Source: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (2009), p. 361
1980s–1990s, Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)
“A friend tells you what you want to hear; a best friend tells you the truth.”
“Really try to follow what it is that you want to do and what your heart is telling you to do.”
Source: The Thirteenth Tale
“I don't want you fellows sitting around asking me what to do. I want you to tell me what to do.”
To his staffers, as quoted in General of the Army : George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman (1991) by Ed Cray, p. 591
Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 32 : Morning
Context: One of the ghosts — an old woman — beckoned, urging her to come close.
Then she spoke, and Mary heard her say:
"Tell them stories. They need the truth. You must tell them true stories, and everything will be well, just tell them stories."
That was all, and then she was gone. It was one of those moments when we suddenly recall a dream that we’ve unaccountably forgotten, and back in a flood comes all the emotion we felt in our sleep. It was the dream she’d tried to describe to Atal, the night picture; but as Mary tried to find it again, it dissolved and drifted apart, just as these presences did in the open air. The dream was gone.
All that was left was the sweetness of that feeling, and the injunction to tell them stories.
“WHATEVER YOU DO, TELL THE TRUTH.”
Telegram to his friend Charles W. Goodyear (23 July 1884), in response to a query as to what the Democratic Party should say about reports that he fathered a child out of wedlock. As quoted in An Honest President (2000), by H. Paul Jeffers, p. 108.
