Truth disappears with the telling of it.

Lawrence Durrell, master of the subtle and the unspoken, once uttered with haunting brevity: “Truth disappears with the telling of it.” These words, at once mysterious and piercing, remind us of the fragile nature of truth—how it lives in experience, in silence, in presence itself, but falters the moment we try to cage it in words. For truth is not a stone to be lifted and displayed, but a flame that flickers the moment it is touched.

The origin of this insight lies in Durrell’s own explorations of human perception, memory, and art. In his great Alexandria Quartet, he showed that reality is never one thing, never a single story, but shifts with the angle from which it is seen. To him, truth was not an absolute block of certainty but a shifting light, refracted through the prism of perspective. The act of telling, of translating lived experience into language, inevitably diminishes it, for words are always smaller than the thing they point to. What was infinite becomes finite, what was alive becomes fixed, and in that fixing, something essential slips away.

Consider the story of Buddha’s enlightenment beneath the Bodhi tree. For days he sat in silence, experiencing a truth so profound it transcended language. When urged to share it, he hesitated, knowing that once spoken, it could not be the same. For words, however skillful, would narrow the boundless, and listeners would mistake the finger for the moon. Still he taught, but he taught with parables and paradoxes, always reminding his followers that the truth itself could not be contained by speech. Here, too, Durrell’s wisdom lives: truth disappears with the telling, because the telling is always less than the seeing.

This is not to say that words are worthless. Rather, it is to remind us of their limits. Poetry, myth, scripture, philosophy—all strive to capture truth, and all fail, though in their failure they still point us closer. The poet may describe love, the philosopher may reason about justice, the sage may speak of the divine—but the lived experience of these things remains beyond words. One may describe the taste of water to the thirsty, but only drinking will quench. Thus, the moment truth is told, it begins to dissolve, because the listener holds only the shadow, not the light itself.

The deeper meaning of Durrell’s saying is a call to humility. We must never mistake our words, our stories, or even our beliefs for truth itself. They are vessels, symbols, echoes—but not the living essence. In relationships, in spirituality, in art, we must learn to value silence as much as speech, experience as much as explanation. For sometimes the truest thing is not said but felt, not told but lived.

The lesson for us is clear: guard against arrogance in your claim to truth. Speak, yes, but know that your telling is partial, fragile, incomplete. Do not impose your version of truth as final upon others, for they may see from another angle, and their truth may be no less real. Seek, then, not to capture truth but to walk with it, to live it in your actions and your presence. Let your life itself bear witness where your words cannot.

Practically, let this teaching guide your daily path: when you encounter beauty, savor it fully before trying to explain it. When you feel love, show it more than you speak it. When you seek wisdom, be willing to sit in silence, to listen, to observe, knowing that the unspoken often carries more weight than a thousand declarations. Write and speak, but do so as one offering symbols, not final certainties. Let your words be like lanterns pointing the way, but never mistake them for the dawn itself.

Thus Lawrence Durrell’s paradox becomes a gift of guidance: “Truth disappears with the telling of it.” Do not despair of this, but rejoice, for it teaches us that truth is alive, always beyond capture, always greater than we imagine. It invites us to live truth rather than to define it, to embody it rather than to imprison it in speech. And in this way, we learn that the deepest truths are not those we proclaim, but those we become.