Tennessee Williams Quotes

Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.

Never was it given to mortal man - To lie so boldly as we women can.

I try to lie as much as I can when I'm interviewed. It's reverse psychology. I figure if you lie, they'll print the truth.

… he knew the lie of silence to be as evil as the lie of speech.

True and false are attributes of speech not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood. Error theremay be, as when we expect that which shall not be; or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth.

Either something is authentic or it is unauthentic, it is either false or true, make-believe or spontaneous life; yet here we are faced with a prevaricated truth and an authentic fake, hence a thing that is at once the truth and a lie.

Whenever a man talks he lies, and so far as he talks to himself - that is to say, so far as he thinks, knowing that he thinks - he lies to himself. The only truth in human life is that which is physiological. Speech - this thing that they call a social product - was made for lying.

In matters of honesty, there are no shortcuts; no little white lies, or big black lies, only the simple, honest truth spoken in total candor... Being true is different than being honest.

Some people are under the impression that all that is required to make a good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing; but this is a mistake.

To say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men.

Man is bound to lie about himself

The mole has very small eyes and it always lives under ground; and it lives as long as it is in the dark but when it comes into the light it dies immediately, because it becomes known;--and so it is with lies.

I tell lies sometimes. The last time I lied was a year ago. I absolutely detest lying. You could say that lying and silence are the two greatest sins of present day society. Actually, I lie a lot, and I'm always clamming up.

Man can certainly keep on lying (and does so), but he cannot make truth falsehood.

Trying to be witty leads to lying, more or less.

Hmmmm Light makes shadow. Truth makes lies. Hmmmm.

A convinced man differs from a prejudiced man as an honest man from a liar.

Facts are subversive. Subversive of the claims made by democratically elected leaders as well as dictators, by biographers and autobiographers, spies and heroes, torturers and post-modernists. Subversive of lies, half-truths, myths; of all those "easy speeches that comfort cruel men.

What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good.

Truth is the only good and the purest pity. ... Men lie for profit or for pity. All lies turn to poison, but a lie that is told for pity or shame breeds such a host of ills that no power on earth can compass their redemption.

You should tell the truth as often as you can, but in such a way as people don't believe you or think that you're being funny.

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.

Novelists tell that piece of truth hidden at the bottom of every lie.

I'll never speak to another person without telling the truth. I've been a cruel man in my time, I've been a devious man in my time, like everybody else. I've told lies in my time. But I've seen enough suffering to experiment with the truth.

Aristotle was once asked what those who tell lies gain by it. Said he - That when they speak truth they are not believed.