“What's the use of stories that aren't even true?”
Source: Haroun and the Sea of Stories
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Salman Rushdie 122
British Indian novelist and essayist 1947Related quotes
“This is an imaginary story… aren't they all?”
Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (1986)
Context: This is an imaginary story (which may never happen, but then again may) about a perfect man who came from the sky and did only good. It tells of his twilight, when the great battles were over and the great miracles long since performed; of how his enemies conspired against him and of that final war in the snowblind wastes beneath the Northern Lights; of the women he loved and of the choice he made between them; of how he broke his most sacred oath, and how finally all the things he had were taken from him save one. It ends with a wink. It begins in a quiet midwestern town, one summer afternoon in the quiet midwestern future. Away in the big city, people still sometimes glance up hopefully from the sidewalks, glimpsing a distant speck in the sky... but no: it's only a bird, only a plane — Superman died ten years ago. This is an imaginary story... aren't they all?
“War stories aren't really anything more than stories about people anyway.”
Dispatches (1977)
As quoted in Say Good Night, Gracie! : The Story of Burns & Allen (1986) by Cheryl Blythe and Susan Sackett, p. 48
“All stories are true,” Skarpi said. “But this one really happened, if that’s what you mean.”
He took another slow drink, then smiled again, his bright eyes dancing. “More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.”
Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 26, “Lanre Turned” (p. 203)