Pretence Quotes

“Church was doing what he often did when dropped - lying on his back with all four legs in the air, pretending to be dead in order to induce guilt in his owners.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls

“Someone who smiles too much with you can sometime frown too much with you at your back.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“Buy a gift for a dog, and you'll be amazed at the way it will dance and swerve its tail, but if don't have anything to offer to it, it won't even recognize your arrival; such are the attributes of fake friends.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“Don't pretend to be what you're not, instead, pretend to what you want to be, it is not pretence, it is a journey to self realization.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“There's a difference between playing and playing games. The former is an act of joy, the latter — an act.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“There are people one knows and people one doesn't. One shouldn't cheapen the former by feigning intimacy with the latter.”
― Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War

“It is so much more threatening to have something out of hand than to believe that at any moment I can stop (I started to say "This foolishness") any time I need to. When I wrote the previous letter, I had made up my mind I would show you how I could be very composed and cool and not need to ask you to listen to me nor to explain anything to me nor need any help. By telling you that all this about the multiple personalities was not really true but just put on, I could show, or so I thought, that I did not need you. Well, it would have been easier if it were put on. But the only ruse of which I'm guilty is to have pretended for so long before coming to you that nothing was wrong. Pretending that the personalities did not exist has now caused me to lose about two days.
Three weeks later Sybil reaffirmed her belief in the existence of her other selves in a letter to Miss Updyke, the school nurse of undergraduate days.”
― Flora Rheta Schreiber, Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“Be careful with the mask. You may get used to it.”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, The New Land

“Nobility is a lie. A pretence that high standing comes from anything more than money or martial prowess. Any dolt can play the noble, and as you'll discover in time, daughter, it's mostly dolts who do.”
― Anthony Ryan, Tower Lord

“Nothing is expensive when you promise.”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, The New Land

“Courage?" I gave a very soft laugh. "I find courage is just another of life's illusions. In the end, we all do what we must.”
― Anthony Ryan, Queen of Fire

“heroes don’t haunt
so what did that make you”
― Laura Gentile, you ate popcorn in my house of grief: transgenerational poetry

“Don't be nice. Be loyal. Nice can be faked. Loyalty can not.”
― Geoffrey Ocaya

“Treat loyal people right; else you will be surrounded by sycophants.”
― John Joclebs Bassey, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“In a world of selfie-addiction smile usually is the brand name for an essential drug called pretense”
― Munia Khan

“Power comes at a price, love," Veliss replied through bared teeth, maintaining the smile she offered to the townsfolk lining the square.
"What power?"
"All power. The power to rule, to kill, or, in your case this fine morning, the power to incite the lust of the old goat you're about to meet."
"Lust? I have no desire to incite lust in anyone."
Veliss turned to her with a quizzical expression, her smile suddenly genuine. "Then I'm afraid you're in for a lifetime of disappointment.”
― Anthony Ryan, Queen of Fire

“Be a man! Put on a mask!”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, The New Land

“Put some make-up on! Blush with shame!”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, The New Land

“(...) świat się skończył, choć zatrzymał pozory trwania. Tak wygląda prawdziwy koniec.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, House of Day, House of Night

“Beyond a shadow of a doubt, some associates are nothing but shadow friends. When adversities cast shadow over us they stop pretending and become their real selves.”
― Vincent Okay Nwachukwu, Weighty 'n' Worthy African Proverbs - Volume 1

“Time conquers all pretences”
― Oluseyi Akinbami

“she knows how to play the good part
that’s how you lose your good judgement”
― Laura Gentile, you ate popcorn in my house of grief: transgenerational poetry

“I was not innocent, and I had tired of the pretence of being so, though it had amused me for a time.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“Bad friends say nice things to your face, and then turn around and paint you black.”
― John Joclebs Bassey, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“I could not wail. Must I?
Do I need to pretend?
Please! Will somebody understand?
Can you detach me from tradition?
Please leave me alone.”
― Balroop Singh, Sublime Shadows Of Life

“When you are kind, you start appreciating weaknesses more than fame, pain more than pretense.”
― Nitya Prakash

“Pretence is beautiful if you don't stop. That is called repentance. Let the pretense go on non-stop.”
― Vincent Okay Nwachukwu

“When you need someone, don't pretend you don't need them, thinking that they will need you with time. Cos those you think may need you, might not.”
― Ojingiri Hannah

“For half an hour I kept up the pretence, but I knew perfectly well that he knew what was going on in me, or he would not have kept off the subject of the greatest importance to us both; the evening of the day before.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“There is something I don't know
that I'm supposed to know.
I don't know what it is I don't know,
and yet I'm supposed to know,
and I feel stupid
if I seem both to not know it
and not know what it is I don't know.
Therefore I pretend to know it.
This is nerve-racking
since I don't know what I must pretend to know.
Therefore I pretend to know everything.”
― R.D. Laing, Knots