Quotes About Pretense

It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.

Up until that moment, I'd been at the earliest stage of love, when you feel it will turn you into the better person you want to be. Now, his gentle voice and sage advice took me to a later stage: I felt I needed to pretend to be a better person than I was so he'd keep loving me. This was hard because it made me hate him.

I meant does it hurt when you hide every last shred of your individuality and self worth behind acres of silk and cups of powder and smiles that never, no matter how hard you try, reach your eyes?

There was no longer any need to pretend to be weak. Jack had always been the only one with whom she had to pretend to be strong.

I am a woman pretending to be a man, pretending to be this ship's first officer, pretending to be a pirate, pretending to be innocent of murder … I begin to lose track of all the roles I am playing.

To know love we have to tell the truth to ourselves and to others. Creating a false self to mask fears and insecurities has become so common that many of us forget who are and what we feel underneath the pretense.

Lerner outlines the various ways in which constant pretense and lying alienate women from their true feelings, how it leads to depression and loss of self-awareness.

in the song of solomon there is this passage that reads: i found him whom my soul loves. i held him and would not let him go. to holding on, to knowing again that moment of rapture, of recognition where we can face one another as we really are, stripped of artifice and pretense, naked and not ashamed.

Professor Sengupta had the self-satisfied habit common to many academics of pretending an intellectual equality with his audience in order to happily demonstrate his own superiority.

our hostess backed out of the room, grinning vapidly. She had long since forgotten the meaning of a smile, but the physical ability to make the gesture remained. I felt that the grin...would shatter if it were touched and fall to the floor in pieces.

Nothing is more repugnant to me than brotherly feelings grounded in the common baseness people see in one another.

To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it.

Ostentation is the signal flag of hypocrisy.

Why do we have to pretend we're not in the sales game? I didn't sign on to be a salesman. I signed on to be an actor.

People think they know what you're feeling. What you must be feeling. And because it's easier not to expose yourself, what you're truly feeling, you don't disabuse them. You go through the motions for them.

Despite my broken heart, or rather, because of it, I was grateful to be where no one knew me. I was totally invisible here. I didn't have to pretend to be happy or nice or that everything was okay.

The family put on an "everything is fine" face to the outside world. They were united by their need to deal with their common enemy. The secret became the glue that kept the tortured family intact.

I would act, pretend, and the pretense would become real.

don't know how to be any other way." Boston smiled unexpectedly. "None of us do. That's the point of life. Haven't you figured that out yet? All of this—" She motioned to her kitchen. "It's a facade to keep the demons at bay. Some of us are better at faking it than others, but we all have our issues.

We're all scared. Some of us are just better at faking it.

She was exactly like her house, expensive and elegant, but not at all comfortable.

We are who we pretend to be.

Y parecía sincero el hijo de puta. Usaba el repertorio más convencional del asombro para salir del asunto, salvar la ropa, decir hasta ahí nomás.

Laughing, he held up his hands in mock surrender. "You're too clever. I can't fool you. I'm actually the reincarnation of Napoleon." "You can't be," she played along. "You're much too tall." "I took growth hormones between incarnations.