“Truth becomes fiction when the fiction's true;
Real becomes not-real when the unreal's real.”
Cao Xueqin book Dream of the Red Chamber
Jia zuo zhen shi zhen yi jia,
Wu wei you chu you huan wu.
Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (c. 1760), Chapter 5
Nationally syndicated column number 31, A Few Shots of Scopolamin (15 July 1923), after meeting Robert E. House, who had proposed the use of scopolamine as a truth serum, in The Use of Scopolamine in Criminology (1922).
Weekly columns
Context: See they conducted experiments on convicts... I don't know on what grounds they reason a man in jail is a bigger liar than one out of jail... The chances are telling the truth is what got him there... It would be a big aid to humanity, but it will never be, for already the politicians are up in arms against it... It would wreck the very foundation on which our political government is run... If you ever injected truth into politics you'd have no politics … Even the ministers are denouncing it now … Humanity is not yet ready for either real truth or real harmony.
“Truth becomes fiction when the fiction's true;
Real becomes not-real when the unreal's real.”
Cao Xueqin book Dream of the Red Chamber
Jia zuo zhen shi zhen yi jia,
Wu wei you chu you huan wu.
Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (c. 1760), Chapter 5
“Real leaders must be ready to sacrifice all for the freedom of their people.”
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist
Nelson Madenla on leadership, Chief Albert Luthuli Centenary celebrations, Kwadukuza, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa (25 April 1998). Source: From Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations © 2010 by Nelson R. Mandela and The Nelson Mandela Foundation http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/mini-site/selected-quotes <br class="br">1990s
Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic
Source: Book 3, Chapter 7 “Project NFB” (p. 135), The Warlord of the Air (1971)
Jim Crace (1946) English novelist, short story writer and playwright
"What Is This Thing Called Bronze?" http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE0DA103AF935A25754C0A96F948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2, interview with Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times (1989-07-16)
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947
“The real truths are those that can be invented.”
Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)
“What is humility but truthfulness? There is no real difference.”
Walter Hilton (1340–1396) English Augustinian mystic.
Book II, ch. 20 (p. 153)
The Ladder of Perfection (1494)
Ben Aaronovitch book Rivers of London
Source: Rivers of London (2011; American edition title: Midnight Riot), Chapter 2, “Ghost Hunting Dog” (p. 26)