“Neatness, madam, has nothing to do with the truth. The truth is quite messy, like a wind blown room.”

“What a mess. Truths are messy and lies are messy, and I don’t care what Da said, it’s impossible to cut a person into pielike pieces, neat and tidy.”

“Truth has nothing to do with the number of people it convinces.”

“History, in the end, is only another kind of story, and stories are different from the truth. The truth is messy and chaotic and all over the place. Often it just doesn’t make sense. Stories make things make sense, but the way they do that is to leave out anything that doesn’t fit. And often that is quite a lot.”

“A room full of words that are nearly the truth but not quite, each note fluttering off the steam of its rose like a broken butterfly wing.”

“[H]istory, in the end, is only another kind of story, and stories are different from the truth. The truth is messy and chaotic and all over the place. Often it just doesn't make sense. Stories make things make sense, but the way they do that is to leave out anything that doesn't fit. And often that is quite a lot.”