“I shall try to tell the truth, but the result will be fiction.”

— Katherine Anne Porter

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I shall try to tell the truth, but the result will be fiction." by Katherine Anne Porter?

Katherine Anne Porter 43

American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist… 1890–1980

Related quotes

“Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming (2013)
Context: We writers – and especially writers for children, but all writers – have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were – to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.

“you can tell the deepest truths with the lies of fiction”

Isabel Allende (1942) Chilean writer

“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”

Albert Camus (1913–1960) French author and journalist

Pablo Picasso said something very similar. Perhaps it is the source? From Herschel B. Chipp’s Theories of Modern Art: "We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand."
Disputed

“Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

“In judging myself I shall try to be as harsh as truth, as I want others also to be.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Introduction
1920s, An Autobiography (1927)
Context: In judging myself I shall try to be as harsh as truth, as I want others also to be. Measuring myself by that standard I must exclaim with Surdas: ' Where is there a wretch So wicked and loathsome as I? I have forsaken my Maker, So faithless have I been.' For it is an unbroken torture to me that I am still so far from him, who, as I fully know, governs every breath of my life, and whose offspring I am. I know that it is the evil passions within that keep me so far from Him, and yet I cannot get away from them.