Good Lies Quotes

• If you tell the truth you do not need a good memory!

  Mark Twain

  Truth, Honesty, Memories

  Mark Twain, Classics HD (2015). “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: by Mark Twain (Illustrated and Unabridged)”, p.2, Classics HD

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• I do not believe in the Cinema verite. Sometimes a really good lie is better than any truth.

  Werner Herzog

  Lying, Believe, Cinema

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• It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.

  Jerome K. Jerome

  Funny, Truth, Liars

  The Idler Feb. 1892, p. 118

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• A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.

  Mark Twain

  Wise, Lying, Men

  Mark Twain, Susan K. Harris (1994). “Historical Romances: The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc”, p.115, Library of America

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• Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.

  Neil Gaiman

  Lying, Writing, Stories

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• Good lies need a leavening of truth to make them palatable.

  William McIlvanney

  Lying, Needs

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• People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Lying, People, Needs

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• Mostly it's lies, writing novels. You set out to tell an untrue story and you try to make it believable, even to yourself. Which calls for details; any good lie does.

  Anne Tyler

  Lying, Writing, Trying

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• And however dark the skies may appear, And however souls may blunder, I tell you it all will work out clear, For good lies over and under.

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Wise, Wisdom, Lying

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (2016). “Complete Poetical Works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Delphi Classics)”, p.1098, Delphi Classics

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• The Social Contract is nothing more or less than a vast conspiracy of human beings to lie to and humbug themselves for the general Good. Lies are the mortar that bind the savage individual man into the social masonry.

  H. G. Wells

  Lying, Men, Savages

  'Love and Mr Lewisham' (1900) ch. 23

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• Men are liars. We'll lie about lying if we have to. I'm an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive.

  Tim Allen

  Funny, Positive, Liars

  "Land Your Dream Job: High-Performance Techniques to Get Noticed, Get Hired, and Get Ahead". Book by John Middleton, Ken Langdon, and Nikki Cartwright, 2007.

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• You've learned that every good lie is threaded with truth and every accepted truth leaks lies.

  Dennis Lehane

  Lying, Accepted, Leaks

  Dennis Lehane (2006). “Coronado LP”, WmMorrow

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• When we move forward into our future, knowing and using the treasures within, then only good lies before us. We can know and affirm that everything that happens to us is for our highest good and greatest joy, truly believing that we can't go wrong.

  Louise Hay

  Lying, Moving Forward, Believe

  Louise L. Hay (2009). “Life!: Reflections on Your Journey”, p.128, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• If you've a story, make sure it's a whole one, with details close to hand. It's the difference between a good lie and getting caught.

  Tamora Pierce

  Lying, Hands, Differences

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• We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort. And that is why we write.

  Neil Gaiman

  Growing Up, Kindness, Lying

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• In its broadest term, religion says that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in rightful relations to it.

  William James

  Lying, Order, Unseen

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• A lot of Congressmen yesterday were upset when Kenneth Lay took the Fifth. Lay said it wasn't his fault. He had planned on testifying, but when Jeffrey Skilling testified, he took all the really good lies.

  Jay Leno

  Lying, Yesterday, Upset

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• Someone ought to write a novel about me,” said Lebedeva loftily. “I shouldn’t care if they lied to make it more interesting, as long as they were good lies, full of kisses and daring escapes and the occasional act of barbarism. I can’t abide a poor liar.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Lying, Liars, Writing

  Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “Deathless”, p.102, Macmillan

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• Wouldst thou ever roam abroad? See, what is good lies by thy side. Only learn to catch happiness, for happiness is ever by you.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Happiness, Lying, Sides

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• I worship nothing. Not a good lie nor a dark one. If nature is proof of God's amazing creation then I have truly seen the light, and the light is black. Nature is genius at its most cruel and savage. No benevolent God could have come up with such an outrage.

  Gary Numan

  Lying, Dark, Light

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• There's an expression, "God is in the details," and it applies to nothing more than it does to the writing of fiction. To that and to the art of telling good lies. And what is fiction but the telling of lies?

  Donna Levin

  Art, Lying, Writing

  Donna Levin (1996). “Get That Novel Written!”, Writers Digest Books

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• There's always a price you pay when you lie. Once you introduce a lie into a relationship, even for the best of intentions, it is always there. Whenever you’re with that person again, that lie is in the room too. It sits on your shoulder. Good lie or bad lie, it's in the room with you forever now. It's your constant companion.

  Harlan Coben

  Lying, Forever, Pay

  Harlan Coben (2012). “Seconds Away (Book Two): A Mickey Bolitar Novel”, p.146, Penguin

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• The Bible says, 'The truth shall make you free.' But let's not forget it was Spiro Agnew who said that a good lie will keep you out of jail in the first place.

  A. Whitney Brown

  Wisdom, Lying, Jail

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• Damn it all, it's the first duty of a soldier - it's the first duty of all Englishmen - to be able to tell a good lie in answer to a charge.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Lying, Soldier, Able

  Ford Madox Ford (2012). “Parade's End”, p.77, Vintage

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• I was fighting it left all day, just enough to get myself in difficult positions to get up and down. The par 5s have been good to be all week, and the three places I missed, I didn't get good lies.

  Darren Clarke

  Lying, Fighting, Deceit

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