Mary McCarthy Quotes

It is hard to tell truth, and hard not to.

Not every time there's a disagreement is somebody lying.

Truth I have no trouble with, it's the facts I get all screwed up.

The pure and simple truth Is rarely pure and never simple. What's a boy to do When lies and truth are both sinful?

I'm interested in such things as the difference between how we perceive the world and what the world turns out to be. The difference is between the stories we tell others and the stories we tell ourselves. There is a wonderful Russian saying, which I use as the epigraph of one of my novels, which goes, He lies like an eyewitness. Which is very sly, clever and true.

Who’s to say that it takes something like a drug to mess with your perception of reality? How did Hitler deceive a nation? How can one group of people look at the world and see one thing, and another see something completely different? One sees a town, another sees a desert. One sees beauty, another sees chaos.” The skin of this world,” he said quietly.

But it's the truth even if it didn't happen.

Your problem is that you have been too honest for too long. Once you start doing it, lying is simpler than breathing.

One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life.

It's essential to tell the truth at all times. This will reduce life's pain. Lying distorts reality. All forms of distorted thinking must be corrected.

Truth is a pain which will not stop. And the truth of this world is to die. You must choose: either dying or lying. Personally, I have never been able to kill myself.

I can't establish the veracity of what people say because only they know whether they are telling the truth. I can't look into your mind, can I?

It's okay to lie as long as you reach a higher truth doing it.

I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely, to be the truth.

Lying can never save us from another lie.

Telling the truth to people who misunderstand you is generally promoting a falsehood, isn't it?

I wish to Christ I could make up a really great lie. Sometimes, after an interview, I say to myself, 'Man, you were so honest - can't you have some fun? Can't you do some really down and dirty lying?' But the puritan in me thinks that if I tell a lie, I'll be punished.

My dad once told me, he was like, 'The only time you should lie is when someone's holding a gun to your head and says 'Okay, lie or I'm going to shoot you.' And that really stuck with me.

If what is communicated is false, it can hardly be called communication.

I'm not lying to myself like most people.

If we were to abandon concern for what is true, what is false, and what remains indeterminate, the world would be totally chaotic. Even those who deny the importance of truth, on the one hand, are quick to jump on anyone who is caught lying.

Be honest with yourself and lie to everyone else.

When you're on the side of the angels, it's easier to stretch the truth.

My instructions were, "You don't lie. You put your own interpretation on the truth.

There are times when lying is the most sacred of duties.