“It is problematic because, taken together, the whole--composed of lies and truth--forms a truth of its own.”

“The moral aspect was merely a concomitant, a coverall for some deeper, almost forgotten purpose. That histoire should be story, lie and history all in one, was of a significance not to be despised. And that a story, given out as the invention of a creative artist, should be regarded as the most effective material for getting at the truth about its author, was also significant. Lies can only be imbedded in truth. They have no separate existence; they have a symbiotic relationship with truth. A good lie reveals more than the truth can ever reveal. To the one, that is, who seeks truth. To such a person there could never be cause for anger or recrimination when confronted with the lie. Not even pain, because all would be patent, naked and revelatory.”

“If a minstrel must embroider the truth to help us recall it fully, then let her, and let no one say she has lied. Truth is often much larger than facts.”

“Lying is for the weak-minded. If you can’t think of a truthful way to solve your problems, you’re not thinking hard enough.”

“I am a minstrel. I know more about lying than you will ever discover. And minstrels know that sometimes lies are what a man needs most. In order to make a new truth of them.”

“Love was poetry in its purest form. It existed when it did, and there was nothing that could match it's truth, its mystifying magnetism, its unequaled emotion. Love was a perfectly written sentence without using sound, and unparalleled array of visual harmony without using color. You created it, and it was there to have and to hold without your ever actually being able to see it. It just was.”

“Everyday we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read the lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Everyman, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths.”