I May Pretend Quotes & Sayings

Our men have been real Frenchmen, and their wives
I may say it
have been worthy of them. You may see all their portraits at our house in Auvergne; every one of them an "injured" beauty, but not one of them hanging her head. Not one of them had the bad taste to be jealous ... These are great traditions, and it doesn't seem to me fair that a little American bourgeoise should come in and pretend to alter them, and should hang her photograph, with her obstinate little "air penche — Henry James

The world is rather shot to pieces (end of World War II), 1945), but the spectators climb out of their caves and pretend to have again become normal and customary humans who ask each other's pardon instead of eating one another or sucking each other's blood. The entertaining folly of war evaporates, distinguished boredom sits down again on the dignified old overstuffed chairs ... May I report about myself that I have had a truly grotesque time, brim-full with work, Nazi persecutions, bombs, hunger, and again and again work - in spite of everything (using his bed sheets as canvas — Max Beckmann

I do not pretend that I have led a blameless life, or that one fault justifies another, but the public in judging a case like mine should remember that the darkest life may now have a bright side — Ned Kelly

Come on, don't pretend like you don't want Aiden to do that to you. You two have so much chemistry if you don't do it pretty soon you may combust and kill us all." That makes me laugh. "Maybe, but if she's really your future wife, you should wait a little. I mean, what would you tell your kids?" "I'd tell them Mom's ass looked so good in her bikini I couldn't help myself. My sons will understand. — Jillian Dodd

Where are your clothes? And do not pretend you do not know. I can accept that you may not know if you killed a man, but every girl always knows where her clothes are. — M.R.C. Kasasian

It is because the critics are not detached that they do not see this detachment; it is because they are not looking at things in a dry light that they cannot see the difference between black and white. It is because they are in a particular mood of reaction and revolt that they have a motive for making out that all the white is dirty grey and the black not so black as it is painted. I do not say there are not human excuses for their revolt; I do not say it is not in some ways sympathetic; what I say is that it is not in any way scientific. An iconoclast may be indignant; an iconoclast may be justly indignant; but an iconoclast is not impartial. And it is stark hypocrisy to pretend that nine-tenths of the higher critics and scientific evolutionists and professors of comparative religion are in the least impartial. Why should they be impartial, what is being impartial, when the whole world is at war about whether one thing is a devouring superstition or a divine hope? — G.K. Chesterton

This is me. Despite our long separation, I know you. You may pretend to be fine, but I don't buy it." He stopped her from moving by putting his hands on her shoulders. He pulled her closer to him. She didn't resist that much this time. He slid his arms around her and was surprised when she wrapped her arms around him as well. "I miss you," he whispered in her hair, dropping a light kiss there. She smelled so good. Her scent reminded him of all the things he missed about her. How had he ever been so stupid to let her go? — Nikki Lynn Barrett

The medieval doctors of divinity who did not pretend to settle how many angels could dance on the point of a needle cut a very poor figure as far as romantic credulity is concerned beside the modern physicists who have settled to the billionth of a millimetre every movement and position in the dance of the electrons. Not for worlds would I question the precise accuracy of these calculations or the existence of electrons (whatever they may be). The fate of Joan is a warning to me against such heresy. — George Bernard Shaw

I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil; the fool is too much of a fool, or the devil too much of a devil - I don't know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place - and whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won't pretend to say. But most of us are neither one nor the other. The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells, too, by Jove! - breathe dead hippo, so to speak, and not be contaminated. — Joseph Conrad

The fool says 'I never intended to kill. I meant only to wound.' But I tell you that if you prick a finger with a poisoned thorn you may not claim innocence when the heart dies. Do not plant a weed and pretend surprise when it grows to strangle your garden. For, I tell you that hate is to kill, for from hatred grows death as surely as life grows from love. Therefore do not nurture hatred, but love, even for those who hate you in return. Hatred wins many battles, and yet love will triumph. — Michael Grant

When I am home alone I like to scatter my tackle across the floor and play with it. I may pretend I am working on it, performing preventative maintenance, but really it is playing. — Howell Raines

When a job is undertaken from necessity, or from a grim sense of disagreeable duty, the worker is self-consciously aware of the toils and pains he undergoes ... But when the job is a labor of love, the sacrifices will present themselves to the worker
strange as it may seem
in the guise of enjoyment. Moralists, looking on at this, will always judge that the former kind of sacrifice is more admirable than the later, because the moralist, whatever he may pretend, has far more respect for pride than for love ... I do not mean that there is no nobility in doing unpleasant things from a sense of duty, but only that there is more nobility in doing them gladly out of sheer love of the job. — Dorothy L. Sayers

I always think of the character as being me. But me wearing a 'coat', which may be a different way of speaking, moving or regarding other people. To me, acting is pretending, just like kids playing, only you pretend as if it were really, really real. — Fred Melamed

Much, much later, Kate and I lay in the middle of the bed, on top of the covers. A tangled mess of limp limbs and sweaty skin.
I like this part.
That may be pansy to admit, but let's be real. Kate's name is tattooed on my frigging arm. Trying to pretend like she doesn't have my balls in her purse? Really kind of useless at this point. — Emma Chase

I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them. — Bertrand Russell

Then I felt too that I might take this opportunity to tie up a few loose ends, only of course loose ends can never be properly tied, one is always producing new ones. Time, like the sea, unties all knots. Judgements on people are never final, they emerge from summings up which at once suggest the need of a reconsideration. Human arrangements are nothing but loose ends and hazy reckoning, whatever art may otherwise pretend in order to console us. — Iris Murdoch

They are not so hypocritical as to pretend that they are without standards - or without likes and dislikes. But they do not moralize and they do not seek to change behavior by evoking guilt. Thus, they do not say, "Only a sick person would do that." Or, "Do you know how immoral you are?" Or, "Until you acknowledge your depravity, I can't help you." Or, "Not very bright, are you?" When we bombard people with our evaluations of their character, intelligence, and the like, we may intimidate but we do not inspire growth, confidence, or self-respect. — Nathaniel Branden

Old age. I don't know when it really starts, and I'm not interested in finding out. Julia pretty much ignored the whole thing, and that may be the only real lesson there is for the end of our days. Just pretend like it isn't happening, until you have no choice but to accept reality. If you're lucky, like Julia, you'll die peacefully in your sleep after having enjoyed a dinner of onion soup. — Karen Karbo

If you take this life to be simply what old religious folks pretend (I mean the effete, gone to seed in a drought, mere human galls stung by the devil once), then all your joy and serenity is reduced to grinning and bearing it. The fact is, you have got to take the world on your shoulders like Atlas, and "put along" with it. You will do this for an idea's sake, and your success will be in proportion to your devotion to ideas. It may make your back ache occasionally, but you will have the satisfaction of hanging it or twirling it to suit yourself. — Henry David Thoreau

I am a broken person. And I know exactly where my cracks are and how deep they run. I don't pretend to not be a broken person and therein lies the big difference. Because the truth is, we are all broken in places, but it is those who know exactly where and how they are broken, who also know exactly where and how they are whole! And we may not be whole in all places and in all ways, but we take whatever wholeness that we do have, and we make good of it. And we try hard to work on the broken parts, and we ask for help when we need it. — C. JoyBell C.

I don't pretend to be wise, but I am observing, and I see a great deal more than you'd imagine. I'm interested in other people's experiences and inconsistencies, and, though I can't explain, I remember and use them for my own benefit. — Louisa May Alcott

These little things make all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrong
too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness. I take it no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil. The fool is too much of a fool or the devil too much of a devil
I don't know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place
and whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won't pretend to say. But most of us are neither one or the other. — Joseph Conrad

I am not in the habit of forgiving."
"Perhaps you might make an exception this time."
"I don't know why I should."
"Consider my injuries." The dent deepened anew. "Perhaps I am already sufficiently punished."
She tried not to smile. "I won't apologize for that."
"I never expected you to. Now may we put this unfortunate episode behind us and instead pretend to be two people who happened to become acquainted over spilled champagne?" "Why should we pretend that?"
"It's either that or the pitchfork." His dark eyes glimmered.
"All right. But don't do it again."
"Kiss you in the stable or defend you from tabbies?"
The heat was back in her face. "Either."
"I believe I can promise that." He bowed again. "Good night, madam." He walked away.

-Ravenna & Vitor — Katharine Ashe

Aloneness and all-oneness is our authentic nature. We are always alone and all-one. We came into this planet alone and all-one. We will leave alone and all-one. And also during our whole staying in this world, no matter how we engage in relationships, we continue to be alone and all-one, though we may forget about it or pretend it is not the case.
True love has nothing to do with the idea that someone is the other half of my soul and that I need him or her in order to be whole and feel complete. Only when we can be alone and all-one with someone there is true love, regardless of whether that someone is still with us or not.
And yet ... I miss you ... — Franco Santoro

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

Lady Kingsley, when you read this, do attempt to keep an open mind."

"I will if you will," she retorted hotly.

To her surprise, he chuckled. "I daresay neither of us will. It's a pity, too, because if we could ever see our way clear to agreeing on a matter, we might accomplish a great deal of good in this world."

It infuriated her that he could pretend to care even one whit for these boys. "Now you've confused me. I'd assumed that your reason for serving on so many charitable boards was to further your political aims. Yet all the time you were merely hoping to accomplish some 'good in this world.' How very astonishing."

Just that quickly, his amusement vanished. "While I don't pretend to be as morally superior as you and your late husband, my intentions are good, no matter what you make of them. It may shock you to learn that those of us with character flaws sometimes do as much good as those of you without. — Sabrina Jeffries

Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place- whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won't pretend to say. — Joseph Conrad

How many times have I gone back to the border of memory and peered into the darkness beyond? But it is not only memories that hover on the border. There are all sorts of phantasmagoria that inhabit that realm. The nightmares of a lonely child. Fairy tales appropriated by a mind hungry for a story. The fantasies of an imaginative little girl anxious to explain to herself the inexplicable. Whatever story I may have discovered on the frontier of forgetting, I do not pretend to myself that is the truth. — Diane Setterfield

Many partners of addicts have told me they feel bad about themselves for staying in the relationship because of the betrayal they've experienced. They imagine that the people who know their past judge them to be stupid for staying with the person who's caused them so much pain. I often counter this thinking, explaining that leaving may seem quick and easy because they can pretend they're okay and the problem has disappeared. However, if you leave your relationship, you'll be stuck with your pain and sorrow without the person you loved to help you sort it out. Why is this true? Because even though it feels as if your pain comes from your partner, it's actually coming from inside you. — Alexandra Katehakis

As for myself, I can only exhort you to look on Friendship as the most valuable of all human possessions, no other being equally suited to the moral nature of man, or so applicable to every state and circumstance, whether of prosperity or adversity, in which he can possibly be placed. But at the same time I lay it down as a fundamental axiom that "true Friendship can only subsist between those who are animated by the strictest principles of honour and virtue." When I say this, I would not be thought to adopt the sentiments of those speculative moralists who pretend that no man can justly be deemed virtuous who is not arrived at that state of absolute perfection which constitutes, according to their ideas, the character of genuine wisdom. This opinion may appear true, perhaps, in theory, but is altogether inapplicable to any useful purpose of society, as it supposes a degree of virtue to which no mortal was ever capable of rising. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

You all say the same thing. When something bad happens, everyone tells you to forget about it. But, I don't think you can forget that easily. You may be able to pretend you've forgotten, but I don't think anyone can completely forget. — Fuyumi Soryo

The truth is, I pretend to be a cynic, but I am really a dreamer who is terrified of wanting something she may never get. — Joanna Hoffman

I've heard that you're the cat's whiskers, M. Poirot."
"Comment? The cat's whiskers? I do not understand."
"Well that you're It."
"Madame, I may or may not have brains - as a matter of fact I have - why pretend? — Agatha Christie

I do not pretend to give such a sum; I only lend it to you. When you shall return to your country with a good character, you cannot fail of getting into some business, that will in time enable you to pay all your debts. In that case, when you meet with another honest man in similar distress, you must pay me by lending this sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with such another opportunity. I hope it may thus go through many hands, before it meets with a knave that will stop its progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money. — Benjamin Franklin

Love, then, must be true to the ones we love and to ourselves, and also to its own laws. I cannot be true to myself if I pretend to have more in common than I actually have with someone whom I may like for a selfish and unworthy reason. — Thomas Merton

In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him. — Thomas Huxley

You may be right. I think it was round about Christmas when I got my Welsh dragon tattoo."
At that, Tessa had to try very hard not to blush. "How did that happen?"
Will made an airy gesture with his hand. "I was drunk ... "
"Nonsense. You were never really drunk."
"On the contrary - in order to learn how to pretend to be inebriated, once must become inebriated at least once, as a reference point. Six-Fingered Nigel had been at the mulled cider - "
"You can't mean there's truly a Six-Fingered Nigel? — Cassandra Clare

Do you not know? Dolls are nothing until someone decides to pick them up and use them. During that time they are whatever they are expected to be. Whatever is commanded of them. You say I am not a doll, but like everyone else that is exactly what you want me to be. A lovely toy you may amuse yourself with... But remember, General, that when playtime is over and the doll has been returned to her shelf, the pretty shell you see? That is what she really is. Everything else is pretend. — Roselynn Cannes

I don't want to talk about it!"
"Fin!" he shouted back. "I'll do the talking. I love you, and by damn I'm not ashamed of it, and you may not have as much baggage as I do, but don't pretend you don't have some with all those losers you attached yourself to."
"Only two!"
"And only two for me, so we're even!"
"Not even close!" They were fifteen feet apart and she was still screaming. "My two were self-centered assholes! Yours were homicidal nutcases!"
"Kenley wasn't homicidal!"
"Close enough. And all I did after my breakups was watch Big Bang reruns and gain five pounds! That's not the same as doing penance for the rest of your life." — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

It's the same with menus and men and just about anything else: we think we're choosing things for ourselves, but in fact we may not be choosing anything. It could be that everthing's being decided in advance and we pretend we're making choices. Free will may be an illusion. I often think that. — Haruki Murakami

We spend our days studying and simulating experiences we may never actually have. It's all pretend, really, but we are learning. And that, I think, is the point: learning. — Chris Hadfield

Look, Nathaniel. Men may not always be the way they are today. They may change. And, if they do, you have to carry on; you have to take the dream and keep it going. You'll have to pretend that you are men." "Us dogs," Nathaniel pledged, "will do it." "It won't come for thousands and thousands of years," said Grant. "You will have time to get ready. But you must know. You must pass the word along. You must not forget." "I know," said Nathaniel. "Us dogs will tell the pups and the pups will tell their pups." "That's — Clifford D. Simak

Indeed, cousine, I should rather you were a sincere Satanist than a pretend one; for the former recognizes God's majesty, and may be reformed, while the latter is an atheist, and doomed to the Lake of Fire. — Neal Stephenson

Failure cannot be erased. It is built in to a life and helps us grow. Failure cannot be erased, but it can be understood.
Most people carry around a load of feeling that they bury or pretend is not there because it is too painful and alarming to cope with or because it involved unbearable guilt. Anger against a parent, for example.
I knew the tide of woe was rising, that woe that seizes me like anger, and is a form of anger, and I didn't know what to do to stop it, so I got up and picked flowers, cooked my dinner, looked at the news, all the same usual routine that can ward off the devils or suddenly clear the air as when a thunderstorm seems to be coming and then dissipates ... .it always happens when there is a galaxy of problems that get knit together into one huge outcry against the sense of being abandoned or orphanhood ... — May Sarton

It seems to me like this. It's not a terrible thing - I mean, it may be terrible, but it's not damaging, it's not poisoning, to do something one wants. It's not bad to say: My work is not what I really want, I'm capable of doing something bigger. Or I'm a person who needs love, and I'm doing without it. What's terrible is to pretend that the second rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better, It would be very bad i I said, out of guilt or something: I loved Janet's father, when i know quite well I didn't. Or for your mother to say: I loved Richard. Or I'm doing work I love ... — Doris Lessing

It is often useful, if an enemy happens to see you, to pretend that you have not seen him. Or it may sometimes be useful to pretend that you have other men with you. I did this once in the Boer War when, having crept up a donga to look at a Boer fort, I was seen by the enemy, and they came out to capture me. — Robert Baden-Powell