Too Much Lies Quotes

Olive Wellwood had the feeling writers often have when told perfect tales for fictions, that there was too much fact, too little space for the necessary insertion of inventions, which would here appear to be lies. ~ A.S. Byatt

Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such,
We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much;
Who, born for the Universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. ~ Samuel Johnson

I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon law and upon courts. These are false hopes, believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no courts to save it. ~ Learned Hand

Without question, the balance of power on the planet today lies in the hands of business. Corporations rival governments in wealth, influence, and power. Indeed, business all too often pulls the strings of government. Competing institutions-religion, the press, even the military-play subordinate roles in much of the world today. If a values-driven approach to business can begin to redirect this vast power toward more constructive ends than the simple accumulation of wealth, the human race and Planet Earth will have a fighting chance. ~ Ben Cohen

In discovering books, you became free to explore the full range of human motives, desires, secrets, and lies. All my life, people have scolded me for having an excess of feeling, saying that I was too sensitive - as if one could be in danger from feeling too much instead of too little. But my outsize emotions were well represented in books. [] there simmered all the feelings no one ever admits to. ~ Betsy Lerner

The two most common lies in our world are 'I'm fine' and 'You'll be okay'. They are said without harmful intent, and often said in an attempt to placate worries, but still they tell us it is not our place to make another person uncomfortable or to draw too much attention to ourselves. Over and over, we mindlessly repeat variations of the same two phrases as we hide within our lies and attempt to spare others from the miserable truth. I'm fine. I'm okay. You're fine. You'll be okay. Everything will be all right. We become our lies, but only on the surface. Underneath, we are not fine and they will not be okay. We all know this but we're afraid to speak it. ~ Courtney M. Privett

Lies I've told my 3 year old recently
Trees talk to each other at night.
All fish are named either Lorna or Jack.
Before your eyeballs fall out from watching too much TV, they get very loose.
Tiny bears live in drain pipes.
If you are very very quiet you can hear the clouds rub against the sky.
The moon and the sun had a fight a long time ago.
Everyone knows at least one secret language.
When nobody is looking, I can fly.
We are all held together by invisible threads.
Books get lonely too.
Sadness can be eaten.
I will always be there. ~ Raul Gutierrez

Definitions belong to the definer, not the defined, & I no longer wished to have my life & death foretold by others. I had endured too much to be reduced to an idea. Onto that pyre I threw so many, many words - that entire untrue literature of the past which had shackled & subjugated my as surely as the spiked iron collars & leg locks & jagged basils & balls & chains & headshaving - that had so long denied me my free voice & the stories I needed to tell. I no longer wished to read lies as to who & why I was. I knew who I was ~ Richard Flanagan

I thought you were supposed to be the champion of your people,' I said.
I live because I need to do that. For anyone who is left.'
Don't you see? No one will be left. Protect them now or there will be no one to protect!'
This is a battle that goes on and on. It never ends. You're too young to understand.
No! You're too much of a coward to fight.'
I was sick of lies and secrets and of battles so old we had to erase who we were to fight back. And still we lost. Still we were tied to posts. ~ Alice Hoffman

I refer to the awesome experience of Joseph Smith when he beheld God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, in the spring of 1820. There has been no event more glorious, more controversial, nor more important in the story of Joseph Smith than this vision. It is possibly the most singular event to occur on the earth since the Resurrection. Those who do not believe it happened find it difficult to explain away. Too much has happened since its occurrence to summarily deny that it ever took place. . . .

"Since no one was with Joseph when this great vision took place in the wooded grove near Palmyra, a testimony concerning its reality can come only by believing the truthfulness of Joseph Smith's own account or by the witness of the Holy Ghost, or both. I have such a conviction. It is a sure conviction that lies deep in my soul. As a special witness of the same Christ who appeared with the Father and instructed the boy Joseph Smith, I bear witness of the truthfulness of the magnificent First Vision near Palmyra. I declare this in all soberness and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. ~ James E. Faust

Too many commercials, too many lies Too many celebrities I don't recognize Too many brand names, too many magazines I got so much sensation, I can't feel a thing Simple living Got to get to simple living Simple living Simple ... simply living Too many things we just throw away If we put it in the garbage, we're gonna eat it someday We turn on the lights and a river dies We turn the TV on to see an eagle fly ~ Fred Small

When my mind tells me there's no possible way ahead, Beloved, may Love whisper to me, "Yes, there is a way! I've gone that way a thousand times before." When my mind says, "Danger lies ahead. It will hurt too much, if you surrender all," let me hear Love's laughter, as I hear Love say, "The pain is only in your mind." Teach me to find the roses hidden in my pain, so that I may discover within my inner self, rose garden after rose garden. ~ Devon Holcombe

At the Theatre: To the Lady Behind Me

Dear Madam, you have seen this play;
I never saw it till today.
You know the details of the plot,
But, let me tell you, I do not.
The author seeks to keep from me
The murderer's identity,
And you are not a friend of his
If you keep shouting who it is.
The actors in their funny way
Have several funny things to say,
But they do not amuse me more
If you have said them just before;
The merit of the drama lies,
I understand, in some surprise;
But the surprise must now be small
Since you have just foretold it all.
The lady you have brought with you
Is, I infer, a half-wit too,
But I can understand the piece
Without assistance from your niece.
In short, foul woman, it would suit
Me just as well if you were mute;
In fact, to make my meaning plain,
I trust you will not speak again.
And - may I add one human touch? -
Don't breathe upon my neck so much. ~ A.P. Herbert

And this, too, affords no small occasion for anxieties - if you are bent on assuming a pose and never reveal yourself to anyone frankly, in the fashion of many who live a false life that is all made up for show; for it is torturous to be constantly watching oneself and be fearful of being caught out of our usual role. And we are never free from concern if we think that every time anyone looks at us he is always taking-our measure; for many things happen that strip off our pretence against our will, and, though all this attention to self is successful, yet the life of those who live under a mask cannot be happy and without anxiety. But how much pleasure there is in simplicity that is pure, in itself unadorned, and veils no part of its character!{PlainDealer+} Yet even such a life as this does run some risk of scorn, if everything lies open to everybody; for there are those who disdain whatever has become too familiar. But neither does virtue run any risk of being despised when she is brought close to the eyes, and it is better to be scorned by reason of simplicity than tortured by perpetual pretence. ~ Seneca

Anger should be especially kept down in punishing, because he who comes to punishment in wrath will never hold that middle course which lies between the too much and the too little. It is also true that it would be desirable that they who hold the office of Judges should be like the laws, which approach punishment not in a spirit of anger but in one of equity. ~ Johannes Voet

Lies lies lies lies everything is a lie. I wonder if she knew that everything is a lie...because a lie covers life like a blanket in a cold winter day. When you are in need, it helps you. But when it disappears, everything is cold once more. And you suffer, miss the warmth and tend to seek for it over and over again. It is like a drug, actually. You can never have enough but when it doesn't have the same effect anymore, it becomes too much and you die. ~ Irina Popa

The way in which we experience and interpret the world obviously depends very much indeed on the kind of ideas that fill our minds. If they are mainly small, weak, superficial, and incoherent, life will appear insipid, uninteresting, petty, and chaotic. It is difficult to bear the resultant feeling of emptiness, and the vacuum of our minds may only too easily be filled by some big, fantastic notion - political or otherwise - which suddenly seem to illumine everything and to give meaning and purpose to our existence. It needs no emphasis that herein lies one of the great dangers of our time. ~ E.F. Schumacher

At Wal-Mart, a co-worker once advised me that, although I had a lot to learn, it was also important not to "know too much," or at least never to reveal one's full abilities to management, because "the more they think you can do, the more they'll use you and abuse you." My mentors in these matters were not lazy; they just understood that there are few or no rewards for heroic performance. The trick lies in figuring out how to budget your energy so there'll be some left over for the next day. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

Here lies the challenge in finding good salespeople. You need excellent empathizers who aren't so empathetic they can't close a sale. And you need people with strong ego needs who can still take a moment to figure out what another person wants. They must be aggressive enough to close, but not so aggressive they put people off. Too much empathy and you'll be a nice guy finishing last. Too much ego drive and you'll be scorching earth everywhere you go. Not enough of either and you shouldn't be in sales at all. It's a miracle anyone can do this job. ~ Philip Delves Broughton

My mother's mouth drops. 'Emmy...don't say those things Emmy. Remember, we don't talk about those things.'

'Yes Mom. I remember. That's why I'm here, looking like this.'

An orderly knocks on the door and announces that visiting time is over.

My mother and I look at each other awkwardly, and hug.

'I love you,' she says.

'I love you too, Mom.'

'You aren't telling them too much are you?' she asks, afraid.

I sign. 'No Mommy, I'm not.'

She's visibly relieved. She leaves the room.

The orderley comes back and escorts me back into the main room.

I just sit and laugh to myself."

(after Emmy's suicide attempt) ~ The Finer Points of Becoming Machine ~ Emily Andrews

I was too smart and that made people uncomfortable--most folks where we've lived our whole lives don't trust too much intelligence in a woman. There is also the problem of my eyes--they don't hide anything. If I don't care for a person, my eyes make it plain. I don't care for most. Folks are generally comfortable with the small lies they tell each other. They don't know what to do with someone like me, who mostly doesn't bother with small lies. ~ Roxane Gay

Pedro Algorta, a lawyer, showed me the fat dossier about the murder of two women. The double crime had been committed with a knife at the end of 1982, in a Montevideo suburb.

The accused, Alma Di Agosto, had confessed. She had been in jail more than a year, and was apparently condemned to rot there for the rest of her life.

As is the custom, the police had raped and tortured her. After a month of continuous beatings they had extracted several confessions. Alma Di Agosto's confessions did not much resemble each other, as if she had committed the same murder in many different ways. Different people appeared in each confession, picturesque phantoms without names or addresses, because the electric cattle prod turns anyone into a prolific storyteller. Furthermore, the author demonstrated the agility of an Olympic athlete, the strength of a fairground Amazon, and the dexterity of a professional matador. But the most surprising was the wealth of detail: in each confession, the accused described with millimetric precision clothing, gestures, surroundings, positions, objects.....

Alma Di Agosto was blind.
Her neighbours, who knew and loved her, were convinced she was guilty:
'Why?' asked the lawyer.
'Because the papers say so.'
'But the papers lie,' said the lawyer.
'But the radio said so too,' explained the neighbours.
'And the TV! ~ Eduardo Galeano

The proof that the One Stone Solution is political lies in what women feel when they eat 'too much': guilt. Why should guilt be the operative emotion, and female fat be a moral issue articulated with words like good and bad? If our culture's fixation on female fatness of thinness were about sex, it would be a private issue between a woman and her lover; if it were about health, between a woman and herself. Public debate would be far more hysterically focused on male fat than on female, since more men [40 percent] are medically overweight than women [32 percent] and too much fat is far more dangerous for men than for women ...
... But female fat is the subject of public passion, and women feel guilty about female fat, because we implicitly recognize that under the myth, women's bodies are not our own but society's, and that thinness is not a private aesthetic, but hunger a social concession exacted by the community. ~ Naomi Wolf

So much was so easy. Glamour was second nature. It was just making folk see what they wanted to see. Fooling folk was as simple as singing. Tricking folk and telling lies, it was like breathing.
But this? Convincing someone of the truth that they were too twisted to see? How could you even begin? ~ Patrick Rothfuss

You will leave as soon as our meeting concludes. Right under his nose. And when you return, you will praise him."
Gauri balked. "Praise him? He did nothing!"
"You would do well to learn how to play the games of court," I said. "Sometimes an illusion is just as good as the actual thing. The difference lies in the telling. Make this one concession. Find out what happens next. If you bring back these soldiers and word gets out that it was your idea and your escape, he may punish them on your behalf."
Gauri considered me. "What are you?"
"A maybe-false queen!" butted in Kamala.
It must have come out as another deranged horse whinny because Gauri nearly jumped.
"I told you," I said, not meeting her gaze. "I'm a person who lived here once upon a time."
"You know far too much about the political schemes of Bharata."
"My father was a diplomat."
"No, he wasn't! No, he wasn't!" sang Kamala. "Lies are fun. Lies are nice. They taste like rice soaked in milk and sliced and diced with cardamom and--"
"Is your horse ill?" asked Gauri.
"No, not at all," I said and smacked Kamala on her flank. "She's eager."
"For blood," said Kamala. ~ Roshani Chokshi

Human beings want to know too much abut each other, and that's why there are so many lies. ~ Pete Hamill

If I stage things too much and nothing changes in the act of photographing, then I might as well have not taken the picture: If the whole thing already exists in my head, then I haven't learned anything. The tension lies between the staging and the unpredictability. ~ Justine Kurland

She lies there, deflating like a stuck balloon because she knew there would be pain and sometimes, as she's learning so quickly and much too early, we are alone with it. Despite Moms and Dads and all the others who might be hovering nearby, in the end we are alone with it. ~ P. Carey Reid

It is the phenomenon somethings called "alienation from self." In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the specter of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that answering it becomes out of the question. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home. ~ Joan Didion

I fear we are too much concerned with material things to remember that our real strength lies in spiritual values. ~ Harry Truman

Women.
Lord God, I used to follow these girls.
THey would come at me, those girls who were not really girls anymore. Grown up, wounded, hurt and terrible. Pained and desperate. Mean and angry. Hungry and unable to say just what they needed. Scared, aching, they came into my bed like I could fix it. And every time I would try. I would do anything a woman wanted as long as she didn't want too much of me. As long as I could hide behind her need, I could make her believe anything. I would tell her stories. I would bury in them. I have buried more women than I am willing to admit. I have told more lies than I can stand. ~ Dorothy Allison

I love you too much to lie to you, Lisey. I love you with all that passes for my heart. I suspect that kind of all-out love becomes a burden to a woman in time, but it's the only kind I have to give. I think we're going to be quite a wealthy couple in terms of money, but I'll almost certainly be an emotional pauper all my life. I've got the money coming, but as for the rest I've got just enough for you, and I won't ever dirty or dilute it with lies. Not with the words I say, not with the ones I hold back. ~ Stephen King

Truth for anyone is a very complex thing. For a writer, what you leave out says as much as those things you include. What lies beyond the margin of the text? The photographer frames the shot; writers frame their world. Mrs Winterson objected to what I had put in, but it seemed to me that what I had left out was the story's silent twin. There are so many things that we can't say, because they are too painful. We hope that the things we can say will soothe the rest, or appease it in some way. Stories are compensatory. The world is unfair, unjust, unknowable, out of control. When we tell a story we exercise control, but in such a way as to leave a gap, an opening. It is a version, but never the final one. And perhaps we hope that the silences will be heard by someone else, and the story can continue, can be retold. When we write we offer the silence as much as the story. Words are the part of silence that can be spoken. Mrs Winterson would have preferred it if I had been silent.

Do you remember the story of Philomel who is raped and then has her tongue ripped out by the rapist so that she can never tell? I believe in fiction and the power of stories because that way we speak in tongues. We are not silenced. All of us, when in deep trauma, find we hesitate, we stammer; there are long pauses in our speech. The thing is stuck. We get our language back through the language of others. We can turn to the poem. We can open the book. Somebody has been there for us and deep-di ~ Jeanette Winterson

Too much truth in the hands of a liar is more dangerous than a world of lies told to the truthful ~ Thomas R. Williams

This is in the natural order of things
the time of life we've now entered. The afternoon, as Jung called it. Thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life. Are we unprepared simply because preparation is not possible? ... We learn
if we are lucky we learn
as we go.
... we are in the center of the stream. Much has already happened, and has formed the shape of our lives as surely as water shapes rock. Much lies ahead of us. We can't see what's coming. We can't know it. All we have is our hope that all will be well, and our knowledge that it won't always be so. We live in the space between this hope and this knowledge.
...
Life keeps coming at us. Fleeing it is pointless, as is fighting. What I have begun to learn is that there is value in simply standing there
this too
whether the sun is shining, or the wind whipping all around. [pp.239-240] ~ Dani Shapiro

Alain gazed at the old road, his expression uncharacteristically somber. "The Emperors believe they have the power to force their illusions on all others. This is part of that. The road itself is declared dead, never to be used, and no one dares dispute the Imperial will."
"Not much better that the Great Guilds, is it?"
"No I do not think so. When you seek allies among the commons, Mari, I believe you should look to those who do not blindly accept the authority of their leaders."
"Too much failure to accept authority and you end up with anarchy, like in Tiae," Mari pointed out.
"That is so," Alain agreed. "But as you told your elder, there is much that lies between total control and anarchy. The leaders of our Guilds and the rulers of the Empire would have us believe that only those two extremes exist, but I have been among the free cities and you have been in the confederation. Their governing systems are not perfect, but they work while still allowing their people freedom."
"Freedom?" Mari turned to Alain, surprised. "I've never heard you use that word. Hardly anybody uses it."
"I was taught that freedom is an illusion, only one more illusion which distracts from the path of wisdom." A flare of some deep emotion showed in Alain's eyes. "But I have felt freedom, Mari, as I walked the road beside you, and I know it is no illusion. The will of the Great Guilds, of the Emperor, those things are illusions, and their images will not endure. ~ Jack Campbell

To some I was a freak; to others, a fantasy. I was Satan or savior; a witch or a goddess. I was legend, I was lies. And tonight it really was, just all too much. ~ Gayle Ann Williams

The wisdom or the essence of Guru Tattwa is a balance. Like when you maintain a plant, if you do not give it water it will die. If you give it too much water, it will die. So the wisdom lies in understanding how much water should be given to the plant, so that it comes up at its best. Now this wisdom has to be achieved through your vibratory awareness. ~ Nirmala Srivastava

[T]ry not to be too angry or disappointed with your fellow Americans. Most of them don't care about politics as much as the majority of my readers, and the education they have received about it from the government's public school system is nothing more than a septic tank full of warmed-over self-serving statist lies and leftist propaganda. ~ L. Neil Smith

Could there be a snare in too much beauty? Could there be too much expectation of good, and too much fiath?
Could ever there be too much love?
And could love require lies? ~ C.J. Cherryh

Wine, not too much, inspires and make the mind,to the soft joys of Venus strong inclined,which, buried in excess, unapt to love,stupidly lies and knows not hom to move ~ Ovid

I stood as she straightened and snaked my arms around her, pulling her close to me, savoring the feel of every delicate curve. For three weeks, I spent my time convincing myself that our breakup was the right choice. But being this close to her, hearing her laugh, listening to her voice, I knew I had been telling myself lies.
Her eyes widened when I lowered my head to hers. "It doesn't have to be this way. We can find a way to make us work."
She tilted her head and licked her lips, whispering through shallow breaths, "You're not playing fair."
"No, I'm not." Echo thought too much. I threaded my fingers into her hair and kissed her, leaving her no opportunity to think about what we were doing. I wanted her to feel what I felt. To revel in the pull, the attraction. Dammit, I wanted her to undeniably love me.
Her pack hit the floor with a resounding thud and her magical fingers explored my back, neck and head. Echo's tongue danced manically with mine, hungry and excited.
Her muscles stiffened when her mind caught up. I held her tighter to me, refusing to let her leave so easily again. Echo pulled her lips away, but was unable to step back from my body. "We can't, Noah."
"Why not?" I shook her without meaning to, but if it snapped something into place, I'd shake her again.
"Because everything has changed. Because nothing has changed. You have a family to save. I …" She looked away, shaking her head. "I can't live here anymore. When I leave ~ Katie McGarry

You have to trust me, my love. There has only been you. I know who you are. You are my queen. You always have been."
I couldn't look at him, but I could feel his gaze on me. So pained and tender that I fought the need to run to him, to comfort him. But I couldn't push out the image of the woman in the glass garden. I couldn't forget Gauri's necklace encrusted with blood. I couldn't forget how he had hinted at some latent power within me, and yet I couldn't move a single thread on the tapestry.
I couldn't forget his lies.
"Go near that tree and I will lose you forever," he said fiercely. "Your memories won't keep. Your powers will be gone." Amar staggered toward me, and this time, I couldn't help but look at him. His eyes held mine in a firm, unyielding gaze. "Jaani, I put too much of myself and my own memories into the tree. ~ Roshani Chokshi

...most writers, and most other artists, too, are primarily motivated in their desperate vocation by a desire to find and to separate truth from the complex of lies and evasions they live in, and I think that this impulse is what makes their work not so much a profession as a vocation, a true calling. ~ Tennessee Williams

A bug lies in quiet repose;
when he passed no one knows.
Did he suffer, was he pained?
Before he died, was knowledge gained?
Were all life's pressures much too great.To put upon so small a weight?
Although not one for pessimism,
I think he died of journalism! ~ Nikhil Sharda

A slow smile curved over my face, and I leaned down over him. "No," I said. "Wishes are lies. Tell me you're going to leave. Tell me you're not going to stay. Tell me that it's only for a while so I can enjoy today," I whispered in his ear, as if saying it louder would break me. "And when you go, don't think me cold when I don't cry. I can't cry anymore, Pierce. It hurts too much. ~ Kim Harrison

The sad things that happened long ago will always remain part of who we are just as the glad and gracious things will too, but instead of being a burden of guilt, recrimination, and regret that make us constantly stumble as we go, even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead. It is through memory that we are able to reclaim much of our lives that we have long since written off by finding that in everything that has happened to us over the years God was offering us possibilities of new life and healing which, though we may have missed them at the time, we can still choose an be brought to life by and healed by all these years later. ~ Frederick Buechner

They say "doubt everything," but I disagree. Doubt is useful in small amounts, but too much of it leads to apathy and confusion. No, don't doubt everything. QUESTION everything. That's the real trick. Doubt is just a lack of certainty. If you doubt everything, you'll doubt evolution, science, faith, morality, even reality itself - and you'll end up with nothing, because doubt doesn't give anything back. But questions have answers, you see. If you question everything, you'll find that a lot of what we believe is untrue...but you might also discover that some things ARE true. You might discover what your own beliefs are. And then you'll question them again, and again, eliminating flaws, discovering lies, until you get as close to the truth as you can.

Questioning is a lifelong process. That's precisely what makes it so unlike doubt. Questioning engages with reality, interrogating all it sees. Questioning leads to a constant assault on the intellectual status quo, where doubt is far more likely to lead to resigned acceptance. After all, when the possibility of truth is doubtful (excuse the pun), why not simply play along with the most convenient lie?

Questioning is progress, but doubt is stagnation. ~ Tom Jubert / Jonas Kyratzes

Being sick is itself a kind of ressentiment. - Against this the invalid has only one great means of cure - I call it Russian fatalism, that fatalism without rebellion with which a Russian soldier for whom the campaign has become too much at last lies down in the snow. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Herman Melville came to see me at the Consulate, looking much as he used to do (a little paler, and perhaps a little sadder), in a rough outside coat, and with his characteristic gravity and reserve of manner.... [W]e soon found ourselves on pretty much our former terms of sociability and confidence. Melville has not been well, of late; ... and no doubt has suffered from too constant literary occupation, pursued without much success, latterly; and his writings, for a long while past, have indicated a morbid state of mind.... Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity, and of everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he had "pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated"; but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation; and, I think, will never rest until he gets hold of a definite belief. It is strange how he persists -- and has persisted ever since I knew him, and probably long before -- in wondering to-and-fro over these deserts, as dismal and monotonous as the sand hills amid which we were sitting. He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other. If he were a religious man, he would be one of the most truly religious and reverential; he has a very high and noble nature, and better worth immortality than most of us.

[after what would be their last meeting] ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

You know what gets to me, though? You know what's truly ironic?

What?

She needed us. She was exactly the kind of person that my father and I have sworn our lives to protect. She wasn't tough. She made bad choices. She drank too much, she dated the wrong men, she believed anyone's pack of lies. God, she desperately needed someone to save her from herself. And we didn't do it. I spent so much of my childhood resenting her. Crying, complaining Mandy who was always upset about something. Now, I just wonder why we didn't take better care of her. She was in our own family. How could we fail her so completely? ~ Lisa Gardner

Once you take to the habit of deception, every new lie comes that much easier. Though to me it wasn't so much lies as a matter of judicious editing. We all inevitable present a version of ourselves that is a collection of half-truths and exclusions. The way I saw it, the truth was too complicated, whereas the well-chosen lie would put everyone's mind at ease. ~ Caroline Kettlewell

He is sorry-
For everything-
For Prentisstown-
For Viola-
For Ben-
For every failure and every wrong-
For letting his pa down-
And he's looking up at me-
And he's begging me-
He's begging me-
Like I'm the only one who can forgive him-
Like it's only me who's got the power-
Todd?-
Please-
And all I can say is "Davy-"
And the fright and the terror in his Noise is too much-
It's too much-
And then it stops.
Davy slumps, eyes still open, eyes still staring back at me, eyes still asking (I swear) for me to forgive him.
And he lies there, still.
Davy Prentiss is dead. ~ Patrick Ness

All that is, was, and will be. Universe much too big to see. Time and space never ending, disturbing thoughts, questions pending. Limitations of human understanding. Too quick to criticize, obligation to survive, we hunger to be alive. All that is, ever, ever was, will be ever twisting, turning, Through The Never. In the dark, see past our eyes. Pursuit of truth, no matter where it lies. Gazing up to the breeze of the heavens, on a quest, meaning, reason. Come to be, how it begun. All alone in the family of the sun, curiosity teasing everyone. On our home, third stone from the sun. ~ James Hetfield

If you say that you have never lied at all,
then you give too much trust on anybody. ~ Toba Beta

The world was ersatz and actual, forged and faked, by ourselves and unseen others. Daring to attempt to absolutely sort fake from real was a folly that would call down tigers or hiccups to cure us of our recklessness. The effort was doomed, for it too much pointed past the intimate boundaries of our necessary fictions. ~ Jonathan Lethem

Do not be such a baby," he jeered, tugging my hands free.
"It hurts!" I howled.
"Of course it does." He laughed. "It hurt me too. Did you think becoming a vampire was easy? Get used to the pain. Much of it lies ahead. ~ Darren Shan

I don't regret what I did," he said. "But I do regret that it took so many lies. You weren't supposed to be so brilliant. I wasn't supposed to care."

"You care far too much about everything. It is, unfortunately, part of your charm. ~ Emily A. Duncan

Her poetry is written on the ghost of trees, whispered on the lips of lovers.
As a little girl, she would drift in and out of libraries filled with dead poets and their musky scent. She held them in her hands and breathed them in
wanting so much to be part of their world ...
It was on her sixteenth birthday that she first fell in love. With a boy who brought her red roses and white lies. When he broke her heart, she cried for days.
Then hopeful, she sat with a pen in her hand, poised over the blank white sheet, but it refused to draw blood ...
She learned too late that poets are among the damned, cursed to commiserate over their loss, to reach with outstretched hands
hands that will never know the weight of what they seek. ~ Lang Leav

How happy he must be, this Hobgoblin," exclaimed Sniff.
"He isn't a bit," replied Snufkin, "and he won't be until he finds the King's Ruby. It's almost as big as the black panther's head, and to look into it is like looking at leaping flames. The Hobgoblin has looked for the King's Ruby on all the planets including Neptune
but he hasn't found it. Just now he has gone off to the moon to search in the craters, but he hasn't much hope of success, because in his heart of hearts the Hobgoblin believes that the King's Ruby lies in the sun, where he can never go because it is too hot. ~ Tove Jansson

Ideally, the pursuit of truth is said to be at the heart of the intellectual's business, but this credits his business too much and not quite enough. As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas consummation often turns out to be elusive. Truth captured loses its glamour; truths long known and widely believed have a way of turning false with time; easy truths are bore and too many of them become half truths. Whatever the intellectual is too certain of, if he is healthily playful, he begins to find unsatisfactory. The meaning of his intellectual life lies not in the possession of truth but in the quest for new uncertainties. Harold Rosenberg summed up this side of the life of the mind supremely well when he said that the intellectual is one who turns answers into questions. ~ Richard Hofstadter

I am too much in love with my lies and hypocrisies not to confess them fervently. ~ Albert Camus

There is this narrative, which we follow in our world, that tells us we ought to always be strong. Fortified, immovable, brave. So we tell ourselves that's what we are. Then we believe it. The grave problem with this narrative lies in the fact that in the minutes we stop to breathe and be quiet, in the minutes we stop telling ourselves that, we look into the mirror, or we look at our photographs, and it hits us: we are soft! We are soft, we are bruised, we got hurt far too much than what we deserved! And guess what? It wasn't okay! It really was never okay. And then panic settles in as we realise that all of that time we were abandoning the real us, inside of us, like a small child left in the corner of an alleyway, in favour of embracing the big and brave version of ourselves that we told ourselves to love! So we stopped actually loving the us of the us. The real us. The real you. There is no sadder thing! Please... you are soft and scared... embrace your teddy self, embrace your infant soul, protect what is left of you. ~ C. JoyBell C.

The failure of modern culture lies not in its principle of individualism, not in the idea that moral virtue is the same as the pursuit of self-interest, but in the deterioration of the meaning of self-interest; not in the fact that people are too much concerned with their self-interest, but that they are not concerned enough with the interest of their real self; not in the fact that they are too selfish, but that they do not love themselves. ~ Erich Fromm