Reason is a supple nymph, and slippery as a fish by nature. She had as leave give her kiss to an absurdity any day, as to syllogistic truth. The absurdity may turn out truer.

Imagination, it turns out, is a great deal like reporting in your own head. Here is a paradox of fiction-writing. You are crafting something from nothing, which means, in one sense, that none of it is true. Yet in the writing, and perhaps in the reading, some of a character's actions or lines are truer than others.

It is truer to say that martyrs create faith more than faith creates martyrs.

This is true enough, but success is the next best thing to happiness, and if you can't be happy as a success, it's very unlikely that you would find a deeper, truer happiness in failure.

Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is much higher and truer courage.

Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they really happened and after you are finished reading one you feel that it all happened to you and after which it all belongs to you.

One of the biggest, and possibly the biggest, obstacle to becoming a writer... is learning to live with the fact that the wonderful story in your head is infinitely better, truer, more moving, more fascinating, more perceptive, than anything you're going to manage to get down on paper. (And if you ever think otherwise, then you've turned into an arrogant self-satisfied prat, and should look for another job or another avocation or another weekend activity.) So you have to learn to live with the fact that you're never going to write well enough. Of course that's what keeps you trying -- trying as hard as you can -- which is a good thing.

"No truer word, save God's, was ever spoken

I can see how I could write a bold account of myself as a passionate man who rose from humble beginnings to cut a wide swath in the world, whose crimes along the way might be written off to extravagance and love and art, and could even almost believe some of it myself on certain days after the sun went down if I'd had a snort or two and was in Los Angeles and it was February and I was twenty-four, but I find a truer account in the Herald-Star, where it says: "Mr. Gary Keillor visited at the home of Al and Florence Crandall on Monday and after lunch returned to St. Paul, where he is currently employed in the radio show business? Lunch was fried chicken with gravy and creamed peas".

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction is truer.

When an old truth ceases to be applicable, it does not become any truer by being stood on its head.

I'll figure out how to be truer: to let people go if they need to be let go of, and to hold on tight if that's what's called for. I will pay attention, so I can cross each human heart that comes across my path, cross it as true as I can.

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

A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.

(Speaking of the Cistercian monks) A grim fraternity, passing grim lives in that sweet spot, that God had made so bright! Strange that Nature's voices all around them--the soft singing of the waters, the wisperings of the river grass, the music of the rushing wind--should not have taught them a truer meaning of life than this. They listened there, through the long days, in silence, waiting for a voice from heaven; and all day long and through the solemn night it spoke to them in myriad tones, and they heard it not.

The point of stories is not that they are objectively true, but that the soul of the story is truer than reality. Those who mock fiction do so because they fear the truth.

Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.

A truer image of the world I think is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

Reason is a supple nymph and slippery as a fish by nature. She had as leave give her kiss to an absurdity any day as to syllogistic truth. The absurdity may turn out truer.

Imagination it turns out is a great deal like reporting in your own head. Here is a paradox of fiction-writing. You are crafting something from nothing which means in one sense that none of it is true. Yet in the writing and perhaps in the reading some of a character's actions or lines are truer than others.

All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.

I say let's go back to a truer use of the word 'freedom.' Let's start with President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms: freedom of speech and expression freedom of worship freedom from want and freedom from fear. I would add the freedom to bargain collectively. Those freedoms are under attack today.

It is truer to say that martyrs create faith more than faith creates martyrs.