David James Duncan Quotes

I promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it. And to use the eloquence which my language affords me.

Truth is not so threadbare as speech, because fewer people can make use of it.

I hardly ever talk- words seem such a waste, and they are none of them true. No one has yet invented a language from my point of view.

It is commonly thought that everything that is can be put into words.

The best things cannot be told because they transcend thought. The second best are misunderstood because they are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which cannot be thought about. The third best are what we talk about.

There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.

The highest truth cannot be put into words.

No one's mouth is big enough to utter the whole thing.

Everything I wrote was true because I believed what I saw.

Every kind of writing is hypocritical.

Words are the voice of the heart.

Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare.

As you get older your willingness to tell more of the truth is awakened and you don't have to think about it or imagine it because now you know this to be true.

The habit of pleasing by flattery makes a language soft; the fear of offending by truth makes it circuitous and conventional.

The work of John Lennon was marked by its exquisite beauty and by its brutal honesty.

The language of truth is unvarnished enough.

Simple is the language of truth.

It's hard to live your life in color, and tell the truth in black and white.

When you sing, always tell the truth.

As you talk, so is your heart.

You listen to a politician making a speech, and it is like hearing nothing. Whereas, music is unmistakably music. The thing about music is that nobody listens to it unless it's real. I don't think that you can fool anybody for too long in music. And you certainly can't fool everybody.

Experience is always larger than language.

Truth always carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation nevertheless. If our reflex action is always accommodation regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there is something wrong.

To me dreams are part of nature, which harbors no intention to deceive but expresses something as best it can.

Lying is too much trouble. You have to make sure to taste each word before letting it off your tongue. I hate that. It's hard enough making people understand without lying.