Rabih Alameddine Quotes

I come from a long line of serial embellishers. Sometimes a good story's got a ghost in it; sometimes a panther chases my Uncle Bill and Fred Price home from a coon hunt.

Writers, all the good ones, are Natural Born Liars.

I always say show me a storyteller who doesn't embellish, and I'll show you a bad one.

Fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale.

Writing stories is the habit of lying put to good use.

Apparently, I am a bit of an exaggerator when I tell stories. But I don't call them lies; I say they are better, funnier truths.

That's the trouble with a story spinner. You never know what's real and what's made up. Even when they are telling the truth, they can't stop themselves from spinning it into something better; something prettier, with more of a pattern to it.

And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.

Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

It's really easy, once somebody passes away, for the tales about them to become taller, the good ones and the bad ones.

I come from a family of Russian immigrant Jews who were all big storytellers, who would get together, and one would try to top the others' stories, and stories would get bigger and bigger. And the lying aspect, the exaggeration, would get large.

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

Novel-writing is a bit like deception. You lie as little as you possibly can. That's the way I do it, anyway.

I love to invent - avoiding the truth. I need to dramatize.

It's no sin to tell a good story.

I adore falseness. I don't want you to tell me accurately what happened yesterday. I want you to lie about it, to exaggerate, to entertain me.

When I was really young, I used to lie a lot. Now I get paid to do it.

In pre-movie days, the business of peddling lies about life was spotty and unorganized. It was carried on by the cheaper magazines, dime novels, the hinterland preachers and whooping politicians.

Nobody could pile on the applesauce like Mickey. He was the best liar in the world - well, Frank Sinatra can tell a good story, too, but I don't believe he was ever unfaithful to me.

People say I make up wild stories. But all I have to do is write down stuff that really happens.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Just so you know, when they say "once upon a time"....they're lying. It's not once upon a time. Its not even twice upon a time. It's hundreds of times, over and over, every time someone opens up the pages of this dusty old book.

I've never made up events, but I've always been a big exaggerator. It's written on my humorist license that I'm allowed to do that.

I really think I shall commence chapter forty-four," he said, patting his hands together. "I shall commence, I think, with a slight exaggeration and go on from there into an outright lie. Constance, my dear?" "Yes, Uncle Julian?" "I am going to say that my wife was a beautiful woman.