"A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation"
About this Quote
The wording is surgical. “Sometimes” gives him plausible deniability, while “a ton of explanation” exaggerates just enough to make honesty sound like labor and self-defense. In Saki’s world, explanation is rarely innocent. It’s what people reach for when they’ve violated a rule, bruised an ego, or need to launder a motive into respectability. A small untruth can act like social lubrication, sparing everyone the spectacle of motives being dragged into daylight.
The subtext is more cynical than comforting: society isn’t built on transparency but on manageable fictions. Those fictions protect reputations and preserve hierarchies - the kind of hierarchies Saki skewered by letting the well-bred reveal themselves in their own refined evasions. Read in its early-20th-century context, it also lands as a wink at institutions (press, politics, empire) that sold complexity as certainty. When the story has to be clean, a little inaccuracy isn’t a bug; it’s the feature that keeps the machine from stalling.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Munro, Hector Hugh. (2026, January 15). A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-little-inaccuracy-sometimes-saves-a-ton-of-61754/
Chicago Style
Munro, Hector Hugh. "A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-little-inaccuracy-sometimes-saves-a-ton-of-61754/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-little-inaccuracy-sometimes-saves-a-ton-of-61754/. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.









