The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
Autobiography is usually honest but it is never truthful.
Interpretation
Autobiographies may present honest accounts of experiences but still lack complete truthfulness regarding emotions and perspectives.
This quote suggests that while autobiographies often claim to portray the author's true life story and experiences, they are filtered through personal biases and interpretations, which can distort the absolute truth. The statement invites readers to reflect on the nature of truth in storytelling and the subjective nature of individual experiences.
In practice
In a book discussion, one might use this quote to explore the reliability of memoirs.
The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.
An armed society is a polite society.
Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.
Long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings . . . but short words were slippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern.
Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
The willing, destiny guides them; the unwilling, destiny drags them.
If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can't deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.
The capitalist class rules but does not govern: it contents itself with ruling the government.
Everyone knew there were wolves in the mountains, but they seldom came near the village-the modern wolves were the offspring of ancestors that had survived because they had learned that human meat had sharp edges.
I don't think there is such a thing as a precise sexual orientation. I think we're all ambiguous sexually.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.