“Everything can be forgiven in this world, save telling the truth.”

Variant: A sign is anything that can be used to tell a lie.
Source: Trattato di semiotica generale (1975); [A Theory of Semiotics] (1976)

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Repossession Mambo (2009), Chapter 19 (p. 292)

Source: Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

Source: Invisible Monsters

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.

Source: The Native Star (2010), Chapter 23, “The Skycladdische and the Sangrimancer” (p. 329)

Crimes Of The Heart
Albums, The 3rd World (2008)