Quotes About Deception

Your enemies can kill you, but only your friends can hurt you.

Knowledge which is divorced from justice may be called cunning rather than wisdom.

When I notice how carefully arranged his hair is and when I watch him adjusting the parting with one finger, I cannot imagine that this man could conceive of such a wicked thing as to destroy the Roman constitution.

By this time I was thoroughly terrified, not so much fearing death as the treachery of my own kind.

the man to open his ears widest to flatterers is he who first flatters himself and is fondest of himself.

Here's champagne for our real friends, and real pain for our sham friends.

Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you.

Don't let a fool kiss you, or a kiss fool you.

The best way of keeping a secret is to pretend there isn't one.

Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. They hurt themselves instead; or else they do it so the guy doesn't even know he's been hurt until much later. Then he finds out. Then his dick falls off.

The true story is vicious and multiple and untrue after all. Why do you need it? Don't ever ask for the true story.

Once a story you've regarded as true has turned false, you begin suspecting all stories.

The truth can cause a lot of trouble for those who are not supposed to know it.

How furious she must be, now that she's been taken at her word.

What a moron I was to think you were sweet and innocent, when it turns out you were actually college-educated the whole time!

Even an obvious fabrication is some comfort when you have few others.

How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it.

Also, if a man takes pride in his disguise skills, it would be a foolish wife who would claim to recognise him: it's always an imprudence to step between a man and the reflection of his own cleverness.

It's his word against the Commander's, unless he wants to head a posse. Kick in the door, and what did I tell you? Caught in the act, sinfully Scrabbling. Quick, eat those words.

I´ll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew it meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So that´s how they do it, I thought. I seemed never to have known that before.

Women collect grievances, hold grudges and change shape. They pass hard, legitimate judgments, unlike the purblind guesses of men, fogged with romanticism and ignorance and bias and wish. Women know too much, they can neither be deceived nor trusted. I can understand why men are afraid of them, as they are frequently accused of being.

The moment of betrayal is the worst, the moment when you know beyond any doubt that you've been betrayed: that some other human being has wished you that much evil. It was like being in an elevator cut loose at the top. Falling, falling, and not knowing when you will hit.

You know I love you. You're the only one. She isn't the first woman he's ever said that to. He shouldn't have used it up so much earlier in his life, he shouldn't have treated it like a tool, a wedge, a key to open women. By the time he got around to meaning it, the words sounded fraudulent to him and he'd been ashamed to pronounce them.

Once in a while, Jimmy would make up a word but he never once got caught out. ... He should have been pleased by his success with these verbal fabrications, but instead he was depressed by it. The memos telling him he'd done a good job meant nothing to him; all they proved was that no one was capable of appreciating how clever he had been. He came to understand why serial killers sent helpful clues to the police.