How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"You would not have known," Baynes said, "because I do not in any physical way appear Jewish; I have had my nose altered, my large greasy pores made smaller, my skin chemically lightened, the shape of my skull changed. In short, physically I cannot be detected. I can and have often walked in the highest circles of Nazi society. No one will ever discover me. And—" He paused, standing close, very close to Lotze and speaking in a low voice which only Lotze could hear. "And there are others of us. Do you hear? We did not die. We still exist. We live on unseen." (3.125)
Baynes is lying here. (Though if you read some reviews online, you'll find people there who think he's telling the truth.) So he's lying about lying, which should get him some sort of lying award. But even if this sounds ridiculous, it fits with the Nazi fear of Jews as super-liars, so it's no wonder that Lotze takes him seriously. After all, how could Lotze ever discover the truth?
Quote #2
Using an elaborate variety of tools, materials, and machines, W-M Corporation turned out a constant flow of forgeries of pre-war American artifacts. These forgeries were cautiously but expertly fed into the wholesale art object market, to join the genuine objects collected throughout the continent. As in the stamp and coin business, no one could possibly estimate the percentage of forgeries in circulation. And no one—especially the dealers and the collectors themselves—wanted to. (4.31)
Again, there's almost no lie in this book that's all by itself. Here we have the W-M Corporation making forgeries. But one reason those forgeries aren't detected is because the dealers and collector don't want to find out. In a way, those people are lying to themselves. Could the forgeries work if the dealers were more skeptical?
Quote #3
From the wall he took the Smithsonian Institution's framed certificate; the paper and the lighter had cost him a fortune, but they were worth it—because they enabled him to prove that he was right, that the word "fake" meant nothing really, since the word "authentic" meant nothing really. (5.32)
One reason why people tell themselves certain things is because it makes their life easier. So when W-M says that "authentic" doesn't mean anything, maybe we should consider that he gets lots of profit out of this idea, since his company makes forgeries. The narrator even notes that the worth of this lighter-certificate is that it helps him prove this point. Is he right? Or does he just like making money from the forgeries?