I think public intellectuals have a responsibility - to be self-critical on the one hand, to do serious, nuanced work rigorously executed; but to also be able to get off those perches and out of those ivory towers and speak to the real people who make decisions; to speak truth to power and the powerless with lucidity and eloquence.
If an eloquent speaker speak not the truth, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?
For, if a good speaker, never so eloquent, does not see into the fact, and is not speaking the truth of that - is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?
But what you could perhaps do with in these days is a word of most sincere sympathy. Your movement is carried internally by so strong a truth and necessity that victory in one form or another cannot elude you for long.
This commitment to truth is something one senses more and more Americans yearning for, just as they are becoming more and more sophisticated at knowing when the truth is being obscured - an irony that seems to elude most of today's elected officials.
Truth is, in fact, an elusive concept. It depends almost entirely on where you are standing at the time. It is a human instinct to confuse belief with truth.
It gets embarrassing to say something untrue because you put it online and everyone knows about it, so it's better to tell the truth.
The word 'embarrassing' is an insulting word, to tell you the truth.
Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.
There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, said an eminent scholar, have God for their Author, the Salvation of mankind for their end, and Truth without any mixture of error for their matter.
For a creative writer possession of the 'truth' is less important than emotional sincerity.
I'm not that interested in recreating reality. I'm interested in recreating an emotional truth.
I always felt and still feel that fairy tales have an emotional truth that is so deep that there are few things that really rival them.
The way a story makes an argument is quite different from the way a persuasive essay does it. Emotional truth and the logic of metaphors dominate.
I don't think there's any topic a writer should feel afraid of tackling just because it has already been discussed. If you feel you have a fresh perspective and an understanding of a certain emotional truth, it's always worth writing.
I always think it's interesting to dig a little bit deeper every time you go to someplace that seems like a revelation or a strong connection to an emotional truth.
You know, comedy's hard. With drama, you have a responsibility to the emotional truth, but with comedy, you have emotional truth and you have technique on top of it.
It's much better to write a book and stick to the research - that's history. In cinema, emotional truth and psychological truth is much more important.
As an actor, you try to bring as much of yourself to a part to try and create a feeling of authenticity and emotional truth and resonance.
