Let’s be honest. Canada wasn’t ever cool.

I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

I’m evangelical on the subject of some chefs and writers.

Quacks are a part of our culture, and we all fall prey to them. Who among us can say, for sure, that even our own personal physicians are honest and competent?

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.

My thing is this; if I’m sick enough to think it, then I’m sick enough to say it.

I don’t have anything to hide.

Reparations – not just aid – should be provided by those responsible for devastating Iraqi civilian society by cruel sanctions and military actions, and – together with other criminal states – for supporting Saddam Hussein through his worst atrocities and beyond. That is the minimum that honesty requires.

All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment.

I just didn’t want to get out there anymore; I didn’t want to get back into what I call ‚the swamp.‘ And the other reason why is I don’t think it’s good for the presidency for a former president to be opining about his successor. President Obama’s got plenty of critics – and I’m just not gonna be one.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me. I want to stay hopeful, even though I get scared about why we’re even alive at all.

If you talk bad about country music, it’s like saying bad things about my momma. Them’s fightin‘ words.

I don’t see the point of doing an interview unless you’re going to share the things you learn in life and the mistakes you make. So to admit that I’m extremely human and have done some dark things I don’t think makes me unusual or unusually dark. I think it actually is the right thing to do, and I’d like to think it’s the nice thing to do.

A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.

I exaggerate when I’m angry, but I’ve never gone around telling people things that aren’t true about me.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.

I don’t think that my kind of journalism has ever been universally popular. It’s lonely out here.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.

I want to be a man who is truthful and who won’t let pride get in the way of my ripping myself open to my partner and saying, ‚Here I am. This is me.‘ I feel there’s something powerful when a man reaches a point in his life when he can be completely vulnerable.

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.

No such thing as a man willing to be honest – that would be like a blind man willing to see.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

In my opinion, rankings are a very fickle measurement of one’s success and it is best to not get carried away by it.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

‚Royal Beatings‘ was my first story, and it was published in 1977. But I sent all my early stories to ‚The New Yorker‘ in the 1950s, and then I stopped sending for a long time and sent only to magazines in Canada. ‚The New Yorker‘ sent me nice notes, though – penciled, informal messages. They never signed them. They weren’t terribly encouraging.

Like it or not, there are a lot of dance teachers in this country who respect me, whether they personally like me or not.

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone’s eyes.

One tells as few lies as possible only by telling as few lies as possible, and not by having the least possible opportunity to do so.

When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any firearms with me. I said, ‚Well, what do you need?‘

I don’t like the intellectual label.

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.

Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

No lying knight or lying priest ever prospered in any age, but especially not in the dark ones. Men prospered then only in following an openly declared purpose, and preaching candidly beloved and trusted creeds.

In today’s world, having money has allowed people who are extremely uncool to think that they’re cool and carry it like that. People who really are cool and people who really are artists and have ideas have to literally turn in their cool card to society just to make it past the age of 28.

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.

I have no further use for America. I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ was President.

I am not going to be a mouthpiece for language that I detest.

I can’t pretend that I’m brave and that I can beat the whole world.

America is just downright mean.

With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.

My fans don’t feel like I hold anything back from them. They know whatever I’m going through now, they’ll hear about it on a record someday. They’ll hear the real story. There’s a little bit of lag time. It’s not as instant as going on a gossip blog. But it’s much more accurate.

To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression you have when you first see a letter from them.

There’s one way to find out if a man is honest – ask him. If he says, ‚Yes,‘ you know he is a crook.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

I have never thought it necessary to patronize the American people.

I am who I am and I say what I think. I’m not putting a face on for the record.

Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

Whatever the reviewers feel about ‚The Casual Vacancy‘, it is what I wanted it to be, and you can’t say fairer than that as a writer.

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

I always wanted a great love affair: something that feels big and full, really honest, and enough. No moment should feel slight, false, or a little off. For me, it had to be everything.

Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It’s gossip.