“Fiction is Truth's elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till some one had told a story.”

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?The world would split open.”

“Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both truth and art.”

“The story is told that someone stopped Elder J. Golden Kimball on the street on one occasion. There had been a little difficulty in Elder Kimball's family that had become publicly known, and whoever it was who stopped him, no doubt with a mind to injure, said, ' Brother Kimball, I understand you're having some problems with one of your children.' His answer was, ' Yes, and the Lord is having some problems with some of his, too.”

“Now he realized that somehow those who had served in France and elsewhere knew a world that couldn’t be shared. How could he tell his sister—or even his father, if the elder Rutledge was still alive—what had been done on bloody ground far from home? It would be criminal to fill their minds with scenes that no one should have to remember. No one.”

“Implausible truth can serve one better than plausible fiction”