Quotes About Deception

Do you think I envy him? At least I was reared without tenderness and without expectation of it. During all that time, you were breeding a hothouse love based on deception.

He could have covered my mouth,' said Jerott indignantly, sitting up with great success and giving Salablanca his hand. 'He didn't want blood-poisoning,' said Lymond callously. 'Also he didn't know you're so damned slow with a knife.…

I give you a friendly warning. You think M. de Sevigny is drunk. He is not.' 'You might not think so,' said Lymond amiably. 'But in ten minutes or so, I am going to slip under the table and lie there.

You'll seek out strumpets, fumble with courtiers, fornicate with either parent of the heiress you are supposed to be marrying, but to embrace your wife sickens you?' The music stopped in the room; and the movement. 'Ah,' said Lymond. His face had emptied. 'From a new host and an old harlot, the good Lord deliver us.

Truth's nothing but falsehood with the edges sharpened up, and ill-tempered at that: no repair, no retraction, no possible going back once it's out.

Then,' Richard said, 'I think we accept your scheme, with one important change in it. You, too, must be watched and followed.' 'And slept with?' Lymond said.

This man Jerott,' said Danny Hislop accusingly. 'You said he was middle-aged.' Jerott turned. 'I didn't,' said Adam Blacklock indignantly. 'I said he was stinking rich and cut his old allies dead in the street. I did not say he was middle-aged.

Does anyone—Jerott?—know a nice clean strumpet who doesn't have the pox and will sleep in my room tonight to discourage Richard? She needn't stay beyond half an hour, and I don't want to meet her.' 'And that's a bloody waste,' said Jerott belligerently. 'And it's going to stay a bloody waste,' said Lymond tartly. 'I want a little privacy, not to work up a joint reputation as Hophni and Phinehas.

What had you expected? A viper, or a devil, or a ravening idiot; Milo with the ox on his shoulders, Angra-Mainyo prepared to do battle with Zoroaster, or the Golden Ass? Or didn't you know the family colouring? Richard hasn't got it. Poor Richard is merely Brown and fit to break bread with …

He has merely broken, as always, every promise he ever made, before man or God.

Can you imagine what it feels like for me, to pledge my word to preserve a girl's honour and have it broken for me by Francis?

Austin said, 'He is very plausible. I believed him when he gave me his oath.' 'Never do that,' said Richard flatly.

So long as you allow yourself that kind of self-indulgence, you can expect to have headaches. If you can face anything, then face up to the one basic fact in all this. You told Míkál once, in Thessalonika, that you have never loved anyone. That was a lie. You feel for Sybilla quite as much as she has always felt for you.

What is there but untruth and heartbreak wherever you go?

A lie is a broad and spacious and glittering thing, sweeping belief before it from its very grandeur. But the truth fits, like an old man cutting cloth in an attic. And that, Philippa did not need to be told, was the truth, which Lymond had guessed long before her.

Do you like Magda too?" His gaze left the gate to sweep the courtyard. "She seems pleasant enough when she's not drugged. But then she nearly always is, isn't she?" He

I always think that the franker you are with people, the more you're likely to deceive 'em; so unused is the modern world to the open hand and the guileless heart

What'll Geoffrey do when you pull off your First, my child? demanded Miss Haydock. Well, Eve -- it will be awkward if I do that. Poor lamb! I shall have to make him believe I only did it by looking fragile and pathetic at the viva.

You'd think (losing his job and degree for having made false claims as a researcher) would be a lesson to him, said Miss Hillyard. It didn't pay, did it? Say he sacrificed his professional honour for the women and children we hear so much about -- but in the end it left him worse of. But that, said Peter, was only because he committed the extra sin of being found out.

Five minutes' practice before the glass every day, and you will soon acquire that vacant look so desirable for all rogues, detectives and Government officials.

For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.

though I always think that the franker you are with people, the more you're likely to deceive 'em; so unused is the modern world to the open hand and the guileless heart, what?

honestly--then dishonestly.

It's a curious thing, but people cannot resist anonymous letters. It's like free sample offers. They appeal to all one's lower instincts.