Lies are just like snowballs. The more you roll them, the bigger they get. The bigger they are, the more fun and shocking it is when they're revealed.
— Tsumugi Shirogane Danganronpa V 3
Lies propagate, that's what I'm saying. You've got to tell more lies to cover them up, lie about every fact that's connected to the first lie. And if you kept on lying, and you kept on trying to cover it up, sooner or later you'd even have to start lying about the general laws of thought. Like, someone is selling you some kind of alternative medicine that doesn't work, and any double-blind experimental study will confirm that it doesn't work. So if someone wants to go on defending the lie, they've got to get you to disbelieve in the experimental method. Like, the experimental method is just for merely scientific kinds of medicine, not amazing alternative medicine like theirs. Or a good and virtuous person should believe as strongly as they can, no matter what the evidence says. Or truth doesn't exist and there's no such thing as objective reality. A lot of common wisdom like that isn't just mistaken, it's anti-epistemology, it's systematically wrong. Every rule of rationality that tells you how to find the truth, there's someone out there who needs you to believe the opposite. If you once tell a lie, the truth is ever after your enemy; and there's a lot of people out there telling lies...
Apu: Is it just me or do all of your plans involve some horrible web of lies?
Homer: It's you.
Homer: It's you.
— The Simpsons, "The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons"
I was awoken by the sound of you lying yourself into a corner. What the hell are you going to tell them, exactly?
— Garovel, The Zombie Knight
Harvey Richards: What's up, Stacy?
Stacy: I borrowed my brother's tonka and I broke it. Should I say it was broken when I got it?
Harvey Richards: Let me tell you something about lying, Stacy. One lie always leads to another! And that lie will lead to another and another... But that's usually about it. Three or four lies, tops, and then you're in the clear.
Stacy: Okay, thanks, Mr. Richards!
Stacy: I borrowed my brother's tonka and I broke it. Should I say it was broken when I got it?
Harvey Richards: Let me tell you something about lying, Stacy. One lie always leads to another! And that lie will lead to another and another... But that's usually about it. Three or four lies, tops, and then you're in the clear.
Stacy: Okay, thanks, Mr. Richards!
— Harvey Richards, Lawyer for Children, Tom the Dancing Bug
Frank Lampard: Everyone's been curious about my incredible man management of Christian Pulisic. Well, I kind of told him a lie... As a form of motivation! Heh, heh, heh. But no, I'm definitely manipulating him.
[Cut to Lampard sitting down with his players explaining what's going on]
Lampard: Ok, Ok... I told Christian if he played really well this season, I could maaaaaybe get him a job in the Queen's Secret Service.
N’Golo Kanté: What!? Why would you do this!?
[later]
Lampard: I fear Christian has taken the spy bit a bit too far. If I'm going to get him back onside, I'll have to call in the big guns. [Takes out cell phone and makes a call] Hello, Jose
? No, sorry, no time to talk right now. Um, may I have Zlatan's number please?
? No, sorry, no time to talk right now. Um, may I have Zlatan's number please?[Even later]
Lampard: [While dressed as Queen Elizabeth] I now realize my lie has sent Christian down a dangerous path of self-delusion. [looks downcast, then immediately perks back up] Welp, there's only one way to sort this: with an even bigger lie.
Oh you know how it goes, it's a tale as old as video games themselves: you've got a deadline looming for your new Consoles' launch, and your only game is not exactly playable. So you panic and work for three weeks straight without sleep so you can get the damn thing done on time... Unfortunately in your sleep-deprived state you accidentally managed to create a glitch that kills players when their Avatars die! Next thing you know, your Tutorial NPC is nowhere to be found, and Players are dropping like Dorito-encrusted flies. Now in this case, any sane man would have simply turn off the Servers before anyone else got hurt. But because you've been awake long-enough to think the Government is run by "Floobar, King of The Mole Men", the best idea that comes to your mind is to double, triple, and quadruple down. So you lock everyone in the game, tell them they'll die if they don't finish it, and try to make it look like this is all part of your Master Plan, instead of an ever-spiraling series of events that you have long since lost control of...
—Kayaba Akihiko, Sword Art Online Abridged
"You cannot own a fact, and you cannot own a lie you made up if everyone believes it."
—Vsauce Michael describing why copyright traps such as Fake Towns on maps and fake words in dictionaries are not enforceable, "Dord."
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