Truth is the thing. Whether it helps, whether it hurts, whether it fits like a glove, whether it ruins the line, whether politically correct, whether downright rude, whether it comes when you whistle, whether it runs like a thief Truth is the thing. As Ellis Peters once wrote, Truth can be costly, but in the end it never falls short of value for the price paid. The author of the Brother Cadfael mysteries about a medieval monk who detects crimes from a garden in a Shrewsbury abbey. So all my quotes don t come straight out of Bartlett s Familiar Quotations, but that s another thing.
Truth is no respecter of persons.
It can come from the mouths of babes or from the word processors of writers in minor sub-genres of popular fiction. A great deal. Despite Marshall McLuhan, the Medium is not the Message. Ignore pompous, convoluted scholarly prose and apply common sense. Examine the content from all angles.