Face Mask With Quotes & Sayings

One time I told her that she reminded me of that charming tale, the one with the red shoes."
Helen had always hated that story, in which a little girl who had dared to wear red shoes to her confirmation had been doomed to dance in them until she died. "You're referring to the one by Hans Christian Andersen? It's a morality tale about the wages of sin, is it not?"
His smile faded, and his gaze returned to hers, now appraising rather than dismissive. "I confess, I don't recall the moral of the story."
"No doubt it's been a long time since you've read it." Helen made her face into the inscrutable mask that had always annoyed the twins and provoked them to call her a sphinx. "The red shoes become instruments of death, after a girl yields to temptation. — Lisa Kleypas

Evil is no faceless stranger, living in a distant neighborhood. Evil has a wholesome, hometown face, with merry eyes and an open smile. Evil walks among us, wearing a mask which looks like all our faces. — Dean Koontz

Tell me, when you are alone with him [ Max Beerbohm ] Sphinx, does he take off his face and reveal his mask? — Oscar Wilde

Diane, in Jackie's mind, looked just like a woman who would be an active PTA mom, with her kind face and comfortable clothing. She also thought Diane looked like a woman who would be a loan officer, with her conservative makeup choices and serious demeanor. She would look like a pharmacist if she ever were to wear the standard white coat, gas mask, and hip waders. — Joseph Fink

She was walking toward the beauty shop when Shay came out the door moving fast. The first thing Jill noticed was Shay's hair and how it appeared really big. As Shay drew closer, Jill realized she looked like she was wearing a mask with big blue streaks over the eyes and giant red pouty lips. "What happened to you?" Jill asked in shock. "I'm not sure," Shay said, looking just as stunned. "One minute, I was reading a magazine, and the next, two women that looked like Dolly Parton descended on me like vultures. They started putting stuff on my face, then they did all kinds of things to my hair." Anne walked out of the shop next; her Napoleon hat 'do rode higher than ever. Ella followed with her little red hair ball reinflated. "Doesn't Shay just look beautiful?" Ella chirped. She looked like a hooker who'd just survived a wind tunnel, but Jill nodded and tried to smile. — Robin Alexander

What you're saying is this spider, with a brain the size of strawberry seed, hid in your car with its face covered to avoid being gassed by insect spray." He stood in front of me, laughing, peering down into my eyes. "And then, when the fumes dispersed, he set about plotting revenge. Once he'd come up with his plan, he exited your car and, even though he didn't see which direction you went in, he found the front door because he knew you were inside this house." Biting down on his bottom lip, Ric smirked. "Don't you think, if he was as smart as all that, he'd have worn a mask before he ran out from under visor so you couldn't recognise him on your doormat? — Zathyn Priest

A rogue does not laugh in the same way that an honest man does; a hypocrite does not shed the tears of a man of good faith. All falsehood is a mask; and however well made the mask may be, with a little attention we may always succeed in distinguishing it from the true face. — Alexandre Dumas

Gregori glided through the cypress trees, tall, fit,healthy. Even his clothes were immaculate. His hair was shining clean, tied at his nape with a leather thong. His silver eyes were clear, and once more his face was a mask of sensual beauty. "Gary"-the voice, as always, was of purity and strength-"please leave us for a few moments."
"Will she be all right?" Gary asked fearfully. In spite of himself, he had checked her pulse several times.
"She must be all right," Gregori said very softly.
The voice was like velvet, but there was something in it that sent a shiver of apprehension through Gary.If anything happened to Savannah,Gary realized that no one,nothing in the world,would ever be safe again from the Carpathian.He hadn't considered that before,and he had no idea where the knowledge came from, but he knew it absolutely. — Christine Feehan

I became disenchanted. My first impression, that of finding myself part of a fearless battle, passed. The trepidation at every exam and the joy of passing it with the highest marks had faded. Gone was the pleasure of re-educating my voice, my gestures, my way of dressing and walking, as if I were competing for the prize of best disguise, the mask worn so well that it was almost a face. — Elena Ferrante

There stood Dan alone, with a ninja mask pulled over his face. Fifteen hissing bottle rockets were pointed right them.
"Screaming bottle of death-jutsu!" Dan yelled. — Clifford Riley

Who was Amanda Knox? Was she a fresh-faced honor student from Seattle who met anyone's definition of an all-American girl - attractive, athletic, smart, hard-working, adventuresome, in love with languages and travel? Or was her pretty face a mask, a duplicitous cover for a depraved soul? — Tina Brown

A rioter with a Molotov cocktail in his hands is not fighting for civil rights any more than a Klansman with a sheet on his back and mask on his face. They are both more or less what the law declares them: lawbreakers, destroyers of constitutional rights and liberties and ultimately destroyers of a free America. — Lyndon B. Johnson

Faced with the numbering logic of neoliberal regimes, literature offers an intervention in order to consider identity and voice, to consider representation in both the political and artistic sense of the term... [Literature and art] cultivate tension between an unresolved past and present, between invisibility and exposure, showing the dualities of face and mask that leave their trace on identitarian struggles today. — Francine Masiello

In Ronan's hand, the mask was as thin as a sheet of paper, still warm from Adam's gasped breaths. Orphan Girl buried her face in his side, her body shaking with sobs. Her tiny voice was muffled: "Tollerere me a hic, tollerere me a hic ... "
Take me away from here, take me away from here. — Maggie Stiefvater

Cat limbs all over the floor, chewed to the bone." "Mew-Mew, Licorice!" Maripat cried. Tearfully, Augusta told them about Tiny grinning at the end of Augusta's bed, covered with blood. His little tongue hanging out, a demoniacal mask on his face, his fangs dripping with blood as he sprang for her throat just before she slammed the door shut. — Luanne Rice

I want to be oblivious to the hurt written on her face. I want to be selfish and young and normal. M would be that way. She would need space to grieve. She would rebel because her parents were simply uncool, not because one was wearing a horrifying happy mask and the other was a living ghost. She'd be distant because she was preoccupied with boys or school, not because she's tired from hunting down the Histories of the dead, or distracted by her new hotel-turned-apartment, where the walls are filled with crimes. — Victoria Schwab

Down through the years my face has been called a sour puss, a dead pan, a frozen face, The Great Stone Face, and, believe it or not, "a tragic mask." On the other hand that kindly critic, the late James Agee, described my face as ranking "almost with Lincoln's as an early American archetype, it was haunting, handsome, almost beautiful." I can't imagine what the great rail splitter's reaction would have been to this, though I sure was pleased. — Buster Keaton

Turn around and I'll help you with your mask."
He secured the ribbons, and when Annella spun around to face him, he brought her gloved hand to his lips. "You look beautiful. And you do not look like a twelve-year old girl. Make sure you stay close because you're too young to have a suitor, and I don't want to have to dissuade any men from pursuing you. — Victoria Roberts

The most frills-free airliner cannot compare with the rear of a C-130. No soundproofing, no heating, no pressurization and certainly no trolley service. The Tracker knew it would never get quieter but it would become savagely cold as the air thinned. Nor is the rear leak-proof. Despite the oxygen-delivering mask on his face, the place by now stank of kerosene and oil. — Frederick Forsyth

What is the most significant conversation you have every day?" People would respond piously, "Your conversation with God, of course." "No," Lewis would reply. "It's the conversation you have with yourself before you speak to God, because in that conversation with yourself, you decide whether you are going to be honest and authentic with God, or whether you are going to meet God with a false face, a mask, an act, a pretense. — Brian D. McLaren

The black mask, with its slittled forehead and thick, snoutlike breathing apparatus, covered the face of the man he knew as Kylo Ren. Once, he had known the face behind the mask. Once, he has known the man himself. Now, to Lor San Tekka, only the mask was left. Metal instead of a man. — Alan Dean Foster

What! Would you make no distinction between hypocrisy and devotion? Would you give them the same names, and respect the mask as you do the face? Would you equate artifice and sincerity? Confound appearance with truth? Regard the phantom as the very person? Value counterfeit as cash? — Moliere

But mostly it was justice. If they would do it to him, they would do it to anyone. Darling picked the mask up that he'd made for himself, and covered his face with it. Shaped from solid gold, it held a blank expression - justice took neither pleasure nor pain from punishment. It just was. Frigid, unfeeling, and swift. The only part of him the mask didn't conceal was his scarred mouth and his eyes. Eyes that were now as cold as the rest of him. I am retribution. For — Sherrilyn Kenyon

long, pointed nose jutted forth from its cheeks, its face more leather than stone. Like a mask. Rye did not come from a home with many rules, but the ones she lived by were absolute and unbreakable. The first House Rule flashed through her mind. HOUSE — Paul Durham

I mean honestly, who just sits around in a house with a bunch of short guys waiting for their prince to come? So your mom is a bitch and wants to kill you because her mirror told her to? Cry me a river why don't you? Your big plan is sitting around cleaning house waiting for the other shoe to drop? And speaking of shoes, everyone has been picked on by mean girls. You do not wait for some old lady to pop in and transmogrify some innocent rodents just so you can sneak in to a dance under false pretenses. And let's say you do sneak in. For the love of all that is holy take your mask off and look the guy in the face and say. "Hi, I'm Cindy from down the street, I have this thing at midnight. Can we do coffee later?" This nonsense with a shoe and searching the entire village for one girl, it's crap. — John Goode

That's what violence was: emotion leaking out from consciousness into the physical world, linking up with the muscles of the arms and shoulders and diaphragm and, inevitably, the face. Stifle emotion during an act of violence and the face becomes a blank, unreadable mask. — Ryu Murakami

A private face behind every public mask, a hidden meaning peeking through whatever words they choose to share with you. — Simon R. Green

After a certain age, we put on a mask of confidence and certainty. In time, that mask gets stuck to our face and we can't remove it. As children, we learn that if we cry we'll receive affection, that if we show we're sad, we'll be consoled. If we can't get what we want with a smile, then we can surely do so with our tears. — Paulo Coelho

Behind the mask Jackaroo wore, there could be a face of bone, its flesh long since eaten away. Jackaroo could fight as a trained soldier, with swords and shield; he could ride a horse like a Lord; and he had the knowledge of letters which only the Lords held. — Cynthia Voigt

The man screamed, and screamed behind his mask, and the Bloody-Nine laughed, and twisted the blade. Logen might have pitied him, but Logen was far away and the Bloody-Nine had no more pity in him than the winter. Less even. He stabbed, and cut, and cut, and smiled, and the screams bubbled and died, and he let the corpse drop to the cold stones. His fingers were slick with blood and he wiped it on his clothes, on his arms, on his face - just as it should be. — Joe Abercrombie

At the very moment Mrs. Bentley was smiling down upon them with her yellow mask face, around a corner like an elfin band came an ice-cream wagon. It jingled out icy melodies, as crisp and rimmed as crystal wine-glasses tapped by an expert, summoning all. The children sat up, turning their heads, like sunflowers after the sun. (Season of Disbelief) — Ray Bradbury

With none of Vader's backstory available at the time, and having just invented the Noghri species for this story, I came up with the idea that Vader might have designed his mask to look like a stylized version of a Noghri face, the better to facilitate his command of the death commando squads. — Timothy Zahn

We were in such good moods, we even decided to hit Todd's house for candy. Sam rang the doorbell, and when it opened, this hideous, rubber monster face roared at us. Sam screamed. Todd started laughing and took off the mask. I yelled, "Put it back on! Put it back on! Your hideousness is terrifying!"
Todd did a fake yuk-yuk-yuk at my joke. "What are you guys supposed to be? Is it Prom Night Massacre or something?"
Sam sighed at Todd's obvious stupidity. "We're zombie princesses, Todd. Can't you tell?" She stuck her arms straight out in front of her and said, "BRAINS! BRAINS!"
I patted Sam on the head and said, "Sorry, Sam. You're wasting your time with this one. — Kristin Walker

The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it; namely, the face we never show to the world because we cover it with the persona, the mask of the actor. — C. G. Jung

You know you're walking around with a mask on, and you desperately want to take it off and you can't because everybody else thinks it's your face. — Pat Barker

Where are you going?" "You should go down and have supper. I'll take my lodging somewhere else." "But you can't leave me alone here. You're my husband." "They've no room for me!" "Then we both go!" She walked past Erik to open door and gently pressed it shut with her palms. He didn't resist. She recognized his anger, she could see it in his scowl. Even though the mask covered his face, she knew the contours of his flesh and knew his brows were knit and heavy above his eyes. She knew because he wouldn't look at her lest his anger spill out and slam against her like the back of his hand. How fragile his control! A battle rage inside him to pacify this darkness, to keep it from swallowing them both alive. — Sadie Montgomery

In the event of a change in cabin pressure, the flight attendant on the video was saying, you put your oxygen mask on first, pulling the cord, and then you helped others in your party who needed your assistance. The video showed a nice-looking dad tugging the oxygen mask over his own face, his placid daughter sitting quietly beside him, breathing bad air.
What kind of idiot came up with that rule? The didn't understand human nature at all.
She imagined the compartment filling slowly with smoke and Noah beside her, gasping. Did they really think that she could straighten the mask on her own face and breathe in clean air while her asthmatic son struggled to take a breath? The assumption was that she and her child were two different entities with seperate hearts and lungs and minds. They didn't realise that when your child was gasping for air, you felt your own breath trapped in your chest. — Sharon Guskin

A good pump is a silhouette, like the bone structure of the face. It's like a beautiful face with no make-up. You can cover a not-so-beautiful face with make-up, but it is just a mask - it is the same with shoes. — Christian Louboutin

Yes, Keith shut up." Roberta's sly grin turned her face into a mask of pure evil. "So, let me get this straight. Miss Bitchy-Witch wants to go, no, is demanding to go to Hell and make a deal with the Devil, huh? Offering yourself in trade for a mutt and some ancient pussy? Very noble and honorable, Selena. Stupid, but just what I'd expect from a coward like you. Why fight, when you can surrender, right? Myself, I find your willingness to sacrifice your own life for those creatures rather disgusting and I don't know what Father sees in you. — Madison Sevier

Betsy's arm shot out, and my cheek suddenly stung. "What the hell?" I said, trying to figure out what had happened. A cherry-red jellybean was in my lap. I held it up. "Every time you tense up, every time you turn that handsome face into an undertaker's mask, I am going to hit you with a jellybean," Betsy explained, as if the whole thing were quite reasonable. — Gillian Flynn

The next time you stand in front of a mirror and want to scream, try to remember that God made that face. That smile. Those big eyes ... and chubby cheeks. You are His creation, called to reflect Him. Spiritual transformation doesn't come from a diet program, a bottle, a makeover, or mask. It comes from an intimate relationship with the Savior. He ... appreciates us for who we really are. So we can too. — Luci Swindoll

As she lies in the bed she weeps, for Bing, for the melting, shimmering candles, the filigree on the holiday tablecloth. She is an unwilling astronaut, bumping against the thick glass of the ship, her line tangling lazily in zero gravity, face mask fogged with fear. My sister reaches across, over the bed, and we both embrace the mother, holding her on earth, pulling her onto the ship, breathing our oxygen into her line. Ten hours later she is dead. — Jo Ann Beard

I'm not concerned with paid assassins ... mindless, soulless animals who excel at nothing else. But you, Erik ... you love all the beauty in this world ... you are a genius in so many different fields. Why do you set yourself beyond the pale of humanity by such a despicable crime?"
He took off the mask and turned slowly to let me see.
"This face which has denied me all human rights also frees me of all obligation to the human race," he said quietly. "My mother hated me, my village drove me from my home, I was exhibited like an animal in a cage until a knife showed me the only way to be free. The pleasures of love will always be forbidden to me ... but I am young, Nadir. I have all the desires of any normal man. — Susan Kay

Once this bubble of self-deception is burst and the mask that shielded her and others from what she wished to ignore is lifted, it is difficult for the woman to return to her life as it was. It has been said that "the discovery of a deceiving principle, a lying activity within us, can furnish an absolutely new view of all conscious life." This reawakened awareness changes the upscale abused woman's life forever. Suddenly, new choices stand before her. This can be a frightening and sad phase in therapy, a moment when the woman is grappling with a kaleidoscope of loss and potential future gain. Some women experience this period as the dark night of the soul. It can be sickening to face the truths one has chosen to ignore in hopes of maintaining the status quo. Even if the woman wishes to stay married, she will never perceive her life in the same way again. — Susan Weitzman

If you want something bad enough, you've got to make a bold move. Just make sure you clear the bold move with the people whose lives it's going to affect. Like George Washington, had to get all those guys who the British killed to agree to die. Neil Armstrong, had to crank a couple of elbows into Buzz Aldrin's face mask to make sure he got on the moon first. And Christopher Titus, well, he worked his dad for five grand. Ha ha. Who can't support who ? I know, it's complicated. — Christopher Titus

Pike got into the Lexus, but Larkin stepped inside the door so he couldn't close it. Her face seemed as brittle as a ceramic mask, and Pike suddenly remembered how she had looked up in the desert when she was unloading on her father. Only now she didn't seem so much angry as betrayed. Pike gentled his voice. I'm sorry if I should have discussed it with you. I didn't think it would be an issue. — Robert Crais

I suddenly recalled that it was here in the squalor and gloom of this sunken street, terrorized perhaps by a premonition of the future, that Mona clung to me and with a quivering voice begged me to promise that I would never leave her, never, no matter what happened. And, only a few days later, I stood on the platform of the Gare St. Lazare and I watched the train pull out, the train that was bearing her away; she was leaning out of the window, just as she had leaned out of the window when I left her in New York, and there was that same, sad, inscrutable smile on her face, that last-minute look which is intended to convey so much, but which is only a mask that is twisted by a vacant smile. — Henry Miller

her smile was always to me like the shining out of an angel's face from behind a mask where brave struggles with heavy sorrows had left deep imprints of mortality. — Megan Marshall

I thought of what pride would look like, a jowly old guy in a smoking jacket. Vanity was a tall, beautiful woman with a face like a mask. Envy was a treasure-hoarding dragon, dainty and diabolical. As I sketched in the dragon's face, I gave her eyebrows like mine, my turtle necklace around its scaly neck.
Xanda drew them as cliffs and valleys, irrevocably linked pride as a mountain, envy as a valley, hating its lowness and longing to reach, overtake, conquer. She drew vanity as a volcano with an abyss at its core. — Holly Cupala

A figure appears between me and the oncoming Inquisitor, moving with deadly grace. It's a boy, I think. Who is this? This boy is not an illusion - I can sense his reality, the solidity of his figure that the black sky and the locusts don't have. He is clad in a whirlwind of hooded blue robes, and a metallic silver mask covers his entire face. He crouches in front of me, every line of his body tense, his focus entirely on the Inquisitor. A long dagger gleams in each of his gloved hands. — Marie Lu

I have a very 'theatre' face. I have what they call a wide mask. I probably would have been a big film star in the '20s with the silent films where they used a lot of key lighting, and make-up carved out your face. — Faith Prince

What term do you employ when you speak of your progenitor?"
I answered with the term I'd always wanted to employ.
"Sonovabitch."
"To his face?" she asked.
"I never see his face."
"He wears a mask?"
"In a way, yes. Of stone. Of absolute stone. — Erich Segal

Because the mask is your face, the face is a mask, so I'm thinking of the face as a mask because of the way I see faces is coming from an African vision of the mask which is the thing that we carry around with us, it is our presentation, it's our front, it's our face. — Faith Ringgold

The girl's face was the color of talcum. Her uncle's was a death mask, a bone structure overlaid by parchment. Shane's was granite, with a glistening line of sweat just below his hair line. He'd never forget this night, the detective knew, no matter what else happened for the rest of his life. They were all getting scars on their souls, the sort of scars people got in the Dark Ages, when they believed in devils and black magic. ("Speak To Me Of Death") — Cornell Woolrich

Words are harsh mistresses, to be sure. Like petulant divas, they want only those parts that play to their talents and mask their blemishes, and only when complete companies of players who love their parts are assembled will they sing in harmony. I am your director for this stage production and will employ my best wiles to create a performance both truthful, and beautiful. I know that words are tricksters who show one face to you and another to me, so I am never certain you'll hear in your head what I hear in my head. Since I deliver even this little truth with words, I acknowledge the irony. — Dennis Vickers

He had a high-cheekboned face with steady gray eyes, a broad-bridged aquiline nose and a wide, thin mouth. It was the countenance of a man who was clever, as ruthless with himself as with others, possessed of courage and humor, who hid his weaknesses behind a mask of wit - and sometimes of affected coldness. — Anne Perry

What did you do to this?' he asked in a horrorstruck voice.
'It didn't want to come out of the dashboard.'
'So you felt the need to torture it?'
'You know how I am with tools. No pain was inflicted intentionally.'
He shook his head, his face a mask of faux tragedy. 'You killed it. — Stephenie Meyer

With the mask covering half her face, she could think anything and no one would know. She felt almost as if she were someone else, someone bolder, someone who could be flirtatious and carefree. Tomorrow she could go back to being sensible, to understanding that no matter how strong and noble and kind and good Jorgen was, he was still a forester and not the person her uncle - or she - would ever choose for her to marry. But for tonight, inside this formidable castle and this beautiful, palatial ballroom, she could think outrageous thoughts and imagine the impossible. — Melanie Dickerson

One evening, at the time of the Six-Day War, I [Christopher Hitchens] had my wicked way with a lovely lady, who had earlier intimated that she did not perhaps find me entirely repulsive. We procured a decent room, as I remember, at the Cadogan Hotel. Perhaps a little flown with wine, I asked her to don a Martin Amis face mask which I had - with a combination of sticky tape, elastic bands, cardboard, and a much-treasured photograph - prepared earlier. The fair damsel was happy to oblige, and thus attired she permitted me to embark on the hugely agreeable pathway to libidinous fulfillment. — Craig Brown

Remove them." Stuck in masks - for nearly fifty years. I would have gone mad, would have peeled my skin off my face. "You didn't have a mask as a beast - and neither did your friend." "The blight is cruel like that." Either live as a beast, or live with the mask. "What - what sort of sickness is it? — Sarah J. Maas

To break one's mask in the presence of someone you reject is an act of permanent separation. To say that you are finished with them in your life, so much so that you do not worry about them seeing your true face. You'll never see them again, so your secrets are nothing in their hands. — Sara Raasch

Yes, Fraulein,' he said to Hannah. 'How gauche of you to have been born in another county. It is almost a capital offense. Here in this house we believe that one must be severely punished for the happenstance of one's birth.' His face was a jester's mask of mockery, but there was a tightness about his eyes, a tense set to his smile. 'What a dilemma for the English, though- we agree with Germany on so many things, including the patent inferiority of anyone who is not US. Darling Mum, did it ever occur to you that to the rest of the world, WE are foreigners?'
'The very idea!' Lady Liripip said with a nervous titter. — Laura L. Sullivan

In our society, defecation involves an
individual in activity which is defined as inconsistent with
the cleanliness and purity standards expressed in many of our
performances. Such activity also causes the individual to
disarrange his clothing and to 'go out of play, that is, to
drop from his face the expressive mask that he employs in
face-to-face interaction. At the same time ic becomes difficult
for him to reassemble his personal front should the need to
enter into interaction suddenly occur. Perhaps that is a
reason why toilet doors in our society have locks on them. — Erving Goffman

His habitual melancholy was changing day by day into something more sinister. There were moments when he would desecrate the crumbling and mournful mask of his face with a smile more horrible than the darkest lineaments of pain. Across the stoniness of his eyes a strange light would pass for a moment, as though the moon were flaring on the gristle, and his lips would open and the gash of his mouth would widen in a dead, climbing curve — Mervyn Peake

The Clown turned his powdered face to the mirror.
"If to be fair is to be beautiful," he said, "who can compare with me in my white mask?"
"Who can compare with him in his white mask?" I asked Death beside me.
"Who can compare with me?" said Death, "for I am paler still."
"You are very beautiful," sighed the Clown, turning his powdered face from the mirror. — Robert W. Chambers

Back in the NBA's pre-mask era, ballers with busted noses or orbital bones had two unappealing options: Sit out and heal, or strap on a Michael Myers-looking opaque face shield closely related to that worn by hockey goalies. — Brendan I. Koerner

The self is who we truly are, but the persona or mask (the word comes from the Latin for an actor's mask) is the face we turn to the world in order to deal with it. A persona is absolutely necessary, but the problem is that we often become identified with it, to the detriment of our self, a dilemma that the existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre recognized in his notion of mauvaise foi, or "bad faith," when one becomes associated exclusively with one's social role. — Gary Lachman

If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask ... with nothing beneath it? — Jodi Picoult

Mal adjusted his hood to better hide his face and tipped up his mask, then reached forward and did the same with mine. He leaned in. Our jackal masks bumped snouts.
I started to laugh.
"Next time, different costumes," he grumbled.
"Bigger hats? — Leigh Bardugo

You want to fix yourself, change yourself, become someone better. But what about who you already are? You want to craft a mask to wear - something to cover your face. But you already have a face. You are already something.

Your task, as a human being, is not self-augmentation, but self-discovery. Look at yourself with curiosity. Let yourself explore your interests. Delve into your talents. Face your fears. Accept your faults, and give yourself unconditional love.

By learning to explore yourself, you will naturally become the best version of yourself. Of course, you invent your life, but you do not invent your passions. Some things, you must create, and others you must discover.

Learn to be curious about yourself. Then, you will be on the right path. — Vironika Tugaleva

Larry sat with his arm stretched out along the top of the front seat. His shirt cuff was pulled back by his position and displayed his slim, strong wrist and the lower part of his brown arm lightly covered with fine hairs. The sun shone goldly upon them. Something in Isabel's immobility attracted my attention, and I glanced at her. She was so still that you might have thought her hypnotized. Her breath was hurried. Her eyes were fixed on the sinewy wrist with its little golden hairs and on that long, delicate, but powerful hand, and I have never seen on a human countenance such a hungry concupiscence as I saw then on hers. It was a mask of lust. I would never have believed that her beautiful features could assume an expression of such unbridled sensuality. It was animal rather than human. The beauty was stripped from her face; the look upon it made her hideous and frightening. It horribly suggested the bitch in heat and I felt rather sick. — W. Somerset Maugham

We're wearing masks, all of us, all of the time. We're presenting a face, a version of ourselves, to the world, to each other. We show a different face depending on who we're with and what they expect of us. Even when we're alone it's just another mask, the version of ourselves we'd prefer to be. — S.J. Watson

[Listening to a song] one could experience a freedom from one's physical body, and from one's social body - the mask you wore to go about in public among those who thought they knew you, an unchosen mask of nervousness and tradition, the mask that, when owrn too long, makes the face behind it shrivel up and rot away. For some, a spinning record opened up the possibility that one might say anything, in any voice, with any face, the singer's mask now a sign of mystery. — Greil Marcus

He does not wear a twitching, mobile, human face, but rather a mask, as it were, with its features in dignified equilibrium; he does not shout, nor does he even change his tone of voice. If a veritable storm-cloud empties itself on his head, he wraps himself in his cloak and slowly walks away from under it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

It was as if he had two faces, one of utmost calm, one of furious action; and he wore both with ease. He was like the animal whose face he wore, able to sit in silence for hours, without moving a muscle, then flying like a raging storm into battle, returning again to perfect calm when the fight was over. — Kaoru Kurimoto

Holocausts do not amaze me. Rapes and child slavery do not amaze me. And Franklin, I know you feel otherwise, but Kevin does not amaze me. I am amazed when I drop a glove in the street and a teenager runs two blocks to return it. I am amazed when a checkout girl flashes me a wide smile with my change, though my own face had been a mask of expedience. Lost wallets posted to their owners, strangers who furnish meticulous directions, neighbors who water each other's houseplants - these things amaze me. — Lionel Shriver

Get out." Marcus' eyes went freezing cold, his face as hard mask, the cleaned but unstitched slash making him look far more dangerous. "I don't want to deal with this carp right now."
"I've never gotten in, so how the hell can I get out? — Joey W. Hill

I would like to ask one favor though, if that's not too much," he said.
I wonder what he saw on my face, because something flickered across his own face in response. But, before I could identify it, he'd composed his features into the same serene mask.
"Anything," I vowed, my voice faintly stronger.
As I watched, his frozen eyes melted. The gold became liquid again, molten, burning down into mine with an intensity that was overwhelming.
"Don't do anything reckless or stupid," he ordered, no longer detached. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"
I nodded helplessly.
His eyes cooled, the distance returned. — Stephenie Meyer

Blake climbed in her passenger seat and pushed his mask up to reveal his face - even with the sun out! Livia kissed him and kissed him and kissed him. When she started her car, she was sure her cheeks would crack from smiling so much. — Debra Anastasia

Without a mask to shape us, what would we face anyone with? — David David Katzman

His mother had always been a headstrong woman, and with her grayish-white mane and unsmiling face, she appeared as regal and intimidating as she had ever been. Still, seeing her through other people's eyes, Hanfeng realized that all that made her who she was - the decades of solitude in her widowhood, her coldness to the prying eyes of people who tried to mask their nosiness with friendliness, and her faith in the notion of living one's own life without having to go out of one's way for other people - could be deemed pointless and laughable. Perhaps the same could be said of any living creature: a caterpillar chewing on a leaf, unaware of the beak of an approaching bird; an egret mesmerized by its reflection in a pond, as if it were the master of the universe; or Hanfeng's own folly of repeating the same pattern of hope and heartbreak, hoping despite heartbreak. — Yiyun Li

I'd thought once, actually, of taking your mind, if you asked. I'd thought I could help you fall asleep at night."
He opened his mouth to say something. Shut it again. His face closed for a moment, his unreadable mask falling into place. He spoke softly. "But that wouldn't be fair; for after I slept you'd be left awake, with no one to help you sleep. — Kristin Cashore

All serious poker players try to minimize their tells, obviously. There are a couple ways to go about this. One is the robotic approch: where your face becomes a mask and your voice a monotone, at least while the hand is being played. . . . The other is the manic method, where you affect a whole bunch of tics, twitches, and expressions, and mix them up with a river of insane babble. The idea is to overwhelm your opponents with clues, so they can't sort out what's going on. This approach can be effective, but for normal people it's hard to pull off. (If you've spent part of your life in an institution, this method may come naturally.) — Dan Harrington

Human life
that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams. — Oscar Wilde

We know the original relation of the theater and the cult of the Dead: the first actors separated themselves from the community by playing the role of the Dead: to make oneself up was to designate oneself as a body simultaneously living and dead: the whitened bust of the totemic theater, the man with the painted face in the Chinese theater, the rice-paste makeup of the Indian Katha-Kali, the Japanese No mask ... Now it is this same relation which I find in the Photograph; however 'lifelike' we strive to make it (and this frenzy to be lifelike can only be our mythic denial of an apprehension of death), Photography is a kind of primitive theater, a kind of Tableau Vivant, a figuration of the motionless and made-up face beneath which we see the dead. — Roland Barthes