Ahmet Zappa Quotes

In sixth grade, I made up books to give book reports on.

Cheating on a quiz show? That's sort of like plagiarizing a comic strip.

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

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

My mother talked about the stories I used to spin as a child of three, before I started school. I would tell this story about what school I went to and what uniform I wore and who I talked to at lunchtime and what I ate, and my mother was like, 'This girl does not even go to school.'

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

Because of lies, we can produce and invent a possible world.

Writing stories is the habit of lying put to good use.

There are very few people who are creative and imaginative. Therefore, fiction is difficult for people to embrace.

Oh, mercy, I think we're all storytellers, you know. You think of the excuses you told your parents for why you got home late. I just never gave it up.

I adore falseness. I don't want you to tell me accurately what happened yesterday. I want you to lie about it, to exaggerate, to entertain me.

I make it all up, and all of it is true.

Told a lot of stories as a child. Not 'Once upon a time' stories but, basically, outright lies. I loved lying and getting away with it!

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

My life isn't very racy or exciting so I make things up, tell stories. I like telling stories.

Lie. Put down on paper the most interesting lies you can imagine. . .and then make them plausible.

You can start making up any kind of story if you want to.

If you're making it up, make it up good. And then believe in what you made up.

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

I don't think I wrote stories down when I was young, but I certainly made them up, perhaps sometimes losing track of the border between reality and make-believe.

Kids often ask me if characters are real or made up - and I always tell them, 'I hope they're real but I made them up.'

I was never a good journalist, because I would make things up. A lot of people frowned on that, which is why I ended up in fiction.

I like the notion of making stuff up or letting your imagination go away with you.

Cheating in school is a form of self-deception. We go to school to learn. We cheat ourselves when we coast on the efforts and scholarship of someone else.

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.