I Just Can't Pretend Quotes & Sayings

With my writing, I generally just pretend that no one's reading it. I allow myself that delusion so that I can write the things that I write. — Roxane Gay

The way I see Jesus has not changed much at all since I was a child, but my imprisonment and all that followed made me love Him even more. His being the Son of God makes sense to me, because I believe God to be loving, just, forgiving, and merciful. I also believe that He respects free will. After all, He has given it to us so that we can choose to love or hate Him, do good or evil. But is it fair for a loving God to sit on His throne in Heaven and let us struggle and suffer on our own? Would any good father abandon His children this way? It makes perfect sense to me that God decided to come among us, live like us, and die a horribly painful death after being tortured. This is a God I can love with all my heart. A God who sets an example. A God who has bled and whose heart has been broken. This is who Jesus is to me. I don't pretend that I understand the Holy Trinity. But I understand love and sacrifice. I understand faithfulness. — Marina Nemat

When I was a little girl, I used to walk around with a towel on my head, pretending I was a nun. And then one day my mother said, 'Why don't you just become an actress, and then you can pretend you're a nun.' — Olivia Hussey

Do you know, I am putting off ending this letter as though the end would be the end of something I want to hold on to. That's not true of course - just a feeling like the quick one of hexing your trip so you couldn't go. The mind is capable of any selfishness and it thinks unworthy things whether you want it or not. Best to admit it is a bad child rather than to pretend it is always a good one. Because a bad child can improve but a good one is a liar and nothing can improve a liar. — John Steinbeck

These people also tended to pretend to care deeply about the blind and otherwise disabled. I am sympathetic to the needs of those users, but I can't help but think that those who claimed to speak for the blind were being more than a little disingenuous, just like those Hemp people who present their arguments in terms of their deep and abiding care for the textile industry, when their real motives are ... something else entirely. — Jamie Zawinski

I know you're picturing gold candlesticks and infinity pools, but this place they made isn't decadent, no, it's rustic in the way only a rich person's place can be, with money flowing under it invisibly, so that they get to pretend they're just like the rest of us. — Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

You, you buy into all this stuff about good guys and bad guys in the world. A loan shark breaks a guy's leg for not paying his debt, a banker throws a guy out of his home for the same reason, and you think there's a difference, like the banker's just doing his job but the loan shark's a criminal. I like the loan shark better because he doesn't pretend to be anything else, and I think the banker should be where I am sitting right now. I'm not going to live some life where I pay my fucking taxes and fetch the boss a lemonade at the company picnic and buy life insurance. Get older, get fatter, so I can join a men's club in Back Bay, smoke cigars with a bunch of assholes in a back room somewhere, talk about my squash game and my kid's grades. Die at my desk, and they'll already have scraped my name off the office door before the dirt's hit the coffin. — Dennis Lehane

I'm picky. Not so much about looks, although even there I'm kind of picky. It's more that I can't pretend some guy is interesting when he's not. If he's immature, I'll probably tell him so. Within five minutes of knowing him. And if he looks ridiculous dressed up like some wannabe, I'll probably say that, too, or more likely just steer clear of him. — Katherine Applegate

My God
life! Who can understand even one little minute of it?'
'Don't try,' he said. 'Just pretend you understand.'
'That's
that's very good advice.' I went limp. — Kurt Vonnegut

We do live in an unsafe world. That's the truth. I'm dealing with that now, with my seven-year-old. He's grappling with the fact that the world is unsafe, and that there are people who do harmful things. I don't think there's anything wrong with presenting that idea. We can't lie to our children and pretend that the world is perfect, and everybody's happy, and everybody's out there to do good. It's just part of a bigger conversation. — Gwyneth Paltrow

Pretend to be a delinquent?" I asked clarifying.
"You can do it," Dave advised me. "Just don't smile, and try to look like you're considering stealing something. — Sarah Dessen

Macy: "Listen, I can't pretend to be the queen of good advice, here. I've had more boyfriends than I can count, and I'm not so sure that's any better than not having any. But I do know this. When you find someone who makes you smile and laugh, when you find someone who makes you feel safe, you shouldn't let that person go just because you're afraid."
Elle: "And you're not afraid of it ending?"
Macy: "Sure I am, But I'd rather have something this good for a little while than have nothing forever — Megan Hart

I can't pretend that I'm just a friend ... 'cause I'm thinkin' maybe we were meant to be. — Janno Gibbs

With Jackie it's totally different. She might be young but her soul speaks to mine. Her soul is bright yet weathered, having endured so much and come out of it still willing to shine. With her I can just be myself. I don't have to pretend. I don't have to guard myself. Maybe I should but if I did then I couldn't feel half of what I'm feeling. — Karina Halle

Truth is, I just shrug and soldier on. As kind as I am, as well-meaning and helpful as I try to be, I have no feelings finally, for good or ill. In the depths of my being, no matter what happens, I am left cold, impenetrable to remorse, to grief, to happiness, though I can pretend well enough even to the point of fooling myself. I am trying to say I am finally, terribly, unfeeling. My soul resides in a still, deep, beautiful, emotionless, calm cold pond of silence. — E.L. Doctorow

Don't tell me that. I've lived in hell for the past thousand years. I spent a thousand years wishing I'd never been born. She's the only thing that's made my life worth living and if that's all I get, a few months with her- a few days, it's more than I've ever hoped for. Do you really think God would forgive me for the blood on my hands, even if my soul was free? I'm going to hell no matter what happens. Let me have my pathetic hopeless love while I can. Just- let me pretend it will turn out alright. — Maggie Stiefvater

Sheila taught me a survival technique for getting through seemingly intolerable situations-boring lunches, stern lectures on attitude or time management, those necessary breakup conversations, and the like: maintaining eye contact, keep your face inscrutable and masklike, with your faintest hint at a Gioconda smile. Keep this up as long as you possibly can, and just as you feel you are about to crack and take a letter opener and plunge it into someone's neck, fold your hands in your lap, one nestled inside the other, like those of a supplicant in a priory. Now, with the index finger of your inner hand, write on the palm of the other, very discreetly and undetectably, "I hate you. I hate you. I hate you ... " over and over again as you pretend to listen. You will find that this brings a spontaneous look of interest and pleased engagement to your countenance. Continue and repeat as necessary. — David Rakoff

I go straight in very close to people and I do that because it's the only way you can get the picture. You go right up to them. Even now, I don't find it easy. I don't announce it. I pretend to be focusing elsewhere. If you take someone's photograph it is very difficult not to look at them just after. But it's the one thing that gives the game away. I don't try and hide what I'm doing - that would be folly. — Martin Parr

Seems like just yesterday, you were a part of me. I used to stand so tall, I used to be so strong; your arms around me tight, everything felt so right - unbreakable, like nothing could go wrong. Now I can't breathe. No, I can't sleep; I'm barely hanging on. Here I am, once again, I'm torn into pieces. Can't deny it, can't pretend, just thought you were the one. Broken up, deep inside, but you won't get to see the tears I cry. — Kelly Clarkson

Can I jump in your body and make out with my wife through you?"
I fought a grin. "It doesn't really work that way."
"Then can you just make out with my wife and pretend I'm in your body?"
"No."
"I can pay. I have money."
"How much we talking? — Darynda Jones

Sometimes when things happen you just let them go, one by one, because it's easier. You pretend they don't mean as much as they do. I should've had my eyes open about that, but you can't go back and second-guess things. It's just that when we sat around and thought about the things we really loved, which you do when you're away at war, mostly what came to me were experiences. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

Behind my door at home, that's when I'm relaxed, and that's when I can allow the emotions or whatever - to feel just what I want to feel - so a lot of people don't know me in that respect. I need a bit of space, a bit of a place to come home to and not have to pretend or perform anymore, where I'm just myself. — Deborah Mailman

I don't even pretend we can occupy the Lib Dem holier-than-thou, hands-entirely-clean-and-entirely-empty-type stance. No, we are getting our hands dirty, and inevitably and totally understandably we are being accused of being just like any other politicians. — Nick Clegg

Because you decided I couldn't take it!" I shout. "You kept the truth from me because you thought I couldn't handle it. You were so wrong! I can take it straight up! That's what hurts me the most. I'm not some fragile thing that needs to be treated like a glass house. It's humiliating and it just pisses me off that you pretend like I'm not strong. I get that you're a man...you feel the need to protect me. I get that you're afraid and my strength feels dangerous to you. And you know what? It should feel that way, because it is. It's power. — Elisa Marie Hopkins

I'm not forcing you to do anything. You need to make your own damn decisions . And I'm not playing this game where we ignore reality and pretend to have a normal conversation for a few hours. You need to face reality and stop turning life into a movie. I'm not a puppet in your show. This is real life and you're always trying to ignore it for some cheap fantasy version where no problems exist. That's not noble of you, okay? You're not strong. You're a weak person like the rest of us. You've just learned to excel at avoiding issues. But there are issues . Life has so many freaking issues and if you can't force your own self to face life and make decisions without someone telling you what the hell to do, you're just going to end up another chess piece moved around by others. — Marilyn Grey

Being the only stranger at dinner with a group of girls who are already close friends doesn't sound appealing at all. I'll have to pretend to laugh at stories I don't get about people I don't know. I'll probably stuff my face just to have something to do while they all gab about their ninth-grade English teacher or some other inside joke that makes me feel like an outsider. It's hard to know how to behave in those situations. You can jump right in, asking "Who?" and "Where was this?" or you can sit back and let them have their laughs. I almost always opt for the latter, sometimes to my detriment. What I think is letting them have their fun, they might takes as she-thinks-she's-too-cool. — Rachel Bertsche

Doremus was amazed, felt a little apologetic over his failure to have appreciated this new-found paragon, as he sat in American Legion Hall and heard Shad bellowing: "I don't pretend to be anything but a plain working-stiff, but there's forty million workers like me, and we know that Senator Windrip is the first statesman in years that thinks of what guys like us need before he thinks one doggone thing about politics. Come on, you bozos! The swell folks tell you to not be selfish! Walt Trowbridge tells you to not be selfish! Well, be selfish, and vote for the one man that's willing to give you something - give you something! - and not just grab off every cent and every hour of work that he can get! — Sinclair Lewis

You want to go out with me?" I question while wearing a
teasing smile. "Well, usually I think it's only fitting we go
out on a real date seeing as we've already been out to
Walmart and all. I don't take girls there until at least the
second or third date . . . but you're special, and since our
little trip together today was sort of our date number three,
we can just pretend tonight will be date number four." He
grins. — Michelle A. Valentine

Seemingly on a whim, he put his hands on my shoulders, leaned forward, and kissed me too. The pressure of his lips on mine made my heart skid helplessly inside my chest. I shut my eyes and kissed him back ...
I stepped away from him taking a deep breath to clear my mind. "Okay, just because I might at some point have your baby, it doesn't mean you can kiss me whenever you want."
He smiled, self-satisfied ... "Here's another thing you need to learn about women, Stets. They might pretend to like the bad-boy Robin Hood types, but they can't resist hick-town boys. — Janette Rallison

I can't pretend this isn't important. I can't act like it doesn't exist. It's ironic, but true. There are a lot of things I'm really good at keeping secret. But I've learned I'm not too good at that with you. I can't pull it off. I don't want to just hook up. I don't want a secret relationship."
"Well, that's a relief," I said, grabbing for both of his hands and holding on for dear life.
Doubt started giving way to recognition, but he needed to hear it. "Why's that?"
"Because I'm really sick of secrets. — Diana Peterfreund

Pretend you're me, she says. I can barely see her over the frothy mound.
And it happens just like that.
A feeling of sinking, a falling deep inside.
And I'm her.
And this is my house, and Matt French is my husband, tallying columns all day, working late into the night for me, for me.
And here I am, my tight, my perfect body, my pretty, perfect face, and nothing could ever be wrong with me, or my life, not even the sorrow that is plainly
right there in the center of it. Oh, Colette, it's right there in the center of you, and some kind of despair too. Colette
that silk sucking into my mouth, the weight of it now, and I can't catch my breath, my breath. — Megan Abbott

Obscenities ... I think a lot of dumb people do it because they can't think of what they want to say and they're frustrated. A lot of smart people do it to pretend they aren't very smart - want to be just one of the boys. — Andy Rooney

Here's what I think, Mr. Wind-Up Bird," said May Kasahara. "Everybody's born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. I have one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it gets out of hand. It swells or shrinks inside me, and it shakes me up. What I'd really like to do is find a way to communicate that feeling to another person. But I can't seem to do it. They just don't get it. Of course, the problem could be that I'm not explaining it very well, but I think it's because they're not listening very well. They pretend to be listening, but they're not, really. So I get worked up sometimes, and I do some crazy things. — Haruki Murakami

I'm too young for a man, but I'm too old for a boy. So, can't we just pretend, that I'm older than I really am, but then, only little girls pretend. — Tori Amos

I can't pretend to know what love is. It just is. — David Levithan

Naw, I say. Mr , can tell you, I don't like it at all. What is it to like? He git up on you, heist your nightgown round your waist, plunge in. Most times I pretend I ain't there. He never know the difference. Never ast me how I feel, nothing. Just do his business, get off, go to sleep.
She start to laugh. Do his business, she say. Do his business. Why, Miss Celie. You make it sound like he going to the toilet on you.
That's what it feel like, I say.
She stop laughing. — Alice Walker

The truth is, yes, you were... altered for many years. But I think the worst thing you could do is pretend like it never happened. It did. Sometimes, terrible, awful things happen to people, things you can't predict or wish for differently that happen just the same. But you can't let them consume you. You can't wish it away. All you can do is pray you've learned from it, that it's made you stronger, and that you will move on. I bought this dress because it's beautiful, but also because it's you. I felt like if you wore it, embraced who you are and what you've been and done... it will help you move on. — Heather Lyons

This entire time I'd been thinking about where my home was. At first it was California, then Wisconsin. But in truth, home isn't necessarily where you sleep at night.
It's where you feel like yourself.
Where you're most comfortable.
Where you don't have to pretend, where you can just be you.
I had finally reached that place because Macallan is home to me. — Elizabeth Eulberg

It's who I am. I can't just pretend to be some normal kid. That won't work either. They'll never leave me alone. But here's what I know: a block is a strike, and the more an adversary thinks he has succeeded, the more devastating the strike will be. — Jacques Antoine

A warm burning sensation fl ashed in her breasts, and she pressed them with backs of her wrists to stop the milk before it fl owed.

"Ugh, I'm letting down. We'll have to make this fast so I can go pump in the bathroom. I'm used to nursing every couple of hours."

The horror in Felix's eyes was so intense it seemed painful. "Pretend you didn't just say that."

"Say what? I didn't say anything."

He shook his head in disgust. — Shannon Hale

Let me tell you what I think about your fucking rules," he said, his voice dripping with venom as he pushed past Liam. "You sit up in your room and you pretend like you want what's best for everyone, but you don't do any of the work yourself. I can't tell if you're just a spoiled little shit, or if you're too worried about getting your pretty princess hands dirty, but it sucks. You are fucking awful, and you sure as hell don't have me fooled ... You talk about us all being equals, like we're one big rainbow of peace and all that bullshit, but you never once believed that yourself, did you? You won't let anyone contact their parents, and you don't care about the kids that are still trapped in camps your father set up. You wouldn't even listen when the Watch kids brought it up. So what I want to know is, why can't we leave? ... What's the point of this place, other than for you to get off on how great you are and toy with people and their feelings? — Alexandra Bracken

Just this minute, I'll settle for an apology, she decided. And I wont' board the boat without one. Even if Kaz isn't sorry, he can pretend. He at least owes me his best imitation of a human being. — Leigh Bardugo

If you want proof that 'Catfish' was real, just put me in an audition room and watch me fall apart. I can't pretend. I'm really bad at it. That's partly what makes me good at hosting a reality show. — Nev Schulman

Why can't I do it?" [Isabel] asked ... .
"Do what?"
"Just forget about everything. Just go somewhere and get smashed and pretend like there are no problems or consequences. I know why. Because there are still problems and consequences. And going and
and
partying doesn't make them go away. I feel like I'm the only sane person in the world. I don't get why this whole world runs on stupidity. — Maggie Stiefvater

My past made me who I am today. I can't just pretend it never happened. But the biggest lesson I learnt from that, is that I can be an example for others who are still struggling! There's always hope and help for everyone. I think it's my responsibility to do that, to help. I always refer to this as the "moment of clarity". It's hard to explain what really happened, but it was a once in a lifetime kind of moment. I had reached my lowest point and I just knew things had to change quickly because there was just no other way, you know. — Cory Monteith

Sometimes I imagine that Tack and I will just crap out - flake on the whole war, the struggle, the resistance. Say good-bye and see you never. We'll go up north and build a homestead together, far away from everyone and everything. We know how to survive. We could do it. Trap and hunt and fish for our food, grow what we can, pop out a whole brood of kids and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. Let it blow itself to pieces if it wants to.
Dreams. — Lauren Oliver

Believe me, I wish I could give you what you want. I have thought about it so many times, but I can't just do it. Maybe I could pretend for a while, but then I wouldn't be being honest with you. We have always been honest with each other. — Jayson James

Why don't I just pretend I'm on camera, Plutarch?" I say.
"Yes! Perfect. One is always much braver with an audience," he says. "Look at the courage Peeta just displayed!"
It's all I can do not to slap him. — Suzanne Collins

For me it was just exciting to see fake news catching on like that. We don't you know, it's interesting. I think we don't make things up. We just distill it to, hopefully, its most humorous nugget. And in that sense it seems faked and skewed just because we don't have to be subjective or pretend to be objective. We can just put it out there. — Jon Stewart

It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh - I really think that requires spirit.
It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skillfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh - also if I win. — Jean Webster

When people are skilled at adopting free traits, it can be hard to believe that they're acting out of character. Professor Little's students are usually incredulous when he claims to be an introvert. But Little is far from unique; many people, especially those in leadership roles, engage in a certain level of pretend-extroversion. Consider, for example, my friend Alex, the socially adept head of a financial services company, who agreed to give a candid interview on the condition of sealed-in-blood anonymity. Alex told me that pretend-extroversion was something he taught himself in the seventh grade, when he decided that other kids were taking advantage of him. "I was the nicest person you'd ever want to know," Alex recalls, "but the world wasn't that way. The problem was that if you were just a nice person, you'd get crushed. I refused to live a life where people could do that stuff to me. I was like, OK, what's the policy prescription here? ... — Susan Cain

This entire time I've been thinking about where my home was. At first it was California, then Wisconsin. But in truth, home isn't necessarily where you sleep at night. It's where you feel like yourself. Where you're most comfortable. Where you don't have to pretend, where you can just be you. — Elizabeth Eulberg

You want us to hunt down and extract information from the officer?"
She shook her head. "Something better."
"Pray tell, little ghost."
"Send me in her place."
He stared.
Kestrel said, "I'll pretend to be her."
"Please understand. When I look at you as if you're crazy, it's not that I judge you for your insanity."
"I fit in her armor. I'm her size. I'm Valorian."
"You don't look like her. Just because you're Valorian doesn't mean the officer at the relay station won't notice that you're a completely different person."
"It's night. I can report to the officer while keeping my distance."
"I'm going back to sleep. Wake me when you're sane. — Marie Rutkoski

Can't you get flowers from the evil flower shop?" "Yes," I whispered, "but then they'd be evil flowers. C'mon, Bentley, try to keep up." "You know that charming tic, Daniel, where you start making jokes in a dangerous situation, and we all pretend we don't know you're doing it in order to cover up how nervous you are?" "What about it?" I asked. "I was just asking if you were aware of it." "Nope," I said. — Craig Schaefer

Sometimes I just want to go in a room and break things and scream. Like, it's so much pressure all the time and if you get upset or angry, people say, 'Are you on the rag of something?' And it's like I want to say, 'No. I'm just pissed off right now. Can't I just be pissed off? How come that's not okay for me?' Like my dad will say, 'I can't talk to you when you're hysterical.' And I'm totally not being hysterical! I'm just mad. And he's the one losing it. But then I feel embarrassed anyway. So I slap on that smile and pretend everything's okay even though it's not. — Libba Bray

Surgery has warped the faces of every woman over thirty; they don't look younger, just not quite human in a way society has decided to pretend not to see. Half of the people are talking more to the holograms from their rings or badges than they are to the people around them. What conversation I can hear is mostly gossip: who's shagging who, who's making money, who's losing it, who's not invited to the next party like this. Maybe the technology is different, but the shallowness of the scene is probably universal. So this is the life my father escaped when he chose to go into science, to leave Great Britain and join Mom in California. He was even smarter than I knew. — Claudia Gray

You don't have to pretend with me, you know.' He reaches out and tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. His expression is so open and honest I feel it like a sucker punch. 'I used to pretend, all the time, so I can spot it a mile away. If you're feeling shit, then just say so. I don't need to know the reason, it might be none of my business - '
'I'm feeling shit. — Ellie Marney

Don't touch me. Don't tell me how beautiful my eyes are, how
soft my hair is, how you love to hear my voice. Don't. Don't pretend
you are falling in love with me. I know you are lying, and every
word you say hurts even more. Let us just be friends, if we can start
there. Can't we? Can't we at least be friends? Get to know each
other a little? Before the wedding, and the bedding, when I will
have to take you as my lord and husband? — Melissa De La Cruz

M. That's what I call her, this normal, nonexistent me. It's not that I've never done those things, kissed or danced or just "hung out." I have. But it was put-on, a character, a lie. I am so good at it - lying - but I can't lie to myself. I can pretend to be M; I can wear her like a mask. But I can't be her. I'll never be her. — Victoria Schwab

Eyes speak louder than words; life is precious; hate is poison; God is the best of all possible friends; silence and time are valuable treasures; happiness can be just as powerful in pretend; and soft licorice is a temptation in any color, especially exotic black. — Richelle E. Goodrich

I know your first impulse is going to be to send the bracelet back, but why? That undead cholo boyfriend of yours can't afford to get you anything nice for Valentine's Day, so just pretend it's from him. It can be our little secret, like the other little secrets we have from him ;-)
Love always,
Paul — Meg Cabot

I think that divorce is hard for anyone. It's a nightmare - it just is - and you can pretend you're fine. And [there are] days you're great [and] days you're not great. — Nicole Kidman

Literature is impossible, in exactly this sense: every new generation has so much 'catching up' to do that the real choice that presents itself soon is the following one: one either spends ones entire life just reading all the classics, or one pretends to be 'contemporary and hip' and never reads any of the classics because in order to pretend to be contemporary one has to at least superficially read the works of contemporaries. Hence the dilemma: one either does not care about being fashionable, or one is fashionable and just learns to mimic some knowledge about the classics. As time develops this rift just becomes bigger, because the amount of books written grows and grows to insane proportions. Conclusion: one can only be hip in the future if one does not read at all, which is a phenomenon I am already witnessing in the media. — Martijn Benders

I can't understand how people can have grown up in the eighties, amidst all this competitive spirit, gangster battles, hiphop - and still pretend that artists are 'colleagues' that should be bloody nice to each other. I mean that's like the 60's, not the 80's. I grew up with the idea of putting a cap in the ass of bad rhyming niggers. So that's what i did. And they all started frontin me, copycats and dinosaurs, but they have nothing on me. To me, the house generation of the 90's is excused - I never pick fights with these ecstasy heads. I just wanna bury all the dinosaurs that don't get ill. — Martijn Benders

Every character lives in ever actor and if you're doing your job right, you're just accessing that part of your fantasy life. I can kill someone just as quickly as I can have sex with someone. You can switch that instinct, no matter what - you can pretend anything. — Matthew Lillard

Hopefully we'll get to a point where there are absolutely no restrictions on any kind of violence in movies. I'd love to see us get to a point where you can go to theaters and see movies unrated and that people know its not real violence. It's all pretend. It's all fake. It's just acting. It's just magic tricks. — Eli Roth

Just put the stone in your pocket, then leave me in an empty room so I can gaze out at all the Edgleys and laugh. Or maybe I'll pretend to be a ghost and haunt Beryl - Echo-Gordon (Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing With Fire) — Derek Landy

In some mysterious way, in all his brokenness, he reveals to us our own brokenness, our difficulties in loving, our barriers and hardness of heart. If he is so broken and so hurt and yet is still such a source of life, then I, too, am allowed to look at my own brokenness and to trust that I, too, can give life to others. I do not have to pretend that I am better than others and that I have to win in all the competitions. It's okay to be myself, just as I am, in my uniqueness. That, of course, is a very healing and liberating experience. I am allowed to be myself, with all my psychological and physical wounds, with all my limitations but with all my gifts too. And I can trust that I am loved just as I am, and that I, too, can love and grow. — Rick Santorum

I think what's happened, Marlee, is that you've realized the world isn't an addition problem. We tell kids that sometimes. We pretend the world is straightforward, simple, easy. You do this, you get that. You're a good person and try your best, and nothing bad will happen. But the truth is, the world is much more like an algebraic equation. With variables and changes, complicated and messy. Sometimes there's more than one answer, and sometimes there is none. Sometimes we don't even know how to solve the problem. But usually, if we take things step by step, we can figure things out. You just have to remember to factor the equation, break it down into smaller parts. — Kristin Levine

You're not actually falling for him, are you?" he asks her one day, on one of the rare occasions he can get her alone.
"I'll pretend you didn't just ask that," she tells him in disgust. But Connor has reasons to wonder.
"On that first night here, he offered you his blanket, and you accepted it," he points out.
"Only because I knew it would make him cold."
"And when he offers you his food, you take it."
"Because it means he goes hungry."
It's coolly logical. Connor finds it amazing that she can put her emotions aside and be as calculating as Roland, beating him at his own game. Another reason for Connor to admire her. — Neal Shusterman

The best I can manage is to pretend that I don't notice him - which is like saying I have never once noticed the sky, or the itchy feel of grass against my legs, or the pelt of wind through an open car window. He's something you just have to notice - there's no overlooking about it — Holly Schindler

But when you get down to it, it's all a lie. You sit here writing and writing, but no one can see it - that's arrogant, I told you so before. And you aren't even honest enough to let yourself be what you are - everything's divided off and split up. So what's the use of patronising me and saying: You're in a bad phase. If you're not in a bad phase, then it's because you can't be in a phase, you take care to divide yourself into compartments. If things are a chaos, then that's what they are. I don't think there's a pattern anywhere - you are just making patterns, out of cowardice. I think people aren't good at all, they are cannibals, and when you get down to it no one cares about anyone else. All the best people can be good to one other person or their families. But that's egotism, it isn't being good. We aren't any better than the animals, we just pretend to be. — Doris Lessing

I'm just a girl from Flatbush, Bo. There's nothing special here.""You're so wrong.""I know what people think. To friends and family I'm sweet and helpless. To guys I'm a body.""Your body is spectacular. I'm not going to pretend I don't see that. But I can have any body. You've lit something inside me. And it's you, not your assets.""You don't know me. We've hardly scratched the surface.""That's why I need time. I want to know your story, your dreams, your longings. Every part I see makes me want more." He was speaking her own desire to understand him, because his real self called to her more strongly than anyone she'd known , even people she'd known for years. — Kristen Heitzmann

They're like little boys, men. Sometimes of course they're rather naughty and you have to pretend to be angry with them. They attach so much importance to such entirely unimportant things that it's really touching. And they're so helpless. Have you never nursed a man when he's ill? It wrings your heart. It's just like a dog or a horse. They haven't got the sense to come in out of the rain, poor darlings. They have all the charming qualities that accompany general incompetence. They're sweet and good and silly, and tiresome and selfish. You can't help liking them, they're so ingenuous, and so simple. They have no complexity or finesse. I think they're sweet, but it's absurd to take them seriously. — W. Somerset Maugham

I never want to hold myself up as the poster child of the successful mother-businesswoman. It's a total 'Gong Show.' I won't pretend. When you do so many things, something always suffers. You just can't be great at everything. — Candice Olson

I kept going deeper and deeper into this world of repetition ... The sad thing is, people don't want to believe that the person they're in love with is out of his mind, drinking and using, so if you give them even half an excuse, they're going to want to believe it. A girl with no prior exposure to the disease had to be blissfully unaware of the nefarious tricks of the dope fiend. That's how I was able to get high all summer and autumn and pretend like it wasn't happening. I was saying, 'I'm sick.' I was deteriorating physically and emotionally. Jaime was tolerant, and it did speak well of her character, because she was not the type to abandon ship during a crisis. She didn't consider backing off or bowing out, she was just there, which I can't say about everybody. I don't know if I could say it even about myself. — Anthony Kiedis

It's a dreadfully long monster of a book, and I certainly won't have time to read it, but I'm giving it a thorough skimming. The authors are utterly incompetent - no sense of style or structure at all. It starts out as a detective story, switches to science-fiction, then goes off into the supernatural, and is full of the most detailed information of dozens of ghastly boring subjects. And the time sequence is all out of order in a very pretentious imitation of Faulkner and Joyce. Worst yet, it has the most raunchy sex scenes, thrown in just to make it sell, I'm sure, and the authors - whom I've never heard of - have the supreme bad taste to introduce real political figures into this mishmash and pretend to be exposing a real conspiracy. You can be sure I won't waste time reading such rubbish. — Robert Shea

no one can recover if they won't admit the wrongdoings.
i won't recover if i pretend it was all sunshine.
i have to remember his vindictive temper and realize that sheltering the house from the storm wasn't actually going to make a difference if i still got damaged in the process. because then it's just another broken house with no one to tell its story. — Taylor Rhodes

Say that you love me. You don't have to mean it. You can lie. Just say it so I can pretend for a little while
Fen to Malick - Weregild — Carole Cummings

I have very high standards for every part of life - my work, my relationships, food, love. I can't just pretend. — Olivia Wilde

I'm not going to pretend that I know what you've gone through. But after reading those pages, I can assure you that you aren't the only one who was scarred in that fire. Just because he chose not to show you his scars doesn't mean they don't exist. — Colleen Hoover

Sometimes I have to act crazy to handle the crazies. Trying to be normal near the crazies makes me as crazy as them. The more I push reason and logic on them, the more they pervert it and use it against me, the angrier they make me feel. It's much easier to pretend they're ghosts talking to the wind, and ignore them as if they weren't really human. My mood improves, my self-esteem is better and I feel happier. On another hand, maybe I'm just being realistic here, because you can't really talk to the dead. That's what people without respect or empathy are; dead in the brain; just walking bodies without a soul. — Robin Sacredfire

June Afternoon"

Didn't I tell you everything is possible in this deja vu?
Try the river boat, the carousel, feed the pigeons, Bar-B-Q.
Look at all the people, happy faces all around.
Smiling, throwing kisses, busy making lazy sounds

It's a bright June afternoon, it never gets dark.
Wah-wah! Here comes the sun.
Get your green, green tambourine, let's play in the park.
Wah-wah! Here comes the sun

Some folks are on blankets, slowly daydreaming
and reaching for their food.
Let's go buy an ice-cream and a magazine with an attitude
and put on a cassette, we can pretend that you're a star
cos life's so very simple just like la-la-la

It's a bright June afternoon...

There's a painter painting his masterpiece.
There are some squirrels jumping in the trees,
There's a wide-eyed boy with a red balloon.
All my life I've longed for this afternoon. — Roxette

I'm sitting in front of the TV, watching Jerry Springer, and it makes me think of how many mad people there are in the world, and whether everyone is mad deep down, they just pretend they're not, and it's the people in asylums or on Jerry Springer who are the honest ones. I have a notebook and a chewed-up pen, and I'm trying to think of a topic for the Youth Issues speech. Mrs Thomas says she thinks I have a lot to say, but I don't. Nothing I can put words to anyway. I could talk about bullying, or alcoholism, but I don't think I could speak about that out loud, it's too real, and it'd be like I was standing up there naked. More than naked. It would be like my skin was all peeled off and I was just standing there with my heart all bloody and thumping in my rib cage for everyone to see. — Megan Jacobson

If you're 5' 6", just stay home. Don't pretend you're 5' 8" or 5' 9". If you want to be a beauty model, I guess that's fine, you can do glamour, but you're not going to do runway. If you're over 29 - 26, even - I would suggest you work regionally and not try to work nationally. — Kelly Cutrone

My secret love, Billy Colbert, had to make up the same test.
Afterward, we left the chemistry lab together. 'Well, it was long,' Billy said, 'but it wasn't hard.'
'I thought it was long *and* hard,' I replied.
'Oh, cut it out, Rachel,' Billy remonstrated. 'If there's one thing I can't stand, it's brains who pretend they suffer just as much as the rest of us.'
'I'm not a brain in chemistry,' I protested. 'If I get good grades in science or math, it's because I work. You're the brain in chemistry. I hate that word, brain, anyway. Everyone has a brain, and they're all about the same size, even a moron's. — Barbara Cohen

Here's a question I still can't answer: Did I see through the male tricks because I was destined to scheme that way myself? Or do girls see through the tricks, too, and just pretend not to notice? — Jeffrey Eugenides

I could try to pretend that I didn't care anymore, but it could never be true again. You can't just make yourself matter, and then die, Alaska, because now, I am irretrievably different, and I'm sorry I let you go, yes, but you made the choice. — John Green

Of course I can read", he said. "Jesus Christ."
"Well, then, what are you trying to tell me? That you don't want to?"
"No. I-" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose.
"-I don't know why I'm trying to tell you anything. I can read. I just can't read book."
"So pretend it's a really long street sign and muddle through it. — Rainbow Rowell

The question I ask myself is: have I really just become a squeamish middle-aged man, or has something happened to the horror genre that shows a growing appetite for watching torture, or at least a desire to explore it on film? And if so, why would that be? I can't pretend I know. I just know I don't like it. — Mark Gatiss

We kiss to say hello, to stave off silences, to show how much we've missed someone, to show we're glad to be with them. We kiss to stop arguments or to interrupt a conversation we no longer want to have. We also use kisses when we want to pretend that everything is all right. I've been doing a lot of that lately. But it turns out that some things just can't be kissed better. — Ali Harris

There is much debate in this country over abortion. I have always found it puzzling. There are the right-to-lifers who say that abortion is the equivalent of murder. Then there are those who say a woman's right of free choice must be preserved. What has always struck me as odd is that each side is convinced that only it is right, and the other is wrong.
I feel they are both wrong. No one should take away another person's right to choose. And no one should kill an unborn infant. Of course I could just as easily say both sides are right, but I won't. It's a paradox that can't be resolved. I think it is better to admit that than pretend there is a resolution. — Christopher Pike

I know it all, and I still love you." That is the convicting, convincing, liberating truth that comes from an encounter with Christ: all is known; there is no need to pretend anymore. I wrestled with that truth. It's hard to lay aside a mask when it looks just like you, and you have worn it for so long that you can't remember what you look like without it. — Sheila Walsh

I mean: if you're going outside to look for your sister, I get it." Max goes silent. Maybe Mirjam's death is hitting him now, maybe his voice will choke - but he goes on. "But if you're going outside to help your mother . . ." He gestures helplessly at my injured arm. His fingers stop a centimeter away, hovering in midair. "Don't risk it. Don't risk you."
"She's my mother."
"The captain will never let her on if she doesn't even try. Not when there are so many people who haven't had thechance to try. People we can use on the ship. People who have been on that waiting list forever."
There are a dozen things I want to say. But she's mymother - as though that means as much as people pretend it does.
She is trying, just in a different way - as though I'm convincing myself.
I wasn't on that waiting list, either.
I might not be someone the ship can use, as much as I'm trying to be. — Corinne Duyvis

Zombies have got to do a lot of hanging around together
weaklings, liars, cheaters. Everybody respects them these days, everybody thinks that if they don't respect them it means they're against civil liberties or something, but I can only sympathize with them a little, but only a little; I can't respect them, they bore me
their everlasting bawling about their tricky little sadnesses and deprivations of childhood bore me. You've introduced me to some of the people you know. I don't dislike any of them, but I really can't pretend I believe in any of them, or that they don't bore me. And in being critical of them of course I'm being critical of you, too, at least for having them as friends. There are other people around, too, you know, not just the ones who start by giving up, and then just hang around to see what giving up leads to. It leads to being a zombie of one sort or another. — William, Saroyan

Let's pretend for just one moment that could actually happen. You close your eyes and I'll close mine and let's dream the same dream across the Atlantic, lighting up the darkness between us. Can you see it, Stu? Can you see us up there, shining in all the black? — Annabel Pitcher

If I die unexpectedly can everyone just do the right thing and pretend I was a way better person than I am? — Anna Kendrick

All I can do is stand still- I feel like if I just stand still, I can stop it from being true, I can pretend that everything is all right. — Veronica Roth

Isn't there a mirror someplace where you can go admire yourself?"
"I never knew a woman so hung up on my good looks."
"All your women are hung up on your good looks. They just pretend it's your personality. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

It's just a party. You eat some food and drink a beer and pretend you don't want to be crawdad fishing," Angie said.
"No, it's an echo chamber of sycophants and I can't listen to some bimbo recite her newest purchases while pretending I don't want to throw myself from the roof. — Mary Jane Hathaway