Tim O'Brien Quotes

You never monkey with the truth.

Stop lying about my record.

Everybody is always like, 'You must be a really good liar,' and no, I'm actually a truth teller, and I'm telling someone else's truth. If I'm lying, then I'm not doing my job correctly.

Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical, and legal bounds through the skillful use of words - and to thereby spin, sidestep, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape. To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions.

You cannot 'rationalize' what is not rational to begin with - as if lying were called 'truthization.' There is no way to obtain more truth for a proposition by bribery, flattery, or the most passionate argument - you can make more people believe the proposition, but you cannot make it more true.

Why would anyone lie? The truth is always more colorful.

I'm a really bad liar.

It is fitting that a liar should be a man of good memory.

In my latter years I've decided that there's too much to keep track of when you go into the lying game. That becomes stressful and it's not for me anymore.

A good portion of speaking will consist in knowing how to lie.

What’s the difference between my fabricating reports and your letting your agents do it? At least mine make sense.

People who are deceptive themselves have a really good ear for deception. They know when somebody's telling the truth or not, and so one of the ways around that is to always be telling the truth - or some version of it.

I'm the worst liar - I can't lie for my life. And I don't lie at all, because I'm the worst liar - but as a kid, I thought I was a great liar, so I would lie all the time, but everybody knew I was lying.

I lied all my life.

I don't use the word 'lying' easily.

As someone who specializes in deception, I'll tell you this much: When someone insistently implores, 'Believe me,' don't. Pleading 'believe me' or 'trust me' - insisting to people that you are telling the truth - is a tell-tale sign that you probably aren't.

We've all grown wary of being lied to online - let's face it, dudes are always exaggerating their heights - so trust is a hot commodity.

I guess entertainment means blatantly lyin'

The truth is always an insult or a joke, lies are generally tastier. We love them. The nature of lies is to please. Truth has no concern for anyone's comfort

The lie, of course, is more interesting.

The little bit of truth contained in many a lie is what makes them so terrible.

The most offensive is not their lying - one can always forgive lying - lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth - what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying.

Lies can destroy, but not create.

We're all liars when it serves our purpose.