George R. R. Martin Quotes

Hillbillies learn from an early age to deal with uncomfortable truths by avoiding them or by pretending better truths exist. This tendency might make for psychological resilience, but it also makes it hard for Appalachians to look at themselves honestly.

The truth. Men will blind themselves with hot irons, rather than face it.

Sometimes people fear the truth. They'd rather not speak to you than know what you really think.

People do think that if they avoid the truth, it might change to something better before they have to hear it.

Honesty lies in understanding our close and necessary relationship with not wanting to hear the truth.

Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.

We don’t like to face unpleasant reality. We want our leaders to tell us what we want to hear …. You cannot manipulate reality. Reality will real its ugly head

How hard it is to accept the truth. How hard it is

Geese are but Geese tho' we may think 'em Swans; and Truth will be Truth tho' it sometimes prove mortifying and distasteful.

Someone once said to me, 'Some of us choose to live with a lifeboat just a little bit out of our reach.' I'd like to reach a point where I no longer bullshit myself. I think that's the natural human condition - to lie to yourself. Because the truth is painful.

The truth is a bully we all pretend to like

Sometimes you don't want the truth. Sometimes you're like, "Oh just tell me the good answer. I don't want the truth."

There are lots of things that you can brush under the carpet about yourself until you're faced with somebody whose needs won't be put off.

I'm a fan of the truth... even if it's painfully hard to accept.

Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?

I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves.

I'm not a doom-and-gloom person. But I think there is a difference between transcendence and denial, and much of the Western world is in major denial today.

It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts... For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.

People would rather be deceived than have the truth cause them anxiety

To tell you the truth, I've just been avoiding everything.

We are all afraid of the truth.

Truth is not always a pleasant thing.

I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.

I am always amazed by people who know something is wrong but still insist on ignoring it, as if that will somehow make it go away. They spare themselves the confrontation, but end up boiling in resentment anyway.

I consider myself to be a relatively helpful person, and there's an interesting line when hope starts to become the way you actually mask or hide from what's really happening.