Quotes About Deception

It is amazing, I realize, how quickly lies compound. They cover like a coat of paint, one on top of the other, until you cannot remember what color you started with.

One of the first things Adam told me was that I was pretty, which should have been my first clue that he was a liar.

the quiet break of soul that comes when you realize that what looked like a rainbow was actually only a trick of the light.

You can invent any fiction and call it a life. Sometimes, when you don't ask questions, it's not because you are afraid that someone will lie to your face. It's because you're afraid they'll tell you the truth.

Your mama finds you like that, she's going to pitch a fit. The only way she'd find out is if you told her I'd come out here with you, and then she'd be too angry at you to yell at me. Guess we're partners in crime, then.

She had spent her entire life being what everyone wanted her to be. The perfect daughter, the budding artist, the best friend, the first love. She had been so busy meeting everyone's expectations, in fact, that it had taken her years to remember exactly why it was all one big farce. She was not perfect, far from it, and what you saw on the outside was not what you really were getting. Deep down, she was dirty, and this was the kind of thing that happened to girls like her.

I used to wonder about the fake pictures that came in frames you buy at the store—ladies with smooth brown hair and show-me smiles, grapefruit-headed babies on their sibling's knees—people who in real life probably were strangers brought together by a talent scout to be a phony family. Maybe it's not so different from real photos, after all.

There are so many ways to betray someone. You can whisper behind his back. You can deceive him on purpose. You can deliver him into the hands of his enemy, when he trusts you. You can break a promise. The question is, if you do any of these things, are you also betraying yourself?

There are two reasons to not tell the truth -- because lying will get you what you want, and because lying will keep someone from getting hurt.

People are never who they seem to be

Then again, it didn't take me long in the world of corporate law to realize that truth is an afterthought in court. In fact, truth is an afterthought in most trials. But there were six million people who were lied to, during World War II, and somebody owes them the truth.

You can put a pig in a ball gown, Minka. That doesn't make it a debutante.

Betrayal was a stone beneath the mattress of the bed you shared, something you felt digging into you no matter how you shifted position. What was the point of being able to forgive, when deep down, you both had to admit you'd never forget?

Things don't always look as they seem. Make of it what you will.

You can stare right at something and not see what lies beneath the surface.

Only the liar knows if he's lying

I hated him. Not for fooling me into trusting him, or even for beating me. But because he made me lose the compassion I had for the enemy.

The papers were caught between our bodies, a wedge to drive us apart, like any other lie.

gente se ha inventado todo tipo de formas de hacer que las cosas parezcan diferentes de lo que son en realidad. Una habitación puede sumirse en una noche artificial. El Botox transforma los rostros de las personas en algo que no son. El TiVo te hace creer que eres capaz de congelar el tiempo, o al menos de reordenarlo a tu antojo.

Could something that looked so wrong on the outside turn out to be undeniably right?

It would be far worse to think you were passionately wanted and loved and find out that you never were

You think you know someone. But mostly you just know what you want to know.

Maybe all the schemes of the devil were nothing compared to what man could think up.

Kristin nods, marching ahead of Clark, who gazes as the impossible smallness of Kristin's ankles and feet. Years later, while imprisoned for drug charges, he will think of those tiny feet and know he is forever doomed for having lied to her, for having harmed something so delicate, so defenseless, so small, so weak.