Quotes About Secrecy

Men did not want to get caught, but this fear wasn't there for the right reasons. They didn't want their wives to discover they were having an affair because they would make it harder for them to get away with it the next time.

In my day, secret societies were exactly that, secret. None of this showing up on the front page of the newspaper looking drunk and disorderly.

We're only pretending everything is normal because we don't know what else to do.

After the Cold War, most scientists were relieved to be freed of the burdens of secrecy and misrepresentation, but Seitz, Singer, and Nierenberg continued to act as if the Cold War had not ended.

Nothing is so contrary to military rules as to make the strength of your army known, either in the orders of the day, in proclamations, or in the newspapers.

Most keep their condition secret from all but a few close friends. Interestingly, many of them say the thing they regret most is not their inability to have children but the lack of menstruation, the event they see as a monthly voucher of femaleness.

On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A.

"Never, never!" whispered she. "What we did had a consecration of its own."

if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom...

She doesn't let anyone see it...but on the other side of that door, I somehow get the feeling that she's quietly falling apart.

People love conspiracy theories.

I think that with most of our friends we choose how much of ourselves to reveal, and with a very select few it feels as if there is no choice.

It's funny about 'passing.' We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it.

It hurt. It hurt like hell. But it didn't matter, if no one knew.

When you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret and your Father which is in secret shall reward you openly" [Matthew 6:6].

I don't want Claud to tell the world how he feels about me. Television is so seductive: people tell things to the camera they'd never dream of telling their best friends

contained in sealed orders that were not to be opened until they were at sea.

His Majesty did not open post from dictators.

THE DESIRE FOR PRIVACY is strong; vanity is stronger.

In their family, even the most nuclear of disputes remained under wraps until eventually it dissipated, seemingly for the simple reason that no one was prepared to stoke the fire.

Boggan got him to translate and heard how hairdressers in Baghdad had to report subversive remarks made by women under the driers. What was a hairdresser to do if her sensibly wary customers steered clear of politics? For how long could she keep telling the secret police that she had nothing to report, without running the risk of the spies marking her down as uncooperative?

In Britain today friends of mine live like dissidents in a dictatorship. They meet in secret. They vet new arrivals to ensure they are not spies. They are ex-Muslims living in a supposedly free country who fear their enemies will damn them as apostates and kill them. How extraordinary that they must hide their true beliefs from all but intimate friends for fear of the consequences. And how shameful that they have no anti-fascist Left worthy of the name to defend them.

Writers write badly when they have something to hide.

The thing is … to be blunt about it, the trouble with being an adulterer and a songwriter is that you always write songs in code.