Tim O'Brien

A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written.

The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head. There is the illusion of aliveness.

That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.

A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.