See, your tidy-looking floors are an elaborate and dangerous lie!

How could a 16-year-old concoct such an elaborate lie and maintain it so long?

His most common method of picking up women is telling them elaborate lies about himself, often using an alias.

Promises are no more than elaborate lies," she declared.

They were complicated, in many respects obscure, and overlaid during the years that followed by ever more elaborate lies.

So far the elaborate lie had moved the haberdasher to do nothing except sniff in boredom.

He opened his eyes and saw the truth that he had hidden with a thousand elaborate lies.

His elaborate lies and maneuvers were hardly necessary at all.

When would she be forced to tell him the truth ... or make up an elaborate lie?

He shouldn't have had to risk an elaborate lie and claim he never even spoke with her.