Lies I Lie: 1

Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts.
Clare Booth Luce (1903 - 1987)

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902)

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902)


I told a couple big lies in the past 3 days, all to take "mental health" time, to avoid doing something I didn't want to do, to have an hour's peace. In general, I hate liars and the lies they tell, from my mother on the phone to Bush and company. But I am a liar. And generally a good one. I have a poor memory for dates and numbers (hence history) but an excellent social and intrapersonal memory (a novelist's memory) and because of my generally hard line on lying and deception, whether an ad or political speech or a euphemism or a condescending tone, people find it hard to believe I am not telling the truth. I know how and when to keep it simple and how and when to layer it. I am good at finding the uncomfortable detail, the one after which even the nosiest and/or angriest questioner gives in--once I began to describe a dentist cutting into my gum, another time said "It's like pissing acid mixed with nails and screws."

I lie to protect myself, no matter what "protect," "my" or "self" mean at that particular moment in time. I lie to hide in plain view, in defiance, in passive aggressiveness to avoid doing what I do not want to do but do not have the balls or authority or status to refuse. I am a hard-working, generally loyal employee but I'll lie in a millisecond to get what I want or get out of what I don't want. But I don't lie in personal, intimate relationships, no matter how long or brief. I've told the truth no mattter what or kept silent and eventually walked away. Or did what I wanted. Mostly that. If my first internal reaction was "I don't let my own father/mother tell me what to do," distance preceded by or gained with lies soon followed. I've lied about my name dozens of times. I've been caught once. The look he gave me was cold and I gave it back; I always lied about my name in bars, I told myself, because I didn't like being picked up in them. (Everywhere else, though, was fair game.) I've made up mini-histories for a day or half-hour. I did warn boyfriends or fuckbuddies that I'd tell the truth if they really wanted to hear it. Usually, they didn't. Wise.

The guilt is never more than splinter-deep. An hour or so's discomfort. A few head rushes of fear or adrenaline. Then, backstory tucked in a fold of the brain for quick retrieval, my life continues.....

I'm not done with this. I'm really not as sociopathic as all that.

quotations from http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/lies/