H. G. Wells Quotes

This is why fiction is an art, and life is not - how much more affecting is the lie than the truth.

Writers tell more truths, and more lies, than most.

fiction is the great lie that tells the truth

Well you can't believe everything you read. After all, by definition, fiction writers lie for a living.

Lies are just stories, and stories are all that matter. We all tell stories. Some are more truthful than others, maybe, but in the end the only thing that counts is what you can make people believe.

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

Films are always a fiction, not documentary. Even a documentary is a kind of fiction.

Poetry lies its way to the truth.

I shall try to tell the truth, but the result will be fiction.

Art lies by its own artifice.

It's no sin to tell a good story.

You can be very honest without telling the truth, at least in art.

What is the difference between the novelist and the liar? At some moments, I have often wondered.

Fiction comes in all shapes and sizes. Secrets,lies,stories. We all tell them. Sometimes,because we hope to entertain. Sometimes,because we need to distract. And sometimes, because we have to.

I certainly don't believe you documentary filmmakers. Like me, you are involved in making fiction, and your fiction is just as well organized and just as well predicated, but the big difference between me and you is that I'm honest and you're dishonest. I know I'm telling you lies.

There's no such thing as autobiography, there's only art and lies

Books do pretend ...but squeezed in between is even more that is true—without what you may call the lies, the pages would be too light for the truth, you see?

Falsehood is a critical element in fiction. Part of the thrill of being told a story is the chance of being hoodwinked. . .The telling of lies is a sort of sleight of hand that displays our deepest feelings about life.

Poets tell many lies.

In the end, fiction is the craft of telling truth through lies.

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

I've been falsely accused of drawing too much from real life. But I am a petty thief - I take little things. And, I mean, I can hardly write 10 words before I start to make things up. I start to invent, because that's what I want to do. I'm running away to an invented place.

Lost Illusion is the undisclosed title of every novel.

A writer of fiction is really... a congenital liar who invents from his own knowledge or that of other men.

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