Ricky Jay Quotes

To be a liar, you've got to have a great memory, and I don't have a memory.

Working as a journalist, I was always tempted to lie. I felt I could do dialogue better than the person I was interviewing. I felt I could lie better than Nixon and be more concise than some random person I was covering.

I could never lie to someone to benefit myself, so telemarketing was something I was terrible at!

I would never lie about another professional.

I'm not a cheat. I'm not a diver.

People want to be entertained. They don't want to be cheated.

I eat liars for breakfast.

There was a distinction between lying and telling half-truths, but it was a very narrow one.

Besides, you want the unvarnished and ungarnished truth, and I'm no hand for that. I'm a lawyer.

Sometimes I don't tell the truth, which is telling the truth about not telling the truth. I think people don't tell the truth when they're afraid that something bad's going to happen if they tell the truth. I say things all the time that I could really get into trouble for, but they kind of blow over.

If I told you, you might be forced to lie about it. Not that you aren't really good at it, but why put an old man in that position?

Is it possible to tell the truth in a society of lies? Or must you always, of necessity, become a liar?

Lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth.

I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.

There always comes a point beyond which lying becomes counterproductive. This point is reached when the audience to which the lies are addressed is forced to disregard altogether the distinguishing line between truth and falsehood in order to be able to survive.

We Indians really should be better liars, considering how often we've been lied to.

In the end a lie is a lie.

If falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be more on equal terms. For we would consider the contrary of what the liar said to be certain. But the opposite of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite field.

I never saw any good that came of telling truth.

Liars are the cause of all the sins and crimes in the world.

A liar must have a good memory. -Mendacem oportet esse memorem

Lies exist only to be extinguished.

Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had an agreement not to lie to each other.

You have to be smart enough to see the world for yourself and honest. The whole book-publicity thing is not really honest, at base.

It is often hard to determine whether a clear, open, and honorable proceeding is the result of goodness or of cunning.