I Was Fooled Quotes & Sayings

You see, we were able to give you something, something which even now no one will ever take from you, and we were able to do that principally by sheltering you. Hailsham would not have been Hailsham if we hadn't. Very well, sometimes that meant we kept things from you, lied to you. Yes, in many ways we fooled you, I suppose you could even call it that. But we sheltered you during those years, and we gave you your childhoods. Lucy was well-meaning enough. But if she'd have her way, your happiness at Hailsham would have been shattered. Look at you both now! I'm so proud to see you both. You built your lives on what we gave you. You wouldn't be who you are today if we'd not protected you. You wouldn't have become absorbed in your lessons, you wouldn't have lost yourselves in your art and your writing. Why should you have done, knowing what lay in store for each of you? You would have told us it was all pointless, and how could we have argued with you? So she had to go. — Kazuo Ishiguro

I read the story of Red Riding Hood today. I think the wolf was the most interesting character in it. Red Riding Hood was a stupid little thing so easily fooled. — L.M. Montgomery

I told him just so he wouldn't be fooled by the bright lights of Istanbul into thinking that life was somehow easy. — Orhan Pamuk

I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't. — Marilyn Monroe

I think about our marriage. The weft of our seventeen years together was so easily torn apart. Our love was as ordinary as the identical welcome mats found in the suburbs we grew up in. The fact that our bodies, our thoughts, our hearts had once moved in rhythm with each other had only fooled us into thinking we were special. — Amy Tan

O cousin Kate, my love was true,
Your love was writ in sand:
If he had fooled not me but you,
If you had stood where i stand,
He'd not have won me with his love,
Nor bought me with his land;
I would have spit into his face
And not have taken his hand.
Yet I have a gift you have not got,
And seem not like to get:
For all your clothes and wedding-ring
I've little doubt you fret.
My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride,
Cling closer, closer yet:
Your father would give lands for one
to wear his coronet — Christina Rossetti

What irritated me most in that entire situation was the fact that I
wasn't feeling humiliated, or annoyed, or even fooled. Betrayal was
what I felt, my heart broken not just by a guy I was in love with, but
also by, as I once believed, a true friend. — Danka V.

I wasn't fooled. He was avoiding looking at me. "There's nothing to talk about."
"I knew you'd say that. Actually, it was a toss-up between that and 'I don't know what you're talking about.'"
Dimitri sighed. — Richelle Mead

I lend everyone my ear,
But nobody my heart,
And I sure would like to change that,
But I don't know where to start,
I smile more to myself,
Than the world will ever see,
Because the only time my smile is real,
Is in my own company,
People don't know how I feel,
They never even ask,
It seems I have fooled them all,
They can't see past my mask,
If they were with me late at night,
When the world was still asleep,
Maybe I'd let them sort,
Through the secrets that I keep,
But when I wake at 2am,
Nobody is ever there,
And I learnt that why I hide my heart,
Is because no-one really cares. — Erin Hanson

This was why he had become a master thief, to achieve this theft of thefts, this masterpiece of larceny. All the time, fascinating and terrible Caverna had been his goal. Whilst other Cartographers had sighed in vain after the beauty of her treacherous geography, he had decided to win her with cunning and threats.

All along Caverna had been his opponent and his prize, and she had never suspected it for a moment. He had fooled her, fought her and defeated her. She would be furious, no doubt, would hate him, rail against him and look for ways to destroy him, but he had outmanoeuvred her and now she had no choice but to play things his way. Unlike her earlier favourites, he was her lord, not a plaything to be tossed aside when she was bored.

And yet, for the first time in ten years, he found himself at something of a loss. I have succeeded. I have won. I rule the city. I wonder what I was planning to do with it? — Frances Hardinge

You could have fooled me. Everytime I called you, Luke said you were sick. I figured you were avoiding me. Again."
"I wasn't. I did want to talk to you. I've been thinking about you all the time."
"I've been thinking about you, too."
"I really was sick. I swear. I almost died back there on the ship, you know."
"I know. Everytime you almost die, I almost die myself. — Cassandra Clare

What's goin' on?" I ask as I take a seat.
"Obviously not this." He tosses me my shirt from last night.
"I found it on the floor of the den. It's obvious there was some hanky-panky going on."
Okay, so he knows we fooled around. But at least he didn't find Kiara's bra on top of my shirt.
"Yeah ... things kinda got a little heated after you and Mrs. W. left the den last night," I tell him. — Simone Elkeles

From twelve stories up it was easy to be fooled by the city's rain-swept beauty, by the millions of lights twinkling in the night. But all I had to do was turn my head to see the truth: a child-whore asleep in her hospital bed. It could rain forever and the city would never be clean. — Jack Clark

It was this: the future beginning to hang thick in the air, and Henry starting a quiet, drunk conversation about whether or not Blue would like to travel to Venezuela with him. Blue replying softly that she would, she very much would, and Gansey hearing the longing in her voice like he was being undone, like his own feelings were being unbearably mirrored. I can't come? Gansey asked. Yes, you can meet us there in a fancy plane, Henry said. Don't be fooled by his nice hair, Blue interjected, Gansey would hike. And warmth filled the empty caverns in Gansey's heart. He felt known. — Maggie Stiefvater

People have always thought that I wasn't ambitious. They judged by appearances and were fooled. I was competitive. I wanted success and was willing to work for it. — Perry Como

That's why you and I had friction? God, I always thought it was 'cause, 'cause I fooled around with your daughter freshman year. — Ryan Reynolds

But there was a feeling building in me now that I hadn't felt since I'd shown up at this stupid party: I was excited. Something was going to happen. Either this would work, or it wouldn't. Either I would be spared, or I would die. Either death was something that could be fooled, outwitted, outplayed, or it was not. However things ended, I would learn something about the world in which, for the moment, I continued to live. — Alexandra Kleeman

I'm forcing us both to confront the fact that one of our most beautiful dreams was a lie. We both believed in destiny as a kind of guarantee - a promise from the cosmos that we would have our time together in virtually every world we shared. But now I see that believing only in destiny means giving up responsibility. We fooled ourselves into thinking happiness was a gift we would be given time and time again. It's so much scarier to admit that our lives are in our own flawed, fallible hands. Our futures are not kept safe for us in the cradle of fate. We have to hack them out of stone, dig them out of mud, and build them one messy, imperfect day at a time. — Claudia Gray

At last, someone was articulating exactly how I felt. Every time I was called on in class, I was sure that I was about to embarrass myself. Every time I took a test, I was sure that it had gone badly. And every time I didn't embarrass myself - or even excelled - I believed that I had fooled everyone yet again. One day soon, the jig would be up. — Sheryl Sandberg

When I was praised for my conduct I felt a guilt that in some way I was doing something that was really against the wishes of the white folks, that if they had understood they would have desired me to act just the opposite, that I should have been sulky and mean, and that that really would have been what they wanted, even though they were fooled and thought they wanted me to act as I did. It made me afraid that some day they would look upon me as a traitor and I would be lost. Still I was more afraid to act any other way because they didn't like that at all. — Ralph Ellison

I wasn't gifted. Mom was wrong. I was just smart and I worked hard. I had fooled myself into thinking that was something important to the rest of the world. Other people were complicit in this ruse. Nobody had told me I was common. — Ned Vizzini

Everything that I spent my entire life dedicated to, which is this art of mentalism, of magic ... I don't see it and feel it and experience it like I first did when I was getting involved in this art. I try to look at it as a spectator but unless I get amnesia I still can't overlook that. I can appreciate the performance but I would love to be fooled. — Criss Angel

With an exceedingly contemptuous expression, Idabel drew up to her full height. "Son," she said, and spit between her fingers, "what you've got in your britches is no news to me, and no concern of mine: hell, I've fooled around with nobody but boys since first grade. I never think like I'm a girl; you've got to remember that, or we can't never be friends." For all its bravado, she made this declaration with a special and compelling innocence; and when she knocked one fist against the other, as, frowning, she did now, and said: "I want so much to be a boy: I would be a sailor, I would ... " the quality of her futility was touching. — Truman Capote

You do realize that I never thought you had a stellar
reputation." Her teasing tone made me smile.
"What? You didn't think I was next in line for Pope? Damn, I thought I had you fooled. — Abbi Glines

Remind me again-why do you hate me so much?"
I don't hate you."
Could've fooled me."
She folded her cap of invisibility. "Look ... we're just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals."
Why?"
She sighed. "How many reasons do you want? One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is hugely disrespectful. Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her."
They must really like olives."
Oh, forget it."
Now, if she'd invented pizza-that I could understand. — Rick Riordan

I was fooled a bit during 'Laguna Beach.' I was 17, 18 years old, and I thought they just wanted to shoot a documentary, and that it probably wouldn't end up anywhere, anyway. Little did we know about the power of editing. I had no idea that it was going to be the soap drama that it was, but I picked up on that pretty quickly. — Stephen Colletti

You'd been petting a stuffed dog?' she said 'A dead one?'
'It was a really well stuffed dog' I clarified. 'I have seen some bad taxidermy. This was top-notch work. It would have fooled anyone. — Maureen Johnson

I disagree that Blood Will Out is a memoir in the conventional sense. It's the story of a relationship, primarily, not an individual. The "me" in the book is a specialized version of me, the person who Clark manipulated and fooled. I could cover the same years of my life from an entirely different perspective in another book, by concentrating on my experience as a husband, say. But I was selective. I focused on my duping. — Walter Kirn

Who was the leader of the North?"
"Lincoln."
"No, he was the president."
"Yes, which means he was the fucking leader of everyone."
Mrs. Anderson's face clouded with anger. Oops. "You won't use that language in my classroom."
"Could've fooled me," he said, "because I thought I already did. — J.M. Darhower

Coraline? Oh, there you are. Where on earth were you?' 'I was kidnapped by aliens,' said Coraline. 'They came down from outer space with ray guns, but I fooled them by wearing a wig and laughing in a foreign accent, and I escaped.' 'Yes, — Neil Gaiman

I wonder who in their right mind thought I was mature enough for this: motherhood, home ownership, a career, adulthood in general. I hope I have them all fooled, that I have any clue at all what I'm doing. — Cassandra Dunn

It's like if I blamed my Aunt Helen, I would have to blame her dad for hitting her, and the friend of the family that fooled around with her when she was little. And the person that fooled around with him. And God for not stopping this and things that much worse. And I did do that for a while, but then I just couldn't anymore. Because it wasn't going anywhere. Because it wasn't the point. — Stephen Chbosky

Well, that went well, I muttered to my cock, which had optimistically jumped up when I did. All pumped up with nowhere to go. I took it for a shower and gave it a few strokes to make it feel better, but it wasn't fooled. It knew it was just my hand tugging on it. — J.L. Merrow

And everybody was happy that uncle lee was able to get that scholarship even though you wondered when you could do quadratic equations in your head why you had a basketball scholarship but you always knew that you had to take what they were giving since that was all you were going to get but you never fooled yourself about either the taking or the giving or the needing or the having you just sort of said to yourself I'll have to see what is being offered — Nikki Giovanni

I thought you said you wre bringing a dead body in for examination. Didn't you think to check he actually was dead first?'
Gwen knew he was being sarcastic, but the tone still stung.
'Be fair, Jack,' said Owen from the doorway.'Y'know the guy had done a lot to make himself look dead: lain in a bog for forty years, decayed himself, let the worms in, shrivelled up a bit, stopped breathing, no circulation, all major organs dried up and inactive. Could've fooled anyone. — Trevor Baxendale

Don't you know? Adam wondered. He, at least, could still smell diesel fuel on his hands. Don't you know what I am?
But this flock of peacocks was too busy fooling to notice they were being fooled. — Maggie Stiefvater

I had them all fooled into believing I was normal and well-adjusted, a rock of sensibility who could always be counted on to have a positive attitude. — Sara Zarr

Burnett wasn't fooled, that was aparent by his expression, but he didn't argue, either. Well, as long as one didn't call slamming the door an argument.
"Jerk" Holiday muttered.
"I can hear you" he retorted from the other side of the wall. — C.C. Hunter

I had fooled myself into thinking that I was something important to the rest of the world. — Ned Vizzini

I was so raw I didn't know about the Lambeau Leap-a Packer player celebrates catching a touchdown by leaping into the stands. It was started by Leroy Butler years before and has been copied by players all over the league. Don't be fooled, though. The only legitimate Lambeau Leap is celebrated by a Packer at Lambeau Field. — Donald Driver

I remember still how full of bad magic all those spearpoints to be put on the ends of rifles seemed to be. One was like a sharpened curtain rod. Another was triangular in cross-section, so that the wound it made wouldn't close up again and keep the blood and guts from falling out. Another one had sawteeth - so it could work its way through bone, I guess. I can remember thinking that war was so horrible that, at last, thank goodness, nobody could ever be fooled by romantic pictures and fiction and history into marching to war again.
Nowadays, of course, you can buy a machine gun with a plastic bayonet for your little kid at the nearest toy boutique. — Kurt Vonnegut

Your file was empty. Nothing. Not even an immunization record." He didn't even pretend to look surprised. He eased back in his seat, eyes gleaming obsidian.
"And you're telling me this because you're afraid I might cause an outbreak? Measles or mumps?"
"I'm telling you this because I want you to know that I know something about you isn't right. You haven't fooled everybody. I'm going to find out what you're up to. I'm going to expose you."
"Looking forward to it."
I flushed, catching the innuendo too late. — Becca Fitzpatrick

I don't know what I'm trying to say. I don't know what any of this is really about. Why we bother. Why we're here. Why we love. I had a family, and they were everything to me, and I didn't even know it when I had them. I had a girl, and she was everything to me, and I knew it every second I had her. I lost them all. Everything a guy could ever want. I found my way home again, but don't be fooled. Nothing's the same as before. I'm not sure I'd want it to be. — Kami Garcia

Friends and family were convinced I was functioning just fine because I was efficient, productive and successful - who wouldn't be working twenty hour days? I had everybody fooled with my illness. — Andy Behrman

What about God? The idea embarrassed him. It was only in moments of absolute fear that he had ever thought about God and prayed to him, always embarrassed because he did not believe and felt so hypocritical when he prayed out of fear, as if in spite of his disbelief there might be God after all, God who could be fooled by a hypocrite. When he was a child, then he believed. He certainly did believe when he was a child. How did it go, the nightly Act of Contrition? The words came hesitantly, unfamiliarly to him. Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for - For what? — David Morrell

Sacrebleu, Clara, what are you doing to me?" he whispered. Why did she have to see so damned much? Why did she have to understand him so well, yet not understand?
"But you are not that boy, Morgan, no matter what you fear. You could never be him again. You've risen above it."
"Have I? Is that why I can be a fence so convincingly that even you were fooled?"
"That was your duty, and I understand duty. We do things for duty that we might not choose to do. Don't be ashamed of being good at what you do. I wish there were more Morgan Blakelys fighting for the soul of Spitalfields. — Sabrina Jeffries

I could scream down 90 mountains
to less than dust
if only one living human had eyes in the head
and heart in the body,
but there is no chance,
my god,
no chance.
rat with rat dog with dog hog with hog,
play the piano drunk
listen to the drunk piano,
realize the myth of mercy
stand still
as even a child's voice snarls
and we have not been fooled,
it was only that we wanted to believe. — Charles Bukowski

She was not so easily fooled. "Fell, huh?" she asked, pricking her ears. "I was trying to fly," said Star. The gray mare nodded. "Would you like Sweetroot to take a look at it? She may have some medicine to heal it." "No. It's fine." Sweetroot was Sun Herd's medicine mare, and Star saw her often enough as it was. Each morning she rubbed a mixture of marigold and comfrey across the torn ends of his wings. — Jennifer Lynn Alvarez

If one of the things people do is establish a civilization out of nature, a way out of the chaos, then Ray was failing at being a person, falling back into the glut of the physical world. He'd been fooled by life. It had triumphed over him. I wanted to call it out to him, over his wife's head, Hey Ray, life has triumphed over you. — Rebecca Lee

See, Curry, Detective Willis felt I was holding back some information and so he sulked off, like all men do when they don't get their way with women they've fooled around with. — Gillian Flynn

Am I a fool? I don't think I'm a fool. But I think I sure was fooled. — Kenneth Lay

It can take years. With the first draft, I just write everything. With the second draft, it becomes so depressing for me, because I realize that I was fooled into thinking I'd written the story. I hadn't - I had just typed for a long time. So then I have to carve out a story from the 25 or so pages. It's in there somewhere - but I have to find it. I'll then write a third, fourth, and fifth draft, and so on. — David Sedaris

Lindsey looked at him coyly "Grilling is your specialty?" She shook her head. "You really had me fooled."
He set the platter on the island, joined her near the sprawling sectional sofa in the living area, and took her in his arms. She'd never get tired of that feeling.
"Had you fooled how?" he asked.
"I thought kissing was your specialty."
Carden captivated her with his sultry gave. "Grilling ... Kissing ... " He brushed his lips over hers, teasingly light and feathery. "Take your pick, darlin;," he said in a low whisper, pulling her closer ...
"Stay tuned," he said with a rasp in his voice. "I've got a couple other specialties, too. — Tracy March

I would like to raise them as I was. I would like for them to learn naturally, effortlessly, almost without knowing it, that the love of beautiful things, critical thinking, and intellectual honesty are the three essential virtues. This way, they will like things for themselves, will judge for themselves. This way, they will be real men, as there used to be, they won't be fooled by intellectual snobs and political scoundrels. They will know how to live above and outside of a century which is only getting deeper into infamy, lies, and stupidity. I love you my dears because I know that it is because of you that I possess some of these virtues that I wish for them to have. — Sean B. Carroll

better now. And a bit like an idiot." "Why?" "It's like you said. He was just using me. It's so obvious." I see a strange twist in Corey's demeanor, and realize with surprise that he's going to start defending Nathan - not for Nathan's sake, but so that I can justify feeling fooled rather than stupid. "I don't know. Sounds — Aubrey Parker

She's half-insane, looking for an out; she's hard, she's scared, she's been fooled, taken, abused, used, over-used ...
but, under all that, to me she's the flower, I see her as she was before she was ruined by the lies: theirs and hers. — Charles Bukowski

Even Arnold's adviser says he was shocked by his decision to run. I mean, his people were backstage that night and they had no idea. He totally fooled them. Who knew Arnold was that good of an actor? If he had done that in a movie, he'd have an Academy Award by now. — Jay Leno

When I was a freshman, I fooled around with shooting free throws this way: For some reason, I thought you had to stay within the top half of that free-throw circle, so I would step back to just inside the top of the circle, take off from behind the line and dunk. They outlawed that, but I wouldn't have done it in a game, anyway. I was a good free throw shooter in college. Actually he was a 62% free throw shooter, which is poor except in comparison to his 51% as a pro. — Wilt Chamberlain

The 16 years have gone so fast. I came to Minnesota as a 19-year-old kid. Marv Grissom was the pitching coach, an old-timer who taught me quite a bit. Marv didn't like the way I stepped toward the plate. I had a tendency to throw across my body. So, he took me off to the side at Met Stadium and put a chair on the mound. If I threw across my body, I would step on the chair. Marv was trying to hurt me. I fooled him. I started stepping the right way. — Bert Blyleven

Very slowly using two fingers, Annabeth drew her dagger. Instead of dropping it, she tossed it as far as she could into the water.
Octavian made a squeaking sound. "What was that for? I didn't say toss it! That could've been evidence. Or spoils of war!"
Annabeth tried for a dumb-blonde smile, like: Oh, silly me. Nobody who knew her would have been fooled. But Octavian seemed to buy it. He huffed in exasperation.
"You other two ... " He pointed his blade a Hazel and Piper. "Put your weapons on the dock. No funny bus
"
All around the Romans, Charleston Harbor erupted like a Las Vegas fountain putting on a show. When the wall of seawater subsided, the three Romans were in the bay, spluttering and frantically trying to stay afloat in their armor. Percy stood on the dock, holding Annabeth's dagger.
"You dropped this," he said, totally poker-faced.
-Heroes of Olympus — Rick Riordan

I was kidnapped by aliens, they came down from outer space with ray guns, but I fooled them by wearing a wig and laughing in a foreign accent, and I escaped. — Neil Gaiman