“We're all liars when it serves our purpose.”

“Maggie, we're through with lies and liars in this house. Lock the door.”

Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

“It serves the purpose of not serving a purpose, surely quite a valid one.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

“Wishing to dare serves no purpose at all, if it remains a wish.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

“It is our purpose in our intercourse with foreign powers to rely not on the strength of our fleets and our armies but on the justice of our cause. For these reasons our country has not wished to maintain huge military forces. It has been convinced that it could better serve itself and better serve humanity by using its resources for other purposes.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

“Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

“It serves a purpose.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

“The diagram on the opposite page, similar in plan and purpose to one devised by Mr. M. C. Rorty, represents, in a general way, the circuit flow of money. To find fault with this diagram from an engineering standpoint would not be difficult; neither would it be sensible. All we should ask of these reservoirs and pipes is that they serve the purpose at hand. In the main, subject to certain qualifica qualifications to be made presently, this diagram does serve our purpose. It pictures the flow of money when business is relatively stable.”

William Trufant Foster (1879–1950) American economist

“No language is justly studied merely as an aid to other purposes. It will in fact better serve other purposes, philological or historical, when it is studied for love, for itself.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

“All men are liars. All women are liars, too.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo