The Thing About The Truth Quotes & Sayings

What more could you want? How about dominion over this 'beautiful place'? Beauty doesn't last. Friends and family decay. Power is the only thing that goes on forever."
Jack answered with his gut. "No, love goes on forever. — P.C. Cast

The odd thing about war, it shows who you are, not who you think you are ... most likely, you won't like the truth. — Joe Matlock

I mean to tell you, the Law's notion of justice is more cold-blooded than any outlaw I ever knew. And I mean 'outlaw,' not criminal. 'Criminal' doesn't distinguish between guys like men and the guys who own the banks and insurance companies and stock markets, who own the factories and coal mines and oil fields, who own the goddamn Law. I once said to John that being an outlaw was about the only way left for a man to hold on to his self-respect, and he said Ain't that the sad truth. The girls laughed along with us because they knew it wasn't a joke ... John got the publicity because he loved it ... he carried on like the whole thing was an adventure movie and he was Douglas Fairbanks. He wanted to to be a 'star.' That's how he was. Not me. I never even liked having my picture taken. All I ever wanted was to show the bastards who own the law that it didn't mean they owned me. — James Carlos Blake

The thing about people who mean everything they say is that they think everyone else does too. — Khaled Hosseini

That's the thing about love, you have to get lost to find someone you can trust. — Debasish Mridha

Obey God in the things he shows you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. God will never reveal more truth about himself until you have obeyed what you know already ... this chapter brings out the delight of real friendship with God. — Oswald Chambers

The thing is, about a character, it's not about being right, it's about the truth. The truth comes from within, so you have to search as an artist for the truth. — Russell Hornsby

The one thing I hate about other managers is waffle that is nowhere near the truth. I would never conduct myself like that. — Alan Pardew

I need to be casual but not too casual. Dressy but not too dressy. I need him to think I just threw on the first thing I found and that I'm not taking this too seriously or overthinking it or even that I was thinking about it at all. Because I'm not. I'm totally not thinking about him, and I don't want him to think I was thinking about him, but I don't want him to think that I'm not thinking about him, because clearly he thought about me enough to ask me out and it would be mean not to be thinking about him at all, so I need just the right amount of thinking, and I'm not sure if that means boots and a skirt or skinny jeans and ballet flats. Help! — Gemma Halliday

But even now, especially now, it seems to me that women have a strength about them that men never had. And I wonder how did men always get portrayed in the movies and such as the strong ones? How did it come to be that women are made to look like the weak ones who need protectin'? Truth is, it's men who need the protectin'. Really they do. Women have the strong thing inside of them and the can get through anything. They just can. They're used to pain of child birthing - pain no man knows - and some women being battered around and not treated right through all the centuries and having to learn at a real young age how to stay alive on the inside when the outside is being hurt real bad. Most all women know that. But men. Those poor men. They just don't have the inside strength the women do. It's harder for men to feel pain. — Sarah Felix Burns

I Don't Even Like Him - How Can I Pray for Him? Have you ever been so mad at your husband that the last thing you wanted to do was pray for him? So have I. It's hard to pray for someone when you're angry or he's hurt you. But that's exactly what God wants us to do. If He asks us to pray for our enemies, how much more should we be praying for the person with whom we have become one and are supposed to love? But how do we get past the unforgiveness and critical attitude? The first thing to do is be completely honest with God. In order to break down the walls in our hearts and smash the barriers that stop communication, we have to be totally up-front with the Lord about our feelings. We don't have to "pretty it up" for Him. He already knows the truth. He just wants to see if we're willing to admit it and confess it as disobedience to His ways. If so, He — Stormie O'martian

But that's the thing about truth - even when you think you know it, it can still sneak up behind you and knock you down. — Rachel Bateman

The great thing about fiction is that you can start off by telling the truth, then start making stuff up like crazy whenever you feel like it. — Megan McCafferty

Because the truth is, we never know for sure about ourselves. Who we'll sleep with if given the opportunity, who we'll betray in the right circumstance, whose faith and love we will reward with our own ... Only after we've done a thing do we know what we'll do ... — Richard Russo

I admit there's an element of brutality in all my work - it's part of the truth about human existence I always want to explore - but the last thing I'm trying to do is put on some kind of freak show, inviting people to get off on other people's pain and humiliation. — Todd Solondz

Life is a funny thing. We claim it to be our own; but the truth is, it's not. It belongs to something much bigger. We, like everything else, are transient. This life is temporary and everything about us is temporary. What we call our life is nothing more than borrowed energy from something much bigger--nature, the universe, God--whatever floats your boat. And one day, when we pass, we will give that energy back to the world we borrowed it from in the first place. — Leanne Waters

The worst thing about talk ... is that there's no way to lay it to rest. Every fresh breeze brings a new speculation. — Susan Wittig Albert

Jake Roberts has a hard enough time being Jake Roberts. The truth is a brutal thing, I just hope that the kids take the time to learn about each of the wrestlers in the game, and if the kids can learn from our mistakes, that would make me a happy man. — Jake Roberts

The thing about the truth was that it sometimes tore apart the perfect world we forced ourselves into believing existed. — Nicole Sobon

My experience is that journalists report on the nearest-cliche algorithm, which is extremely uninformative because there aren't many cliches, the truth is often quite distant from any cliche, and the only thing you can infer about the actual event was that this was the closest cliche ... It is simply not possible to appreciate the sheer awfulness of mainstream media reporting until someone has actually reported on you. It is so much worse than you think. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

I don't see big subjects as separate from little ones. Yes, you could trudge through life with great human tragedies played out before your eyes without ever taking notice. Or you could see a universe in the smallest thing. The way a person takes their coffee, for example, might say something profound and important about that person, about all humanity, about existence itself. — Johnny Rich

But something about the static truth of numbers hurt my brain. Numbers felt sharp. Words felt elastic and springy. Language had an unpredictable, quicksilver quality, saying one thing but meaning something else, varying from place to place but maintaining (against all evidence) that it was the same language. Thinking about words was ticklish and amusing. It was also easy, as if they fit into slots and patterns prepared for them in my mind. Numbers on the other hand, bounced right out of my mind. — Susanna Kaysen

Funny thing about guilt: There's nothing so bad that you can't add a little guilt to it and make it worse; and there's nothing so good you can't add guilt to it and make it better. Guilt distracts us from a greater truth: we have an inherent ability to heal. We seem intent on living through even the worst heartbreak... How? ... Practice. — C. Jay Cox

Becoming like Jesus is as much as about having a relaxed and joyful heart as it is about believing and doing the right thing, as much about proper energy as about proper truth. — Ronald Rolheiser

This is the thing about great literature. It reads like truth and sticks to you forever and lets you know that you are not alone. — Arlaina Tibensky

What I hate about kitchen-sink dramas is [this idea] that the set is real, therefore you're going to be seeing truth. You have to earn truth. Truth can't be a part of the fact that people appear to talk that way and live in that room. You're looking for the poetry in something, and I don't mean poetry in the fancy sense. Naturalism believes by just replicating a thing you give the truth, rather than earning the truth. — John Guare

Sometimes a policeman must confront people about lying. No one likes to be called a liar. But it is what it is! A fact is a fact! If someone is a liar, put them on notice. You should not be punished for doing the right thing. It is the job of a good investigator to get the truth. — C. Snyder

I read a story about some old opera singer once, and when a guy asked her to marry him, she took him backstage after she had sung a real triumph, with all the people calling for her, asked, 'Do you think you could give me that?' That story hit me right, man. I know no guy ever made me feel as good as an audience. I'm really far into this now, really committed. Like, I don't think I'd go off the road for long now, for life with a guy no matter how good. Yeah, it's the truth. Scary thing to say though, isn't it? — Janis Joplin

Epic, epic love is not about having someone. It's about being willing to give them up. It's sacrifice. It's my mom's theater tickets stuffed down at the bottom of her jewelry box. It's Noah and August. It's my sister and Annabelle. It's Jordan and his mom, the truth he reserves to protect her. And see, that's the thing I didn't understand. The thing no one tells you. That just because you find love doesn't mean it's yours to keep. Love never belongs to you. It belongs to the universe. — Rebecca Serle

The good thing about kids is that they'll tell you the truth, straight-up, no strings attached, no holds barred honesty. The bad thing about kids is that they'll tell you the truth, straight-up, no strings attached, no holds barred honesty. — C.M. Stunich

But, Catherine, everything's that true despite us - the things they're talking about, natural laws - will always remain true despite us. What matters is what's true because of us. That's what's up for grabs. That's where the battle is. One remembers and values one's life not for its objective truths, but for the emotional truths ... The only thing that's really true, that lasts, and makes life worthwhile is the truth that's fixed in the heart. That's what we live and die for. It comes in epiphanies, and it comes in love, and don't ever let frightened people turn you away from it. — Mark Helprin

The worst thing about being lied to is knowing you weren't worth the truth. — Turcois Ominek

There is no such thing as too ordinary to write about, whether that's life or a scene in a novel. What's interesting to people, whether it's memoir or fiction, is the truth. — Augusten Burroughs

I knew I should be doing some serious thinking, but I had no idea how to go about it. And, to tell the truth, thinking was the last thing I wanted to do. The time would come soon enough when I had no choice in the matter, and when that time came I would take a good long time to think things over. Not now, though. Not now. — Toru Watanabe

There is no such thing as biblical dating. If you're dating, I don't care who you're dating, you're out of God's will. If you're a young man and you're dating, you're out of God's will. Period. You can come talk to me about it later, you can be mad if you want. But that's just the truth. There's no such thing as recreational dating. There is biblical courtship, there is no recreational dating. — Paul Washer

Anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human being. And we can do most anything to rats. This is a hard thing to think about, but it's the truth. It won't go away because we cover our eyes. THAT is cyberpunk. — Bruce Sterling

If you're driving, and a cop is behind you, you automatically think they're going to pull you over, but cops have so much more going on than to think about pulling you over. The last thing a real cop wants to do is write a ticket. That's the truth. — Manny Montana

That's the thing about love, it secretly attracts and demands your attention. — Debasish Mridha

And besides, the thing about committing yourself to a lie is that mostly you end up in twice the trouble, 'cause truth is like a whirlwind and you can't keep it in a box. — Sarah Monette

The distinctive feature of my family was intolerance of sensitivity and emotion - 'Everything's great, it all has to be great all the time and why do you have to spoil it?' Whereas probably the most fundamental and important thing to me has been defending my right to tell the truth about how I feel. — Rachel Cusk

It is one thing to write as poet and another to write as a historian: the poet can recount or sing about things not as they were, but as they should have been, and the historian must write about them not as they should have been, but as they were, without adding or subtracting anything from the truth. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

A famous Japanese Zen master, Hakuun Yasutani Roshi, said that unless you can explain Zen in words that a fisherman will comprehend, you don't know what you're talking about. Some fifty years ago a UCLA professor told me the same thing about applied mathematics. We like to hide from the truth behind foreign-sounding words or mathematical lingo. There's a saying: The truth is always encountered but rarely perceived. If we don't perceive it, we can't help ourselves and we can't much help anyone else. — Jeff Bridges

Like it or not, there are people who are capable to love
genuinely and kill brutally. The amazing thing about that,
few of those could even sleep well like babies in the night. — Toba Beta

To tell you the truth, I'm shocked, as I travel across this country, at how little people know or don't want to know about HIV/AIDS. There are a lot of people who don't know that HIV is one thing and AIDS is another. Those people just think it's one big old alphabet of a disease. — Sheryl Lee Ralph

His joy was somewhat sullied by immediate awareness that his brother did not fully share it . . . in truth, he seemed more distressed than was possible save in one about to discorporate because of some shameful lack or failure. But Smith had already learned that these creatures, so much like himself in some ways, could endure emotions dreadful to contemplate and still not die. His Brother Mahmoud underwent a spiritual agony five times daily and not only did not die but had urged the agony on him as a needful thing. His Brother Captain van Tromp suffered terrifying spasms unpredictably, any one of which should have, by Smith's standards, produced immediate discorporation to end the conflict - yet that brother was still corporate so far as he knew. — Robert A. Heinlein

doubted that it was the whole truth but there really wasn't anything she could do about it. "I'm just really disappointed, Ted," she said sadly. "You're the only family I have and now I'm not even going to get to spend Christmas with you. It's not fair." "I really am sorry. I thought I was doing a good thing." For who? She sighed. "Maybe — Samantha Chase

It was easy to find things she would like. Our taste was the same, it had been from the first. It would be impossible to live with someone otherwise. I've always thought it was the most important single thing, though people may not realize it. Perhaps it's transmitted to them in the way someone dresses or, for that matter, undresses, but taste is a thing no one is born with, it's learned, and at a certain point it can't be altered. We sometimes talked about that, what could and couldn't be altered. People were always saying something had completely changed them, some experience or book or man, but if you knew how they had been before, nothing much really had changed. When you found someone who was tremendously appealing but not quite perfect, you might believe you could change them after marriage, not everything, just a few things, but in truth the most you could expect was to change perhaps one thing and even that would eventually go back to what it had been. — James Salter

From the Bible we can surmise that God will ask us two crucial questions: First, "What did you do with my Son, Jesus Christ?" God won't ask about your religious background or doctrinal views. The only thing that will matter is, did you accept what Jesus did for you and did you learn to love and trust him? Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."17 Second, "What did you do with what I gave you?" What did you do with your life - all the gifts, talents, opportunities, energy, relationships, and resources God gave you? Did you spend them on yourself, or did you use them for the purposes God made you for? — Rick Warren

I'm definitely going to bounce back, I don't doubt that one bit. The thing about this is you have to expect that when you're a back my age. You can't feel slighted if someone says that because it's a reality that it's abnormal for a guy my age to still be starting in the NFL. I can accept that. I still understand what the truth is to me, and that's what I believe. I don't really care what people say. — Curtis Martin

I thought he should know the truth.
"Some say that I'm a ... well a ..." I hated to say what others teased me mercilessly about... "A... slow learner."
He shrugged as if to indicate that it didn't mean anything to him, but seemed anxious about what to say to console me. Finally, he reached out and touched my hand. "Yeah, but they don't have life mates whose destines are written in the stars." I wanted to groan out loud. I was a slow learner and was to be mated with a vampiric human whose old flame wanted me dead. How was this a good thing? — Terry Spear

Because I'm not thinking about the fiber content in stain resistant carpet." My eyes remained stubbornly shut.
"What does that mean?"
"It means ... " I lifted my lids and found him surveying me with simple curiosity. I swallowed a new thickness in my throat, knowing that I needed to tell him the truth. "It means my brain finds you more interesting than all the really interesting trivial facts I could be contemplating or researching at present."
His answering smile was leisurely, measured; "I think that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. — Penny Reid

The truth is, we never know for sure about ourselves. Who we'll sleep with if given the opportunity, who we'll betray in the right circumstance, whose faith and love we will reward with our own. Only after we've done a thing do we know what we'll do ... Which is why we have spouses and children and parents and colleagues and friends, because someone has to know us better than we know ourselves. — Richard Russo

unity. Evangelicals, by definition, don't care about "unity" nearly as much as they care about truth. When you say "We may differ on some issues of morality and theology, but the important thing is that we stay together in one united Church" you pre-suppose that the liberals are right and the evangelicals are wrong. Which, when you think about it, isn't very liberal at all. — Andrew Rilstone

I think most writers ... write about episodes meaningful to them in terms of their own imaginations. Now that would include a great deal of what they experience, but I'm not sure there's an autobiographical intention. ... I believe I'm telling the truth when I say that, when I wrote Catch-22, I was not particularly interested in war; I was mainly interested in writing a novel, and that was a subject for it. That's been true of all my books. Now what goes into these books does reflect a great deal of my more morbid nature - the fear of dying, a great deal of social awareness and social protest, which is part of my personality. None of that is the objective of writing. Take five writers who have experienced the same thing, and they will be completely different as people, and they'd be completely different in what they do write, what they're able to write. — Joseph Heller

I'm terrified of learning the truth. About my mission. About Axton. About who I really am, and what I'm capable of doing. I'd rather stay in denial. Because if there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that I'm not going to like the truth of my apparent new reality. — Siobhan Davis

The best thing about being a fiction writer is that where the truth is inconvenient, I could veer away. — Kaui Hart Hemmings

People shouldn't say one thing if they really mean the other. That's my problem with people, they say something without thinking about it. Without having experienced the opposites. I've been there, I've been everywhere. I tread the path of adventure, and the path was paved with gold, and every little detour was filled with joyous surprises. But then you get to the end, and the fates reveal your truth. One truth. The one truth. — Nikhil Sharda

To tell you the truth the only thing I feel, Peter, is that you're going about this all wrong. You're following the most natural roads, and for that reason you've ended up in particularly unnatural places. You're exploring alibis, gathering clues, looking for motives. But it seems to me that, in this particular case the usual terms of your art have lost their meaning, the same way that the concept of time changes meaning at speeds faster than light ... — Arkady Strugatsky

What a strange world it is where you can have as much sex as you like but love is taboo. I'm talking about the real thing, the grand passion, which may not allow affection or convenience or happiness. The truth is that love smashes into your life like an ice floe, and even if your heart is built like the Titanic you go down. That's the size of it, the immensity of it. It's not proper, it's not clean, it's not containable. — Jeanette Winterson

It's 11 am and I'm sitting in a restaurant
3 beers in. Believe me, even I'm surprised
I'm still alive sometimes.
I have been drinking about you for 2 days.
Lately you remind me of a wild thing
chewing through its foot. But you
are already free and I don't know what to do
except trace the rough line of your jaw
and try not to place blame.
Here is the truth: It is hard to be in love
with someone who is in love someone else.
I don't know how to turn that into poetry. — Clementine Von Radics

How are you feeling, man?" he asks me.
"Great," I tell him, and it is purely the truth. Doves clatter up out of a bare tree and turn at the same instant, transforming themselves from steel to silver in the snow-blown light. I know at that moment that the drug is working. Everything before me has become suddenly, radiantly itself. How could Carlton have known this was about to happen? "Oh," I whisper. His hand settles on my shoulder.
"Stay loose, Frisco," he says. "There's not a thing in this pretty world to be afraid of. I'm here."
I am not afraid. I am astonished. I had not realized until this moment how real everything is. A twig lies on the marble at my feet, bearing a cluster of hard brown berries. The broken-off end is raw, white, fleshly. Trees are alive.
"I'm here," Carlton says again, and he is. — Michael Cunningham

A great many wise sayings have been uttered about the effects of solitary retirement; but the motives which impel men to seek it are not more various than the effects which it produces on different individuals. One thing is certain, that those who can with truth affirm that they are "never less alone than when alone," might generally add that they never feel more lonely than when not alone. — Arthur Helps

The beautiful thing about the truth of being is that it's so unimaginably immediate. — Adyashanti

I may not read tea leaves or palms, my lady, but it is easy enough to read faces. Yours is a questioning face, always looking for answers, always seeking the truth, for yourself and for others." I smiled at her. "I think that is a very polite way of saying I am curious as a cat. And we all know what happened to the cat - curiosity killed her." Rosalie took the last slice of cake onto her plate. "Yes, but you forget the most important thing about the little cat," she said, giving me a wise nod. "She had eight lives left to live. — Deanna Raybourn

I have found that to tell the truth is the hardest thing on earth. Harder than fighting in a war, harder than taking part in a revolution.
"If you try it, you will find that at times sweat will break upon you. You will find that even if you succeed in discounting the attitudes of others to you and your life, you must wrestle with yourself most of all. Fight with yourself. Because there will surge up in you a strong desire to alter facts, to dress up your feelings.
"You'll find that there are many things you don't want to admit about yourself and others.
"As your record shapes itself, an awed wonder haunts you. And yet there is no more exciting an adventure than trying to be honest in this way. The clean, strong feeling that sweeps you when you've done it makes you know that. — Richard Wright

The terrible truth about depression, and the part of its nature that terrifies me the most, is that it appears to operate beyond reason; feelings happen to you for no apparent cause. Or rather, there is usually an initial cause, a 'trigger'as they say in therapeutic circles, but in severe depression the feelings of sadness, grief, loneliness and despair continue long after the situation has resolved itself. It is as if depression has a life of its own, which is perhaps why so many sufferers refer to it as a living thing, as some sort of demon or beast. — Sally Brampton

The one great thing about football is that whatever happens it will manifest itself on the pitch. If it's right, you'll see it on the pitch, if it's wrong, it will be on the pitch. In business you can get fellas who are doing crooked deals and nobody knows anything about it. There is an ultimate honesty about football. Politics is part of the lying game, I wouldn't trust any of them. In football you can hide for a while, but ultimately the truth comes out. I always loved that. — Johnny Giles

The worst thing about cynicism is its truth. — Ethel Mumford

There is no such thing as education. The thing is merely a loose phrase for the passing on to others of whatever truth or virtue we happen to have ourselves. It is typical of our time that the more doubtful we are about the value of philosophy, the more certain we are about the value of education. That is to say, the more doubtful we are about whether we have any truth, the more certain we are (apparently) that we can teach it to our children. — G.K. Chesterton

In truth, the cinema as a delivery system obviously has its days numbered. And that's not a bad thing. When you can buy any book in the world on your iPad, or off Amazon, you don't go the public library. The public library becomes about homeless gentlemen sleeping in chairs. — William Monahan

The thing about dead people ... The thing is you sound like a bastard if you don't romanticize them, but the truth is ... complicated, I guess. — John Green

He could not admit that he had known the truth then and was now mistaken, because as soon as he began to think calmly about it, the whole thing fell to pieces; nor could he admit that he had been mistaken then, because he cherished his state of soul at that time, and by admitting that it had been due to weakness he would have profaned those moments. — Leo Tolstoy

The truth about love is that you don't always fall in love with whom you are supposed to fall in love with. Love just hits you. It is a transcendent thing. Sometimes it is your best friend's husband and sometimes it's your father. It's weird. But that's a fact of life. — Meg Rosoff

She told me, "I sexualize men. You can't just be afraid of men that sexualize women when I do practically the same thing, and I'm a woman." I told Lily the honest fucking truth. "You can't physically overpower a fucking man the way that a man can overpower you." It doesn't matter who's thinking about sex. We all are. It matters who's in a position of dominance. Who has the chance to abuse that - and it's mostly men. Bad fucking men. — Krista Ritchie

And that's when I realize the thing about the truth. It always comes out, no matter what you do. — Lauren Barnholdt

The beautiful thing
about young love
is the truth
in our hearts
that it will last forever. — Atticus Poetry

So much relies on one person assuming the other is telling the truth. If a person can lie to you about one thing, he can lie about something else. — Meg Rosoff

All God's revelations are sealed to us until they are opened to us by obedience. You will never get them open by philosophy or thinking. Immediately you obey, a flash of light comes. Let God's truth work in you by soaking in it, not by worrying into it. Obey God in the thing He is at present showing you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. We read tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit when ... five minutes of drastic obedience would make things clear as a sunbeam. We say, "I suppose I shall understand these things some day." You can understand them now: it is not study that does it, but obedience. The tiniest fragment of obedience, and heaven opens up and the profoundest truths of God are yours straight away. God will never reveal more truth about Himself till you obey what you know already. Beware of being wise and prudent. — Oswald Chambers

In fact, lying to ourselves may be the most dangerous thing in the world because we live our truth whether we are honest about it or not. — Cortney S. Warren

All these people - both the Japanese and the Koreans - are fucked because they keep thinking about the group. But here's the truth: There's no such thing as a benevolent leader. — Min Jin Lee

In truth I care little about any party's politics-the man behind it is the important thing. — Mark Twain

The appalling thing about war is that it kills all love of truth. — Georg Brandes

I'm no expert, but I know one thing about anger - it's like alcohol. At some point, if you pour enough in there, it's coming back up. You may think you've built up a tolerance, but the truth is this - no man, not even Unc, can bury it so deep that it doesn't erupt at some point like Vesuvius and splatter your soul across the earth. — Charles Martin

It was all so damn fragile, that was the thing. Obvious, for sure,but for the most part we block - we refuse to think about how easily our lives could be torn asunder, because when we recognize it, we lose our minds. The ones who are fearful all the time, who need to medicate to function? It is because they understand the reality, how thin the line is. It isn't that they can't accept the truth - its that they can't block it. — Harlan Coben

Now I know that there's no such thing as the truth. That people are constantly misquoted. That news organizations are full of conspiracy (and that, in any case, ineptness is a kind of conspiracy). That emotional detachment and cynicism get you only so far. But for many years I was in love with journalism. I loved the city room. I loved the pack. I loved smoking and drinking scotch and playing dollar poker. I didn't know much about anything, and I was in a profession where you didn't have to. I loved the speed. I loved the deadlines. I loved that you wrapped the fish. You can't make this stuff up, I used to say. — Nora Ephron

Hypocrisy is what being a parent is all about," Jon said. "Well done for cracking the books, Jared and Holly. You see how it pays off."
Holly smiled and the light of her smile seemed to spill all over the room, reflections of light refracted all over everywhere.
"It's true reading is a wonderful thing," Rusty observed. "I read a Cosmo a year ago, and I still remember how to keep my nails in perfect condition and also ten top tips on how to dress to accentuate my ass."
Now everybody was staring at Rusty. Unlike Jared, he did not blush.
"Those tips are working," he said. "Don't pretend you haven't all noticed. I know the truth. — Sarah Rees Brennan

The most important thing about music that I've learned after all this time is that to me, it's a way of reaching the truth. — Serj Tankian

I find something repulsive about the idea of vicarious redemption. I would not throw my numberless sins onto a scapegoat and expect them to pass from me; we rightly sneer at the barbaric societies that practice this unpleasantness in its literal form. There's no moral value in the vicarious gesture anyway. As Thomas Paine pointed out, you may if you wish take on a another man's debt, or even to take his place in prison. That would be self-sacrificing. But you may not assume his actual crimes as if they were your own; for one thing you did not commit them and might have died rather than do so; for another this impossible action would rob him of individual responsibility. So the whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out the ethical principles for ourselves. — Christopher Hitchens

Pick the tomato warm from the garden. Sit right there in a sunny patch if you've got one. Brush off any dirt and bugs, but don't make yourself crazy. Sprinkle with a little salt. And don't you add one other thing, because there's just something about a tomato being a tomato. Eat it like an apple. Let the juices run down your chin, and then wipe 'em away with your shirtsleeve. You heard me. The perfect summer tomato is worth half a shirt. And that's the truth. — Kat Yeh

The interesting thing about cities isn't what they do when people are looking," Ben says. "It's what they do when they think nobody's looking. Like, the shit the city is proud of? The shining skyscrapers downtown, the sports stadiums, the public art? You can't judge a city by that. That only tells you what the rich people are doing on a good day. It's what people do on a bad day - a bad day when there are no security cameras watching - that tells you what you really want to know. It's how people act during a blackout, a hurricane, or a siege that tells you the truth about a city. — Scott Kenemore

Criticizing others is a dangerous thing, not so much because you may make mistakes about them, but because you may be revealing the truth about yourself ... — Harold Medina

You'd be doing us both a favor.' 'This drives me bats. You know this drives me bats.' Orin and Hal's term for this routine is Politeness Roulette. This Moms-thing that makes you hate yourself for telling her the truth about any kind of problem because of what the consequences will be for her. It's like to report any sort of need or problem is to mug her. — David Foster Wallace

One sort of optional thing you might do is to realize there are six seasons instead of four. The poetry of four seasons is all wrong for this part of the planet, and this may explain why we are so depressed so much of the time. I mean, Spring doesn't feel like Spring a lot of the time, and November is all wrong for Fall and so on. Here is the truth about the seasons: Spring is May and June! What could be springier than May and June? Summer is July and August. Really hot, right? Autumn is September and October. See the pumpkins? Smell those burning leaves. Next comes the season called "Locking." That is when Nature shuts everything down. November and December aren't Winter. They're Locking. Next comes Winter, January and February. Boy! Are they ever cold! What comes next? Not Spring. Unlocking comes next. What else could April be? — Kurt Vonnegut

He'd set down his drink and leaned in. "Fine. You want me to elaborate, I will. Here's the deal: I'm a guy. Generally speaking, we're pretty simple folk. I know women always want to think we have these deep, romantic, and emotionally angsty thoughts going on in our heads, but in reality? Not so much. You women have layers and you're complicated and mysterious and you say one thing, but you really mean another, and it's this whole tricky package that intrigues us and scares us and challenges us all at the same time. But men aren't like that. You talk about me not letting you in, but maybe what you don't realize is this: there is no in." He pointed to himself. "It's all right here on the surface, Jessica. What you see is what you get. — Julie James

It's a weird thing about the truth: It protects you. What really makes you vulnerable is when you're lying because you're going to get caught. When you tell the truth, there's a strange relief that comes. — Eve Ensler

The thing about the truth is that it exists outside of belief. Even if nobody believes it, that thing is still true. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

You know, it's such a peculiar thing
our idea of mankind in general. We all have a sort of vague, glowing picture when we say that, something solemn, big and important. But actually all we know of it is the people we meet in our lifetime. Look at them. Do you know any you'd feel big and solemn about? There's nothing but housewives haggling at pushcarts, drooling brats who write dirty words on the sidewalks, and drunken debutantes. Or their spiritual equivalent. As a matter of fact, one can feel some respect for people when they suffer. They have a certain dignity. But have you ever looked at them when they're enjoying themselves? That's when you see the truth. Look at those who spend the money they've slaved for
at amusement parks and side shows. Look at those who're rich and have the whole world open to them. Observe what they pick out for enjoyment. Watch them in the smarter speak-easies. That's your mankind in general. I don't want to touch it. — Ayn Rand

This is the strange thing about life, when people are confronted, they all say that the truth is what they want but when the truth disagrees with them, they balk at it as if it were an unwanted zombie apocalypse that only wants to destroy civilization. — Leviak B. Kelly

Funny thing about life, it's so easy to view it from the outside in. We can see the exact point where our friends fuck up, do the wrong thing, are blind to what's right in front of them. As in, why the fuck won't they just listen to us and take our advice instead of bumbling all over the place? We watch horror movies and know when to shout at the dumb girl who goes in the basement to investigate that noise; we revel in her stupidity, feel superior to it. If it were us, we assure ourselves, we wouldn't be so stupid. Sure we would; we just wouldn't realize the danger. Because the truth is, we're walking deaf, dumb, and blind half of the time. And even though I can tell myself this afterward, after I fuck up, it doesn't make me feel any better. Because I'm about to do a fuck up royale. With cheese. — Kristen Callihan

Sometimes the hardest thing about the truth is putting down the misassumptions, falsehoods, and half-truths that stand between it and you. Sometimes that's the last thing that anybody wants to do. And sometimes, it's the only thing we can do. — Mira Grant