A Quote by Albert Camus

Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.

Albert Camus

Quote Topics

Fiction Lie Tell Through Truth Which

Quote Author

Albert Camus
French - Philosopher
November 7, 1913 - January 4, 1960

Pablo Picasso said, "Art is the lie that tells the truth," and it's not a terribly radical statement. It's always been that you can tell truth through fiction. And this idea also comes from nuclear physics.

Momus

My thing is to try to tell the truth as honestly as possible. For me, the weight is, how can I tell the truth through fiction, the best that I can?

Justin Simien

It’s not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth — but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it…but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying.

Robert A. Heinlein

It is worse for a liar to tell the truth than for a lover of truth to lie.... There is a truth which is of Satan. Its essence is that under the semblance of truth it denies everything that is real. It lives upon hatred of the real world which is created and loved by God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Kids, fiction is the truth inside the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough: the magic exists.

Stephen King

Glorify a lie, legalize a lie, arm and equip a lie, consecrate a lie with solemn forms and awful penalties, and after all it is nothing but a lie. It rots a land and corrupts a people like any other lie, and by and by the white light of God's truth shines clear through it, and shows it to be a lie.

Edwin Hubbel Chapin

I can't lie - I have one of those faces where you can tell. It's expressive and lends itself to being cheeky. I always tell the truth even when I should probably tell a white lie.

Jessica Barden

Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used "to tell" at all.

Umberto Eco

A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written.

Tim O'Brien

People on the Continent either tell you the truth or lie; in England they hardly ever lie, but they would not dream of telling you the truth.

George Mikes

Picasso said, 'Art is a lie that tells the truth.' What if you just want to tell the truth and not lie about it?

Nicolas Cage

Picasso said art is a lie that tells the truth. What if you just want to tell the truth and not lie about it?

Nicolas Cage

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction. When in doubt, tell the truth. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use.

Mark Twain

Telling ourselves that fiction is in a sense true and at the same time not true is essential to the art of fiction. It's been at the heart of fiction from the start. Fiction offers both truth, and we know it's a flat-out lie. Sometimes it drives a novelist mad. Sometimes it energizes us.

Joanna Scott

Among other common lies, we have the silent lie - the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak no lie, they lie not at all.

Mark Twain

That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.