“What does it mean to live in truth? Putting it negatively is easy enough: it means not lying, not hiding, and not dissimulating.”

“What is the ideal for mental health, then? A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life, death, and reality; one honest enough to follow its own commandments: I mean, not to kill, not to take the lives of others to justify itself.”

“Talking is not easy. Talking intends to convey what you mean. Lying is easy, not talking. When one lies, one doesnot care, and that’s the easy part.”

“Does that mean you're prepared to deal with whatever turns up? People aren't sometimes. When they learn the real truth, they're all of a sudden content to live with a lie.”

“Truth at last cannot be hidden. Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is to no purpose before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. Nothing is hidden under the sun.”

“Fiction may be about lying – on the surface, anyway – but fiction is about hiding the truth behind those lies. It's about using those lies to say something true and real. It's about showing the reader something. It's about making them feel.And how we do that as authors is to put ourselves into our work, and make it mean something to us, so that it will mean something to the reader. That's what we should do. That's our job.”