Quotes About Concealment

If wisdom were offered me with this restriction, that I should keep it close and not communicate it, I would refuse the gift.

From what you didn't say, lies that you did say.

Long since, the standard way of understanding surface has been as an abstract and undifferentiated plane that functions above all to veil or delimit a depth. From the face that mirrors the soul, to the magic writing tablet that reveals subconscious drives, the surface, any surface, all surfaces, have been considered worthy of attention insofar as they are the top layer, the outermost skin, the merely visible envelope of more particularized and specific under or inner depths.

She felt that these clean-shaven men with bristling eyebrows were suavely concealing their doubts of her intelligence and her probity. Their jaws were like so many mouse-traps, baited with commonplaces.

There is an amusing sense of superiority in seeing and remaining unseen.

It's what's invisible that creates what's visible.

Things that are covered don't heal well.

Even the most voluptuous of fast-paced and lace-clad women cannot console the anguish of masculine tears blocked and cries muffled. Broken men try to mask their hurts behind empty emblems of success, but hidden behind those frail facades are screaming hearts bound in a forced silence.

Hate looks like everybody else until it smiles

I shouldn't have said that. We should keep reality as far away as possible.

There's less in this than meets the eye.

But maybe when you never say a thing, your thoughts spread like mould.

Being easily freaked out comes with its own special skill set: you develop subtle tricks to work around it, make sure people don't notice. Pretty soon, if you're a fast learner, you can get through the day looking almost exactly like a normal human being.

Don't fool yourself: we all have a cruel streak. We keep it under lock and key either because we're afraid of getting punished or because we believe this will somehow make a difference, make the world a better place.

They always act like they're having an amazing time, they're louder and high-pitched, shoving each other and screaming with laughter at nothing. But Becca knows what they're like when they're happy, and that's not it. Their faces on the way home afterwards look older and strained, smeared with the scraps of leftover expressions that were pressed on too hard and won't lift away.

For some reason the past—any of our pasts—was solidly off-limits. They were like the creepy rabbits in Watership Down who won't answer any questions beginning with "Where.

If you want to kill someone, have enough respect for my time to make it someone, anyone, other than the most gobsmackingly obvious person in the world. One

a cipher, composed entirely of the jumbled reflections of what he thinks other people want to see.

didn't look at her again—probably to avoid the permanent look of resentment now etched upon her face, a look Zoe tried impossibly to hide. That morning, however, as he tossed the briefcase into the backseat of his car, what it might contain, or how much he'd spent for the damned thing, was the furthest thing from Zoe's mind. The instant he was out of the driveway,

Nothing is ever what it seems and not everything is yours to see.

No one can see me, no one knows me; All men are deaf, no ears disclose me

knew without question what I had seen. Adelaide and Penelope's mother could now, at last, rest in peace. I also knew without question that this information would be best kept from my husband. There is no point in trying to convert those who don't believe.

You can't tell your teacher that my name is James Witherspoon. Atlanta ain't nothing but a country town, and everyone knows everybody. Your other wife and your other girl is a secret?, I asked him. He put me down from his lap, so we could look each other in the face. No. You've got it the wrong way around. Dana you are the one that's a secret.

But I lived in a world where you could never want what you wanted out in the open.