William Gaddis

We’ve had the goddam Ages of Faith, we’ve had the goddam Age of Reason. This is the Age of Publicity.

He walked out into the cold morning asking himself this heretical question: Can you start measuring a minute at any instant you wish?

I recall a most ingenious piece in a Wisconsin quarterly some years ago in which ‘The Recognitions’ ’ debt to ‘Ulysses’ was established in such minute detail I was doubtful of my own firm recollection of never having read ‘Ulysses.

Get a black suit and just freeload, problem it’s too God damned late now even to be any of the things I never wanted to be.

Justice? – You get justice in the next world. In this one you have the law.

There was the cell where Fr. Eulalio, a thriving lunatic of eighty-six who was castigating himself for unchristian pride at having all the vowels in his name, and greatly revered for his continuous weeping, went blind in an ecstasy of such howling proportions that his canonization was assured.

The lawyer’s truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

The bullsh*t is more interesting than the truth.

Truth isn’t truth.

The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self.

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

When in doubt tell the truth.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives by makebelieve.

To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless.

Do not seek the truth, only cease to cherish your opinions.