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

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.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

Who’s to say what’s a good voice and not a good voice?

If anything, I get most upset because I wanna read a good paper first thing in the morning. And if I see a lie about myself flash across the front of the cover, I don’t think much of the rest of the newspaper.

The truth is, I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let men sometimes fool themselves.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

‚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.

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

There are many times when a woman will ask another girl friend how she likes her new hat. She will reply, ‚Fine,‘ but slap her hand to her forehead the minute the girl leaves to yipe, ‚What a horror!‘

Tell the children the truth.

Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

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 never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

I’m actually a very honest person, and sometimes I end up like, ‚Man, I said too much.‘ It’s hard for me not to tell the truth when you ask me.

The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.

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.

Confidence… thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.

I sincerely believe… that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

To the extent I am known, I think I am known as a person who expresses his opinion freely about things – and I was sensitive to the possibility that if I was seen taking money for saying nice things about a product, my comments and choices and opinions would become, understandably, suspect.

Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.

Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent, adolescent boy; Canada is like an intelligent, 35-year-old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson. It comes right up to you and laughs very hard in your face in a highly threatening and engaging manner.

The truth doesn’t hurt unless it ought to.

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.

I will never say something I don’t agree with or believe in… even if the reward is massive!

Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it.

I can unload my opinion on anybody at anytime.

I grew up in the north woods of Canada. You had to know certain things about survival. Wilderness survival courses weren’t very formalized when I was growing up, but I was taught certain things about what to do if I got lost in the woods.

My dad is a great writer. Naturally talented, naturally charming. He embodies that back-in-the-day cool.

I change my mind a lot. I usually don’t agree with what I say very much. I’m an awful liar.

I don’t think President Trump is a racist.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.

I don’t pay a lot of attention to polls.

I thought Star Wars was too wacky for the general public.

Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.

We’re all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

I don’t believe in nepotism. I don’t much like the idea of parents who interfere.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

No man should be in politics unless he would honestly rather not be there.

I supported Donald Trump.

I think what’s important is for us to decipher what is honest and what is dishonest and be accepting of those things and not operating from fear.

Live truth instead of professing it.

Obamacare sucks, it can’t be fixed.

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.

Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.

In assisting his ‚neighbour‘ every day to the best of his ability, and keeping truth, honesty, and kindness perpetually before him, the Boy Scout, with as little formality as possible, is pleasing God.

I’ve never been a manipulator, even in my bachelor days. I never wanted to do things to people that could catch up with me later on.

A letter does not blush.

As long as the people don’t fear the truth, there is hope. For once they fear it, the one who tells it doesn’t stand a chance. And today, truth is still beautiful… but so frightening.

With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.

I don’t like the intellectual label.

There’s no point in saying anything but the truth.

A gaffe in Washington is someone telling the truth, and telling the truth has never hurt me.

Lying is not only saying what isn’t true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler.