Quotes About Deception

Actors are the only honest hypocrites.

All along the avenue, cotton candy stands, fun houses, and games of chance were tightly shuttered, like clowns without makeup.

William Hjortsberg

I don't understand," Belle cried. "I gave you gold. You only gave me grief.

The computer-simulated dreamworld of the Matrix trilogy is a technological version of Descartes's evil demon. In essence it represents the idea of a mind (the Architect) more powerful than our own that is intent on deceiving us whenever, and however, it sees fit.

There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.

You can put wings on a pig, but you don't make it an eagle.

Appearance too often takes the place of reality -- the stamp of the coin is there, and the glitter of the gold, but, after all, it is but a worthless wash. Sham is carried into every department of life, and we are being corrupted by show and surface. We are too apt to judge people by what they have, rather than by what they are; we have too few Hamlets who are bold enough to proclaim, "I know not seem!"

I liked all their lies best, for I think they are the brightest part of anybody's history.

They understand that if you repeat a lie often enough, eventually the public is going to accept it as truth.

The devil's best defense is a person's disbelief in his existence.

the young woman was either a superb actress or had truly felt, as most women ultimately did, the utter betrayal of love. The

killed him for the money and the woman. I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman.' Fred MacMurray, Double Indemnity.

Betrayer. That was what they called him. That was how they would remember him. If they were lucky enough to survive and remember anything, it would be because he had saved them, and they would never know.

There were times when he wondered whether the spell that bound him also deceived him. Perhaps it allowed him these illusions of freedom, all the better to lull him into submission. Perhaps Akama was more like his people than he knew. Perhaps he was, after all, the perfect broken leader for a perfectly broken people.

Anyone who is good at something makes it look easy. That does not mean it is.

You can cheat with a picture. You can fall in love with an image of someone, with a memory or an idea of her. For that matter, the matter is generally easier to love than the actual person, since the image will never change, never grow old, never argue or disappoint you.

Our villains always disappoint us. They never look the part.

It is, of course, the last resort of a liar to challenge his inquisitor to call him a liar directly.

whoso wilneth hire to wif, for welthe of hire goodes but he be knowe for a cokewold, kut of my nose!

Now Violet had let herself go until she could barely make it out of the house to buy her Oreos and booze. But if you looked closely, beneath the folds of flesh ravaged by bitterness and drink, you could see the lovely creature she had been, and what she had been then was just as bitter and vindictive as what she was now.

All the lies ever told in a bar could be distilled into three: I'm not a drunk; I'm not trying to pick your pocket; I'm not looking for meaningless impersonal sex.

For what was hope but a liar, preoccupied with the droughts of the past and the harvests of the future while it killed off the present with its bland blandishments?

But isn't it better to know the truth, no matter how vile?" He lifted up his head and cackled. "Whoever told you such nonsense? One kind lie is worth a thousand truths.