Lettin‘ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier ‚n puttin‘ it back in.

People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I earned everything I’ve got.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

I looked the people of Louisiana in the eye and told them exactly what I thought in terms that normal people use.

A lot of people are afraid to tell the truth, to say no. That’s where toughness comes into play. Toughness is not being a bully. It’s having backbone.

I could talk all day, T stands for talking, T stands for tender, T stands for things that don’t even rhyme with T.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

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

Don’t be too harsh to these poems until they’re typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction.

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.

I just think you ought to talk straight with your people.

Don’t believe your friends when they ask you to be honest with them. All they really want is to be maintained in the good opinion they have of themselves.

I don’t like people going behind my back.

Honesty is the best policy – when there is money in it.

You don’t tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.

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.

If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

I have all the emotions that everyone has; it just appears that I don’t.

A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.

Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it.

The smallest feline is a masterpiece.

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.

I’m not always going to say things the perfect way, the right way. But I’m going to say how I feel.

A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first.

Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.

I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow.

Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

It’s funny because I’ve made a living off of words, but words get in the way of what you really want to say.

Why lie? I’m not going to be a hypocrite and say the opposite of what I think, like some others do.

I get a more passionate delivery when I just go in the booth and let the music talk.

The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives.

Whether we are New Dealer, Old Dealer, Liberty Leaguer or Red, whether we agree or not, we still have the right to think and speak how we feel.

Having a bunch of cats around is good. If you’re feeling bad, you just look at the cats, you’ll feel better because they know that everything is just as it is. There’s nothing to get excited about. They just know. They’re saviours.

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I’ll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master… it’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.

Test a servant while in the discharge of his duty, a relative in difficulty, a friend in adversity, and a wife in misfortune.

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

Saying nothing… sometimes says the most.

Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

To a guy like me, a laugh is full of information.

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one’s self on lies and fables.

You can’t always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours.

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

Half a truth is often a great lie.

It may be that the most striking thing about members of my literary generation in retrospect will be that we were allowed to say absolutely anything without fear of punishment.

When I listen to a song, I don’t say, ‚Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.‘ I’m thinking, ‚That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.‘

Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-coloured world.

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

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.

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

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

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

I’m happy to be a writer – of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn’t a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use.

The best football is always about expression of emotion. Always.

Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings – words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.