“It is a favourite theory of mine that every deception which fails to have a higher truth at its root and is simply a barefaced lie is by that very fact so grossly palpable that nobody can fail to see through it. Only one kind of lie has a chance of being effective: that which in no way deserves to be called deceit, but is the product of a lively imagination which has not yet entered wholly into the realm of the actual and acquired those tangible signs by which alone it can be appraised at its proper worth.”
―
Thomas Mann,
Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man
