Ivy Compton-Burnett Quotes

The act is truth. Nothing that was ever recorded is truth. Nothing that was ever said is truth. Only the act.

Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.

All I would ask you to be thinking of is the truth and not Socrates.

Truth is a hard master, and costly to serve, but it simplifies all problems.

There's just no substitute for the truth.

Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. Even with no motive to be false, it is very hard to say the exact truth.

That's the problem with the truth," Darcy said. "Liars and honest men both claim to have it.

Reality is easy. It's deception that's the hard work.

Truth is a great flirt.

Whether the story reflects the facts is obviously a different matter.

I prefer the honest jargon of reality to the outright lies of books.

The truth can not be drowned by any flood of false indictments.

Never question the relevance of truth, but always question the truth of relevance.

Truth exists; only lies are invented.

Exactitude is not truth.

Truth is the ultimate power. When the truth comes around, all the lies have to run and hide.

A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.

Marilyn Monroe wasn't even her real name, Charles Manson isn't his real name, and now, I'm taking that to be my real name. But what's real? You can't find the truth, you just pick the lie you like the best.

When a thing is true, there is no need to use any arguments to substantiate it.

Words are so often used in the opposite sense, as a screen of diversion. It's the struggle towards truthfulness which is the same whether one is writing a poem, a novel or an argument.

I want truth. I'm crying out to hear it. I need it like oxygen.

You need to be real enough to be believable, but you don't necessarily have to be real enough to be real. There is a distinction.

It has always been desirable to tell the truth, but seldom if ever necessary.

Lest men suspect your tale untrue, Keep probability in view.

Clearness is so often one of the characteristics of truth that often it even passes for truth itself.