Quotes About Authenticity

Men often applaud an imitation, and hiss the real thing.

Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth - don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.

Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.

The end of an ox is beef, and the end of a lie is grief

The teeth are smiling, but is the heart?

As life goes on it becomes tiring to keep up the character you invented for yourself, and so you relapse into individuality and become more like yourself everyday.

What you do not understand is that there are things that cannot be bought.

I am all that there is of the most real.

Truth is seldom romantic.

You want beauty," said Hercule Poirot. "Beauty at any price. For me, it is truth I want. Always truth.

What a person really is, is only apparent when the test comes—that is, the moment when you stand or fall on your own feet.

you've no idea of the agony of having your characters taken and made to say things that they never would have said, and do things that they never would have done. And if you protest, all they say is that it's 'good theatre.

It is always better to face the truth. It is no use evading unhappiness by tampering with facts.

Pride comes in handy for masking one's feelings?it doesn't stop you from feeling them

We never know the whole man, though sometimes, in quick flashes, we know the true man.

It is so unkind--' 'Perhaps. But sometimes a compulsion comes over one to speak the truth!

Truth," she said, "is seldom romantic.

I do really believe that, like so many liars, there is a real substratum of truth behind her lies.

should learn from another. Each individual should develop his own powers to the uttermost, not try to imitate those of someone else. I do not wish you to be a second and inferior Poirot. I wish you to be the supreme Hastings. And you are the supreme Hastings. In you, Hastings, I find the normal mind almost perfectly illustrated.

Being unspoiled and natural. You learn how to do it, and then you have to go on being it all the time. Just think of the hell of it—never to be able to chuck something, and say, 'Oh, for the Lord's sake stop bothering me.

By the way, I should like to make it clear here and now that the story will not be a story of South Africa. I guarantee no genuine local colour -- you know the sort of thing -- half a dozen words in italic on every page. I admire it very much, but I can't do it.

But you see, Miss Helier, this isn't a serial story. This is real life; and real life stops just where it chooses.

No. It is always better to face the truth. It is no use evading unhappiness by tampering with facts.

But, my friend, I am not an Anglo-Saxon. Why should I play the hypocrite?