“[W]hat is one to say of the writer who lies when he writes that he is lying?”

“A writer lives, at least, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lies a deeper one of wonder at it all. To transmit that feeling, he writes.”

“Here in Manto's own words that he wanted to mark his grave with:"In the name of God, the Compassionate, the MercifulHere lies Saadat Hasan Manto and with him lie buried all the secrets and mysteries of the art of short-story writing....Under tons of earth he lies, still wondering who among the two is greater short-story writer: God or He.”

“But how he acts, and what he says, and what he does, and who he is, they don't line up anymore, and the lie is in that not lining up, the lie is in not being what she needs but pretending that he is. No one says a word, and she sees it every minute they have together.”

“The Kafka paradox: art depends on truth, but truth, being indivisable, cannot know itself: to tell the truth is to lie. thus the writer is the truth, and yet when he speaks he lies.”

“He who has no conviction always lies, no matter what he says.”