Quotes / The Münchausen

Literature

Very boastful was Iagoo;
Never heard he an adventure
But himself had met a greater;
Never any deed of daring
But himself had done a bolder;
Never any marvellous story
But himself could tell a stranger.

Would you listen to his boasting,
Would you only give him credence,
No one ever shot an arrow
Half so far and high as he had;
Ever caught so many fishes,
Ever killed so many reindeer,
Ever trapped so many beaver!

None could run so fast as he could,
None could dive so deep as he could,
None could swim so far as he could;
None had made so many journeys,
None had seen so many wonders,
As this wonderful Iagoo,
As this marvellous story-teller!

— The Song of Hiawatha

Web Original

Old wrestlers come from a world where there's no such thing as a lie, just a "work," where the faces and heels would change in separate dressing rooms, and onscreen personas had to be maintained on the street, to keep up the illusion and protect the business... Roddy Piper's autobiography reads like Alice in Wonderland when compared to verifiable history, and Hogan's is even worse. While we're going to get into the outright crazy stuff, a lot of it comes across like a cry for help from a man who simply can't stop making shit up, like claiming to have won his first world title at WrestleMania I, which is easily disproved by anyone with access to Google. Of all the insane fantasists in pro wrestling, Hogan is the one most tangled in a web of exaggerations and untruths, stumbling from one outright whopper to the next on his frequent media appearances, and like a bigamist who knows it's a wife's birthday, but not which one, he just cannot keep all those lies straight.

— Stuart Millard

His fighting style was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. He couldn’t be touched. Somehow he could kill ten men with his wuss slaps...He had that stupid pony tail, always dressed in black (hey pal, only Johnny Cash can do that), and always had that constipated look on his face. He also had a tendency to exaggerate about his past. At one point he said he was CIA black ops, and then when people called him on that steaming pile of dog dookie, he said he was the reincarnation of a Buddhist holy man. Then he changed to Captain Planet. He started to wear these frilly leather coats, alligator boots, and donning huge Indian medallions. I’m sorry, but if you wear dead animals, you are not the next protector of the environment. And we haven’t even got to the Elvis fat years yet.

—Miles Antwiler on Steven Seagal

Bill Cosby Spoke From Prison And The Whole World Listened
As Bill Cosby Awaits Appeal, Support For His Release Grows
Bill Cosby Helped Harriet Tubman Free The Slaves And He Wasn’t Even Born Yet
Prosecutors Emails Show Race And Politics Motivated Case Against Bill Cosby
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Ghost Appeared In Courtroom And Openly Wept During Bill Cosby’s Trial

—DListed, "Bill Cosby Asserted His Status As A Civil Rights Icon"

You know, I guess it's kind of like when my dad told me that he was an American spy during the Vietnam War, but what he really meant is that he passed the first level in Spy Hunter at an arcade. Sort of like that. Whenever Brian would tell some grandiose tale, they'd all just say to themselves, "Oh he’s just being Brian!" ...But eventually, even the execs got frustrated with Brian. They were annoyed that Brian never admitted that he lied about the helicopter story. He wouldn't take responsibility and he even went so far as to think that maybe a brain tumor was causing him to produce more lies than usual...Brian is supposedly known for telling over-the-top stories and the best thing he could come up with is a TUMAH?!

—Michael K., "Brian Williams Blamed A Maybe Tumor On His Lie-Telling Ways"

I know it's weird to put him on this list, given that he wrote King Lear, directed The Godfather, and was briefly the U.S. poet laureate. But I'm telling you, there's something off about this LaBeouf fella—like he isn't everything he claims to be....

—Drew Magary, "The 30 Least Influential People of 2014"

During Kanye West’s lecture series on egotistical tricks with chronic narcissistic personality disorder at Oxford University last week (working title: Kanye’s Thoughts), Kanye claimed that he has a super-special friendship with President Barack Obama by saying “Obama calls the home phone, by the way.” However, during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Thursday night, President Obama sort of pulled a Mimi-style I don’t know him by saying that he’s only met Kanye twice and he doesn’t think he has his home phone number, thus confirming that Kanye is still a giant ball of delusional crazy and all is right with the world. Since it’s impossible to take a hint when your hands are busy jerking yourself off 24-7, Kanye continued to act like he was best friends with the President yesterday... Except this time he changed his story from “Obama calls the home phone” to “He called our house before“.

—DListed, "Kanye West Swears President Obama Has Called His House"

Real Life

My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.

—Michel de Montaigne

That summer Capote arrived in Paris where Tennessee and I were staying at the Hotel de L'Universite, and Capote would keep us entertained with mischievous fantasies about the great. Apparently, the very sight of him was enough to cause lifelong heterosexual men to tumble out of unexpected closets. Where Capote refused to surrender his virtue to the drunken Errol Flynn, "Errol threw all of my suitcases out of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel!" I should note here that young Capote was no less attractive than he is today.

—Gore Vidal

"The (if I get this right) 'Ambassador to the Cayman Islands from the Vatican'? 'Kay. You take things at face value. Any time he sent you something on a piece of paper, it was always xeroxed; it had the Vatican seal on it. He had a Vatican ring, or it appeared to be a Vatican ring. And if you showed up late for a conversation with him, which I did sometimes, he'd say, 'No no, I just delayed my flight to New York because I have my own plane.' I went to dinner at his house—he knows I'm sort of into wine—he said, 'I've got something very special for you. During the Second World War, they didn't bottle any of the first's months bourdeaux; they didn't bottle Chateau La Fête because the Germans were there and they've would've drunk it. But', he said, 'in 1945, when we came in and we swept through Paris and all that stuff, they bottled their first vintage and they labeled it L'année de la Victoire (The Year of the Victory).' And he said, 'I'm gonna serve this to you tonight.' Excited, delighted! I'm in the car going to the guy's house where he and [the show's star] were living and Priscilla, my wife, said, "You're never gonna see the bottle." Sure enough, we sit there, we have a vodka, the sliding doors to the dining room open: There is a decanter—a carafe—of the wine.

I said, 'Boy, I'd really like to see the bottle.' And he said, 'It's at the framer's.'"

—Bill Panzer, Highlander: The Raven DVD featurette

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