Quotes & Sayings About Unreliable Narrators

I very much like the idea of the unreliable narrator. Shaping my fictions as monologues - by introducing the "I" - allows me to be as unreliable as I like. — Norman Lock

Apparently I am what is known as an Unreliable Narrator, though of course if you believe everything you're told you deserve whatever you get. — Iain M. Banks

We commonly do not remember that it is ... always the first person that is speaking. — Henry David Thoreau

I think every narrator is an unreliable narrator. In its classic definition - an unreliable narrator is one who reveals something they don't know themselves to be revealing. We all do that. — Rob Roberge

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! — Sara Shepard

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

I had done a deed - what was it? — Edgar Allan Poe

Narrators are often unreliable, and part of the reader's pleasure is figuring out what's really true. The — Lisa Cron

I'm starting to think that pure truth is impossible, and that all narrators and all people are at least a little unreliable. — Susan Juby

Well, there's good fiction. There are wonderful books, and yes, it's good to read them. Maybe if you've read a lot of fiction, you reach this stage of satiation, and you start thinking well, what's the point, but then you talk to people who've read barely any, and you realize that things you take for granted if you've read a lot of fiction - unreliable narrators, how language frames your perception of people - things that seem obvious to the point of banality, except they're not to people who aren't in the habit of reading fiction. — Helen DeWitt