of my death were ... exaggerated. Tomorrow, Downing Street will be destroyed, the Head reduced to ruins, an end to what has gone before. Tonight, you must choose what comes next. Lives of our own, or a return to chains. Choose carefully. And so, adieu. — Alan Moore

If someone lies to you, be quick to forgive & they'll be more apt
to tell you the truth. — Marshall Sylver

It's cool to have parents and family who will always tell me the truth no matter what. They'll tell me if I'm doing something stupid! — Jordin Sparks

If you never tell anyone the truth about yourself, eventually you start to forget. The love, the heartbreak, the joy, the despair, the things I did that were good, the things I did that were shameful
if I kept them all inside, my memories of them would start to disappear. And then I would disappear. — Cassandra Clare

For people never say anything the same way twice; no two of them ever say it the same. The greatest imaginative writer that ever brooded in a lavender robe and a mellowed briar in his teeth, couldn't tell you, though e try for a lifetime, how the simplest strap-hanger will ask the conductor to be let off at the next stop ...
It is all for the taking. All the manuals by frustrated fictioneers on how to write can't give you the first syllable of reality, at any cot, that any common conversation can. All the classics, read and re-read, can't help you catch the ring of truth as does the word heard first-hand. — Nelson Algren

The writer's job is to tell the truth, — Ernest Hemingway,

You don't need passwords, you don't want to check phones. Sometimes you only want the other person to just tell you the truth! — Manasa Rao

There's an old Northlands saying that goes like this: When lies don't help. try telling the truth. Loki knew it well, of course, but preferred his own version, which was: When lies don't help, tell better lies. — Joanne Harris

To tell you the truth, I think it's about that we shouldn't get our driver's licenses till real late in life. — Sandra Cisneros

All I can hope to teach my son is to tell the truth and fear no man. — Edward R. Murrow

A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction. — William Faulkner

At the time I thought what I had with you and your mother was better than nothing. But if you can't tell the truth to the people you care about the most, eventually you stop being able to tell the truth to yourself. — Cassandra Clare

I tell you the truth - for a long, long time these farmers have worked like horses and cattle; and like horses and cattle they have died. The reason our religion has penetrated this territory like water flowing into dry earth is that it has given this group of people a human warmth they never previously knew. For the first time they have met men who treated them like human beings. It was the human kindness and charity of the fathers that touched their hearts. — Shusaku Endo

Don't go for the ones that know your worth even when you don't.
Even when you call them to pick you up because some fuck boy left you with only a few hickeys and no ride home.
Please don't pay attention to the boys who take your self hate and say 'you really don't see yourself the way others see you, do you?'
Oh god.
just don't fall in love with them.
Please, just don't.
Because it's the ones that kiss your eyelids and stretch marks that fuck you over.
It;s the ones that tell you the truth that bring you to your knees.
It's the good ones that leave you curled up in a ball for months begging for the bleeding in your gut to stop.
And it's all because they're the unforgettable ones.
The boys who leave so many marks of love on you that no one can compare.
God knows they're it.

Fuck.
You were it. — Unknown

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world. — George Bernard Shaw

Above all, tell the truth. — Grover Cleveland

Tell me I may dream of knowing you better."

"It's kind of you to say those things."

"No kindness, lady, when I speak but the truth."

"Yes. Well. I appreciate it, still. But you haven't the slightest hope, I'm afraid. You'll always know me as much as you do now, and that'll have to be enough for you. Good day. — Rebecca Hahn

Couldn't tell if the truth looked like a lie, or a lie the truth. — Marie Rutkoski

Defrosting is excruciatingly painful. You have been numb for so long. As feeling comes back to your soul, you start to tingle, and it's uncomfortable and strange. But then the tingles start feeling like daggers. Sadness, loss, fear, anger, anxiety - all of these things that you have been numbing with the booze - you feel them for the first time. And it's horrific at first, to tell you the damn truth. But welcoming the pain and refusing to escape from it is the only way to recovery. You can't go around it, you can't go over it, you have to — Glennon Doyle Melton

None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth. — Mark Twain

Because people who talk about their dreams are actually trying to tell you things about themselves they'd never admit in normal conversation. It's a way for people to be honest without telling the truth. — Chuck Klosterman

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence. — Kahlil Gibran

It is a tragicomic fact that our proper upbringing has become an ally of the secret police. ( ... ) The "Tell the truth!" imperative drummed into us so automatically that we feel ashamed of lying even to a secret policeman. — Milan Kundera

Tell me I'm clever, Tell me I'm kind, Tell me I'm talented, Tell me I'm cute, Tell me I'm sensitive, Graceful and wise, Tell me I'm perfect - But tell me the truth. — Shel Silverstein

The thing that most haunted me that day, however ... was the fact that these things had - apparently - actually occurred ... For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you've seen that truth - really seen it - you can't look away. — Elizabeth Kostova

But I'll tell you the truth: The world needs more peacemaker instead of warmonger. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Never ask a woman about other men.
Either she'll tell you a lie, and you still won't know, or if she tells you the truth, you might not have wanted to hear it in the first place. — Malcolm X

You want a friend who's going to tell you the truth. That's what it's about. If you don't have a friend who's going to tell you the truth every time something comes up, you feel like he's not a true friend. — Donald Driver

Tell the truth, even if they do look at you funny. — Holmes Osborne

I go all around and try to tell them. And they laugh. I can't make them understand anything. No matter what I say I can't seem to make them see the truth. — Carson McCullers

I'll tell you the truth, everything you hear is a lie. — Jeff Shear

I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as it was said to me. — Walter Scott

I can say it, but it doesn't seem convincing to most people. I can call it an 'injustice,' but that doesn't always sink in either. You have to understand the nature of the culture in New York. Words that are equal to the pain of the poor are pretty easily discredited. A quarter of the truth, stated with lots of indirection, is regarded as more seemly.

Even when people do accept the idea of 'injustice,' there are ways to live with it without it causing you to change a great deal in your life. A mildly embarrassed toleration of injustice is an elemental part of cultural sophistication here. the stile is, 'Oh yes. We know all that. So tell us something new.' There's a kind of cultivated weariness in this. Talking about injustice, I am told, is 'tiresome' unless you do it in a way that sounds amusing. — Jonathan Kozol

There is a celebrated aphorism insisting that the best way to live is to 'work like you don't need the money, dance like nobody is watching, and love like you've never been hurt.' ... After years of hearing and reading these lines I have decided to tell the truth: the original version is wrong. There is a grave error in the wording of this adage. The correct version should go as follows:
Love like you don't need the money,
Work like nobody is watching,
Dance like you've never been hurt.
See? Doesn't that make more sense? — Gina Barreca

When confronted by an angry partner wanting to know how it is that he or she suddenly has symptoms of syphilis, gonorrhea, pubic lice or any other unpleasantry, it is much easier to answer "I have no idea, dear - I must have gotten it from a toilet seat" than it is to tell the truth. — Anonymous