Quotes & Sayings About Telling Half The Truth

It's not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth - but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it ... but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying. — Robert A. Heinlein

I look at the human sciences as poetic sciences in which there is no objectivity, and I see film as not being objective, and cinema verite as a cinema of lies that depends on the art of telling yourself lies. If you're a good storyteller then the lie is more true than reality, and if you're a bad one, the truth is worse than a half lie. — Jean Rouch

OK snark, settle. You're telling me you don't have the tiniest crush on him? Tell the truth, Grace," she said, cornering me over by the dishwasher.
"I don't have a crush," I debated.
"Well, maybe I have half a crush. I have a 'cruh'," I admitted, giggling.
"But it's strickly Joshua inspired," I added, knowing that was not entirely true. — Alice Clayton

Logic!" said the Professor half to himself. "Why don't they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is
telling the truth. You know she doesn't tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth. — C.S. Lewis

There was a distinction between lying and telling half-truths, but it was a very narrow one. — Alexander McCall Smith

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But a half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor. — Neil Gaiman

I'm telling you the truth, Carol. Even though it's actually none of your business.'
She half turned, found a smile from somewhere and said, 'You're quite right. It is none of my business. Till tomorrow Tony. — Val McDermid

I imagined the lies the valedictorian was telling them right now. About the exciting future that lies ahead. I wish she'd tell them the truth: Half of you have gone as far in life as you're ever going to. Look around. It's all downhill from here. The rest of us will go a bit further, a steady job, a trip to Hawaii, or a move to Phoenix, Arizona, but out of fifteen hundred how many will do anything truly worthwhile, write a play, paint a painting that will hang in a gallery, find a cure for herpes? Two of us, maybe three? And how many will find true love? About the same. And enlightenment? Maybe one. The rest of us will make compromises, find excuses, someone or something to blame, and hold that over our hearts like a pendant on a chain. — Janet Fitch

Anyone who recommends attention to the moment as a prescription for grateful wonder is only telling half the truth. To be happy one must pay attention, but to be unhappy one must also have paid attention. — Philip Lopate

In the parking lot of a Safeway on Oahu," he says. And he's telling the truth;
in the background she can hear the shopping carts performing their clashy, anal
copulations.
"I'm kind of busy now, Whitey -- but what can I do for you?"
"It's Y.T., " she says, "and you can help bust me out of The Clink." She gives
him the details.
"How long ago did he put you there?"
"Ten minutes."
"Okay, the three-ring binder for Clink franchises states that the manager is
supposed to check on the detainee half an hour after admission."
"How do you know this stuff?" she says accusingly.
"Use your imagination. As soon as the manager pulls his halfhour check, wait
for another five minutes, and then make your move. I'll try to give you a hand.
Okay?"
"Got it. — Neal Stephenson

Half the truth is often a whole lie. — Frank Sonnenberg

You're different than you used to be. A few months ago you wouldn't have followed me onto this porch." The compliment, if it was that, brought tears to her eyes. "I - I'm sorry for treating you so badly. I'm ashamed now of how I snubbed you - acted afraid of you - " "It's common enough." The admission startled her - made her feel grieved and defensive and tender toward him all at once. She longed to lay a reassuring hand on his sleeve but checked herself. There was no self-pity in his manner, only truth telling, and she sensed he didn't want her sympathy, just her friendship. And her forgiveness. "A half blood belongs to no one, red or white," he said. "You belong to God," she said softly. — Laura Frantz

If you agree to work for us, half the time you won't know the purpose of your duties ... and when we do explain, we might not be telling the truth. But that's the real world, folks ... — James Alan Gardner

When a middle-aged man says in a moment of weariness that he is half dead, he is telling the literal truth. — Elmer Davis

I never know what to tell them. I mean, there's nothing you can say to make a person stop hurting. Half the time, I just feel like telling them the truth. I'd say that for 3 months, you're going to feel worse than you've ever felt and you cope as best you can. And that after 6 months, the pain isn't so bad, but it still hurts more than you think it will. And even after years, you still find yourself thinking about the person you lost and get sad about it. And you still miss them all the time. — Nicholas Sparks