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Lies and literature

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From: USA Today
Date: 19981101
Author:Reeves, W J

Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Dostoyevsky are but a few of the great authors who have used lies and liars as keys to their writing.

IN HIS BEST-SELLER, The Book of Virtues, former Secretary of Education and director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy William J. Bennett describes lying as "an `easy tool' of concealment which can harden into a malignant vice." However, his central thesis is that most Americans "share a respect for certain fundamental traits such as honesty, compassion, and courage." Bennett has it wrong. As the millennium ...

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