Tag Archives: Truth

The Story Is All We Have

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I cannot begin at the beginning; I wasn’t there. I cannot even begin at one particular moment in time; I do not remember how this got started. Neither does anybody else. We only know the story we are given, unless someone writes the truth of it down. And even then, it isn’t the whole truth. Only theirs. As this is mine.

I can only tell you what was told to me, and most of that was probably lies. The person who told me who I was and showed me my place in the world very seldom told the truth. I still believe that telling the story from the beginning is the only way to do it.

Whether it is true or not, it is the only story I have.

My name is Flora. This book is my life.

–The Book of Flora (The Road to Nowhere 3) by Meg Elison

Books are Fragile

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But books are so fragile. Paper and leather and wood cannot stand up to fire or water or time.

And there is one thing I know is true in this world: only what is remembered survives. Only what is written has a chance in the future. People forget. Rivers rise. Stories and songs are snuffed out every time some town takes a fever or loses to a man with a little power.

Destruction is common. Creation is rare.

Because I know this truth, I must do two things. First, I must collect and keep as many pieces of record and evidence as I can, to ensure that they do not pass out of this world. Second, I must write my own record so that it survives. I must write the people in my life into the record as well, just as the Midwife did, so that they survive, too. I sometimes do as she did, putting the book into their hands. I write it for them. I did it more when I was younger. I trusted too much then.

–The Book of Flora (The Road to Nowhere 3) by Meg Elison

Acknowledge the Past

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We must acknowledge the past in order to regain trust and to seize the future.

–Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington

Purposeful Confusion

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We reached an equilibrium, she and I. She grew sharper and more like the old Cal, and I found a comfort with my life I’d never really known. I grew a beard, a long, long beard. I made dyes using the food stores and used them to paint images on my clothes, on the floors, and on the white crates in the storage pods. I dictated stories and journal entries into the Ring’s computer. Some were true tales of what I’d done, while others were complete fiction. I didn’t say during any of my dictations which stories were which. I rather liked the idea of someone finding the Ring long after I was gone and being totally confused.

–Darkness Between the Stars (Eaters of the Light Book 1) by J Edward Neill

Should’ve Known Better

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“Can I go to bed?” I asked. Mom nodded. Dad didn’t say a word. After I exhaled the biggest breath in my life, I slid out of my chair and padded down the hall. Like a robot, I brushed my teeth, changed into my pajamas, and made for my bedroom. “No stories tonight,” I called down the hall to Mom. “I’m tired.” I didn’t know what they thought. I felt bad for them. I loved my parents to pieces, but all the questions they’d failed to answer had begun to add up. They should’ve known better.

They’d done everything possible to make me into a thinker, a hard worker, a doubter of universal truths. And finally it had turned against them.

–Darkness Between the Stars (Eaters of the Light Book 1) by J Edward Neill

Lies We Tell Ourselves

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Casimir had been a typical vampire—the quintessential vampire, in fact. And look what had happened to him! Whereas I . . . well, I was different. I was active and empathic and dependable and involved. I wasn’t anything like Casimir. It’s funny what lies you tell yourself when you’re scared to death.

The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks

No One Thought Of It

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In spite of herself, unconsciously almost, Kay smiled. No, she hadn’t run away. And the dragon hadn’t tried to eat her, and she had to rethink a lot of the old stories. She liked the idea that everyone had been wrong all this time. This wasn’t just an adventure—it was an adventure no one else had even thought of before.

–Voices of Dragons by Carrie Vaughn

Donut Stealing Sheriff Caught Red-Handed

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“Sheriff, would you happen to have any information about this case?”

There was no use trying to get away with crime in this town. Especially when you were the sheriff.

–The Case of the Missing Donut, written by Alison McGhee and illustrated by Isabel Roxas

Troubling Mirror

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“...there are people out there, like Madame, who don’t hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you—of how you were brought into this world and why—and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it’s a cold moment. It’s like walking past a mirror you’ve walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.”

 

–Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

 

 

Scientific Lie

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An awkward, unscientific lie is often as ineffectual as the truth.

–On the Decay of the Art of Lying by Mark Twain

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