Once we thought, journalists and readers alike, that if we put together enough 'facts' and gave them a fast stir, we would come up with something that, at least by the standards of short-order cooks, could be called the truth.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Truth is stranger than nonfiction. And life is too interesting to be left to journalists. People have stories, but journalists have 'takes,' and it's their takes that usually win out when the stories are too complicated or, as happens, not complicated enough.
The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything. There would only be what is.
If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.
Well, I mean, the real attack on truth is tabloid journalism in the United States.
In journalism, a fact is just a fact. But in fiction, you have to build your case. It has to be made, step by step.
I am a lover of truth; and if you think of truth as being multifaceted and so huge that we human beings can't fully comprehend it, then obviously it makes sense to put all the facts together - to compare disciplines and try to advance the sum of knowledge by exploration and examination.
I have learned as a journalist that if you look long enough and hard enough and carefully enough, most truths are discoverable.
A writer's job is to tell the truth.
We live in such a gullible world. Anything that's written, anything that's posted, anything picture that is interpreted one way is taken as truth.
What I'm dealing with is so vast and great that it can't be called the truth. It's above the truth.