Pretense Quotes

“The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is the pretense of intelligent ignorance. The former is teachable; the latter is not.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“When things are like hunky dory, every enemy comes in the name of friend, but when things are twisted like turmoil, every friendly enemy shows you their colour.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Dying Detective - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story

“As they walked out of the store, Ifemelu said, “I was waiting for her to ask ‘Was it the one with two eyes or the one with two legs?’ Why didn’t she just ask ‘Was it the black girl or the white girl?’”
Ginika laughed. “Because this is America. You’re supposed to pretend that you don’t notice certain things.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“It is better to lack the semblance of honor but possess it than to possess the semblance and lack the honor.”
― Lynn Flewelling, Traitor's Moon

“How much self-love comes in the guise of selfless devotion!”
― Susan Sontag, The Volcano Lover

“It was thus, Archer reflected, that New York managed its transitions; conspiring to ignore them till they were well over, and then, in all good faith, imagining that they had taken place in a preceding age.”
― Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

“My correspondence has certainly the charm of variety, and the humbler are usually the more interesting. This looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor

“We seldom look like the way we look like when people we like are looking.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Like that breeder-woman sitting at the bar, who thinks it's a buzz to go into a gay joint and has no doubt heard somewhere that this is one. Her lurid get-up's a joke, ludicrous. She's the type who dons the camouflage-green combat trousers, wraps a bandanna around her head and paints herself with black lipstick, imagining all the lesbians in the joint'll have the hots for her. Not so much imagining as secretly hoping.

Naturally, no one goes and sits with her. She's been here before, and everyone gives the ice-cold shoulder, yet she still turns up again and again. Someone might argue we're zoo animals for her. But I've another theory. For her, we're noble savages, a kind of grey area outside the respectable, minutely organized community, an untamed wilderness it takes a lot of guts to step into. But if you do dare, there's a glorious smell of freedom floating around your trousers and giving the finger to society, making whoever an instant anarchist. Certainly, for her, coming here is like putting a washable tattoo on your shoulder : there's the thrill of deviance with none of the dull commitment - and she'll never have to wonder whether she's too weird to be seen out before dark.”
― Johanna Sinisalo, Troll: A Love Story

“The Jews have made him [Yahweh] the assassin of the human species, to make room for the religion of the Jews. The Christians have made him the murderer of himself, and the founder of a new religion to supersede and expel the Jewish religion. And to find pretence and admission for these things, they must have supposed his power or his wisdom imperfect, or his will changeable; and the changeableness of the will is the imperfection of the judgement.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“Nor have I any idea why Said should consider Orwell’s life a ‘comfortable’ one. Having taken a bullet through the throat, and while suffering from a demoralising and ultimately lethal case of TB, he lived on an astonishingly low budget and tried whenever possible to grow his own food and even to make his own furniture. Indeed, if there was anything affected about him, it might be his indifference to bourgeois life, his almost ostentatious austerity.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Employment is an employee’s kissing of an employer’s ass. A salary is the employer’s pretense to be cleaning his ass.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“To put an arrogant 'famous' singer in her place: pretend to be deaf.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“To give herself a measure of credible autonomy, she had decided to invent a husband. Then, in a subsequent flash of inspiration, she had just as quickly killed him off.”
― Tracy Anne Warren, The Accidental Mistress

“To put an arrogant 'famous' writer in his place: pretend to be illiterate.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“That dung flop?” Nakita said, her dislike almost visibly dripping into nasty puddles at Amy’s designer flats. “Yes, I guess. That doesn’t mean I have to like him.”

“I know what you mean.” Amy faked a heartfelt sigh. “I have a brother too.” The girls behind her giggled when she pushed past me to Barnabas. “I’m Amy,” she said, smiling as she extended her hand.”

“Barnabas,” the reaper said as he darted past me to give Nakita a sideways hug to avoid having to shake Amy’s hand. “This is Nakita. She’s my favorite sister. We’re from Norway.”
― Kim Harrison, Once Dead, Twice Shy

“Everyone is watching you. If you don’t believe it, just pretend to fail and you’ll see many mockers. For this reason, work hard as if you are doing everyone’s business!”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Daily Drive 365

“The vice president (Nixon) seems like a man who is acting like a nice man rather than being one.”
― Ann Whitman