Mask With Quotes & Sayings

And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry,
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream. — John Milton

That is why it has been repeatedly noticed that the human life is a theatre where the mask show takes place, and we are merely the actors of that show, having entirely identified ourselves with the masks and fooling not only others, but first of all ourselves. — Arvydas Sliogeris

For 'Blue Jasmine,' I made a decision not to wear any make up in the last shot of the film, as I felt like she had such a mask on - I thought it would be a good idea to leave her with nothing and become completely transparent. — Cate Blanchett

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

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

A soul does not benefit from the sacrament of confession if it is not humble. Pride keeps it in darkness. The soul neither knows how, nor is it willing, to probe with precision the depths of its own misery. It puts on a mask and avoids everything that might bring it recovery. — Mary Faustina Kowalska

We are never completely contemporaneous with our present. History advances in disguise; it appears on stage wearing a mask of the preceding scene, and we tend to lose the meaning of the play. — Regis Debray

And who shall you be once you don your grand disguise?"
"La luna," she said with a smile.
"Then I shall be la notte to your moon" Archer lifted the hard black mask he held and slipped it over his thinner silk one — Kristen Callihan

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

If one falls in love with a mask when one is masked oneself ... which of you will first have the courage to raise it? — Lawrence Durrell

I thought by masking the depression with silence, the feelings might disappear. — Sharon E. Rainey

Does you costume involve leather?" she'd asked. and he'd said, "Actually, yeah, it might."
it really did. it involved a leather dog collar, leather pants and a leash, and the leash was held by Ysandre, who was in skintight red rubber, from neck to knee high boots. she'd topped it off with a pair of devil horns and a red tridant.
she'd made Shane her dog, complete with furry dog mask.
***"Breathe," Myrnin said. "I'm not much for it myself, but i hear it's quite good for humans."*** — Rachel Caine

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

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

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

I wouldn't say one is easier or more difficult, but when you're inside a costume and a mask, you have to endure heat - and, often, difficulty seeing. The vision is not very good in a mask. And you have to cope with that, as well as trying to think about this character. — Warwick Davis

To cover his tracks and mask his erotic withdrawal, he took pleasure in good-naturedly dirty stories and mildly ambiguous allusions, all delivered loudly and with laughter. The mother was his best ally, ever quick to support him with smutty remarks that she would pronounce in some exaggerated, parodic manner, and in her puerile English. Listening to the two of them, Irena got the sense that eroticism had once and for all turned into childish clowning. — Milan Kundera

People who are obsessed are raw with God; they do not attempt to mask the ugliness of their sins or their failures. Obsessed people don't put it on for God; He is their safe place, where they can be at peace. — Francis Chan

Dark here comes quickly. He undresses and slips into his silky cold sleeping bag. Up above, the clouds mask the stars and the moon alone glows like a strange pearl. Somewhere, he thinks, cherishing his last thought before sleep, somewhere, out there, the last tiger stands with her back to the rising wind and slowly shakes herself awake. — Julia Leigh

The moment I realized that God existed, I knew that I could not do otherwise than to live for him alone ... Faith strips the mask from the world and reveals God in everything. It makes nothing impossible and renders meaningless such words as anxiety, danger, and fear, so that the believer goes through life calmly and peacefully, with profound joy- like a child, hand in hand with his mother. — Charles De Foucauld

Alone with myself and my talent, I chose it in some way I never had before. I chose myself also. The person I was and had been all along, the one who had not belonged to the place where she was born, nor to the places she found along the way, the one always under the mask, here she came out and breathed the air and felt at home. I had always believed that to be this person might destroy me or the world, and so as the world seemed to end, this made the end of the world seem nearly a paradise. — Alexander Chee

A woman growing up under American ideas of liberty in government and religion, having never blushed behind a Turkish mask, nor pressed her feet in Chinese shoes, cannot brook any disabilities based on sex alone, without a deep feeling of antagonism with the power that creates it. — Susan B. Anthony

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

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

We do not feel that ordinarily, do we? What we feel, instead, is an identification of ourselves with our ideas of ourselves - I would rather say, with our image of ourselves. That is the person, or the ego. You play a role; you identify with that role. I play a role called Alan Watts. And I know very well that it is a big act. I can play some other roles besides Alan Watts if necessary, but I find this one is best for making a living. But I assure you that is a mask and I do not take it seriously. The idea of my being a kind of guru, or savior of the world just breaks me up, because I know me. Besides, it is very difficult to be holy, in the ordinary sense. — Alan W. Watts

No matter how I want things to stay the same, no matter how discomforting change can be, I am stuck with the certainty that all molecules vibrate; all things are in constant motion; and change will happen. I can either accept that truth or suffer depression when I do not accept the reality that surrounds me. Change is constant; I am not the same person today as the person who put his head down on the pillow last night. Iron Mask — David W. Earle

I could only nod as emotions rolled in like a destructive storm. This was it. It was over. My incredible time with this beautiful talented man was up. I had to clench my teeth and swallow hard to mask the loss that threatened to overcome my calm exterior. I was holding on for dear life then he said two words with pure tranquility. — Nicole Castro

We must be quite the sight. Raffe in his red mask with his demon wings spread out in all their scythe-edged glory. A scrawny teenage Daughter of Man brandishing an archangel sword. And a little girl stitched-up to look and behave like a nightmare who is clutching a pair of angel wings. — Susan Ee

I think one of the beauties so far of the so-called Spirit of Seattle is there aren't any leaders, pop stars, or guru figures that everyone else is falling in line with and following. No [Nelson] Mandela, Havel, or Subcomandante Ski Mask riding in on a white horse and everybody else just wanting to follow them to the promised land. We're stitching it together and doing it ourselves. — Jello Biafra

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

She was aware of his love - how could she not? She perceived it every time he looked at her. He was not demonstrative, but his ardour was all the more evident for the reins with which he restrained it, the mask of steel behind which he imprisoned it, his detached demeanour and deliberate gestures that, far from parading a lack of interest, displayed the strength of his self-discipline, that he could so tightly curb the intensity of his passion. — Cecilia Dart-Thornton

I hate smoking sections. Unless we're talking about the movie 'The Mask' with Jim Carrey. Then the smoking section is my favorite part. — Harris Wittels

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

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

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

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

I suddenly see the world
as no longer viable:
you are out there burning the crops
with some new sublimate
This morning you left the bed
we still share
and went out to spread impotence
upon the world

I hate you.
I hate the mask you wear, your eyes
assuming a depth
they do not possess, drawing me
into the grotto of your skull
the landscape of bone
I hate your words
they make you think of fake
revolutionary bills
crisp imitation parchment
they sell at battlefields.

Last night, in this room, weeping
I asked you: what are you feeling?
do you feel anything?
Now in the torsion of your body
as you defoliate the fields we lived from
I have your answer. — Adrienne Rich

We're trained, in our culture, to take care of ourselves first. Even flight attendants tell you to put on your own oxygen mask before helping those around you. But they never tell you what happens afterwards. How do you live with yourself if you survive and the person next to you doesn't? — Tracy Weber

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

In a jump, the subject, in a sudden burst of energy, overcomes gravity. He cannot simultaneously control his expressions, his facial and his limb muscles. The mask falls. The real self becomes visible. One only has to snap it with the camera. — Philippe Halsman

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

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Anthony turned to look at her. It was difficult for him to discern her expression with the mask she was wearing, but he could see her eyes, and there was something so honest, yet desperate, hidden there that he found it impossible to look away. She was mesmerizing, and whatever reason she had for being there, he knew that it was vitally important to her, that attending the ball was not without risk. — Sophie Barnes

She watched with a crashing surge of pride as he reached up and pulled the mask off - he was in full sunlight. The orangey red light of the setting sun outlined him. Poughkeepsie's dusk set the mood. No matter how much Blake healed, Livia had a feeling nighttime would always be their favorite. He disappeared from view, but she knew he was strong. So much stronger so much sooner than she could ever have hoped. — Debra Anastasia

Mask your brightness. Be at one with the dust of the earth. This is primal union. — Laozi

Abruptly he thrust his snow-drenched leather gloves against my cheeks.
I dodged. A raw carnal feeling blazed up within me, branding my cheeks. I felt myself staring at him with crystal clear eyes ...
From that time on I was in love with Omi. — Yukio Mishima

We claim no glory. If the tempest rolls
About us we have fear, and then
Having so small a stake grow bold again.
We know not definitely even this
But 'cause some vague half knowing half doth miss
Our consciousness and leaves us feeling
That somehow all is well, that sober, reeling
From the last carouse, or in what measure
Of so called right or so damned wrong our leisure
Runs out uncounted sand beneath the sun,
That, spite your carping, still the thing is done
With some deep sanction, that, we know not how,
Sans thought gives us this feeling; you allow
That this not need we know our every thought
Or see the work shop where each mask is wrought
Wherefrom we view the world of box and pit,
Careless of wear, just so the mask shall fit
And serve our jape's turn for a night or two. — Ezra Pound

Goodness is more difficult than evil. Evil men knew that more than good men. That's why they became evil. That's why it stuck with them. Evil was for those who could never reach the truth. It was a mask for stupidity and lack of love. — Colum McCann

Acting is about giving yourself away, like the U2 song 'With or Without You.' You just don't stay behind a character and make people laugh or cry. At some point you have to take off that mask, and when you do, you're a human being, not just an actor. After all, I'm Catherine the person first. You share that. — Catherine Hicks

I shall ask into my shell only those friends with whom I can be completely honest. I find I am shedding hypocrisy in human relationships. What a rest that will be! The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

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

In his very first encyclical Pius X had uttered a warning: ... We shall take the greatest care to see that the members of the clergy do not allow themselves to be taken in by the insidious maneuvers of a certain new science which dons the mask of truth and from which one does not discern the fragrance of Jesus Christ; it is a mendacious science which, using fallacious and perfidious arguments, tries to beat a path to the errors of rationalism and semi-rationalism, and against which the Apostle was already warning his beloved Timothy when he wrote: Guard the deposit, avoiding profane novelties in language as well as in the arguments of a knowledge falsely so-called, whose enthusiasts, with all their promises, have failed in the faith.19 — Anonymous

Niall had been able to mask the odor of fairy from Eric in the restaurant, but I saw from the flare of Eric's nostrils that the intoxicating scent clung to me. Eric's eyes closed in ecstasy, and he actually licked his lips. I felt like a T-bone just out of reach of a hungry dog.
"Snap out of it," I said. I wasn't in the mood.
With a huge effort, Eric reigned himself in. "When you smell like that," he said, "I just wanna fuck you and bite you and rub myself all over you. — Charlaine Harris

I had to get used to wearing a mask and wearing a prosthetic and performing with those things while singing and expressing myself through stylized movement, while keeping it as human as possible so the audience could be closer to the horror of the Phantom. — Gerard Butler

The existence of a different value system among these persons is evinced by the communality of behavior which occurs when illiterates interact among themselves. Not only do they change from unexpressive and confused individuals, as they frequently appear in larger society, to expressive and understanding persons within their own group, but moreover they express themselves in institutional terms. Among themselves they have a universe of response. They form and recognize symbols of prestige and disgrace; evaluate relevant situations in terms of their own norms and in their own idiom: and in their interrelations with one another, the mask of accommodative adjustment drops. — Erving Goffman

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

Elias speeds his gait, and Keenan drops back, taking a position far enough behind me that I think it best to leave him be. I catch up with Izzi, and she leans toward me. "They've avoided ripping each other's faces off," she says. "That's a start, right?" I choke back a laugh. "How long until they kill each other, d'you think? And who strikes first?" "Two days before all-out war," Izzi says. "My money's on Keenan striking first. He's got a temper, that one. But Elias will win, being a Mask and all. Though" - she tilts her head - "he doesn't look so good, Laia." Izzi — Sabaa Tahir

She looked at Rose sitting between Jasper and Prue. How odd that one's child should do that! How odd to see them sitting there, in a row, her children, Jasper, Rose, Prue, Andrew, almost silent, but with some joke of their own going on, she guessed, from the twitching at their lips. It was something quite apart from everything else, something they were hoarding up to laugh over in their own room ... There was all that hoarded behind those rather set, still, mask like faces, for they did not join in easily; they were like watchers, surveyors, a little raised or set apart from the grown-up people. — Virginia Woolf

The man who sweats under his mask, whose role makes him itch with discomfort, who hates the division in himself, is already beginning to be free. — Thomas Merton

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

I did not like formal meetings, because they took away my freedom. I just liked to spend time with my friends, where I could be myself and did not need to don a mask. — Bidzina Ivanishvili

This is the thing that troubles me, for I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with its beautiful stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth
a world which now trembles before the King In Yellow. — Robert W. Chambers

The other ninja righted himself and moved beside her. "Any last words?" he asked.
I rolled my eyes. Why did people always ask you that before they killed you? It wasn't like you were going to say something that would make them change their minds.
"Yes," I answered. The first tendril of power pushed though my wound and wisped the hair around my head. If I was going down, at least I would take them down with me. "Why did the chicken cross the road."
She hesitated and glanced at the guy. Her eyes were scrunched in a way that I knew she was frowning under her mask. The other ninja looked at her and shrugged.
I licked my dry lips. "To escape the onslaught of exploding ki headed his way. — Cole Gibsen

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

Lifting his head to gently kiss her lips, he whispered, "I trust you." Then he covered his own eyes with her satin mask. — Aleatha Romig

I'm not interested in saying what people should and shouldn't do. It depends on how people feel about themselves. I suppose personally if you do anything out of fear or to mask who you are, then that's a bit scary. You've got to work with what you got ... — Cate Blanchett

In a matter of seconds, the sky darkened and the first fat drops of rain splashed around us. We went from table to table to gather our guests, smiling to mask our nervousness as the wind blew harder. As I watched the empty chairs overturning and the linens on the grape arbor flapping like sails, I was seized with a sudden fear. The wind whipped the trees; the creak of branches presaged the first sharp flash of lightning, followed by a thunder crack that set my heart pounding. — Rosie Genova

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

Talkative represents the man or woman who delights in talking about divine things but has only theoretical knowledge of such things. No actual personal heart experience correlates to the matters they love to discuss so eloquently. They are often highly esteemed by others, but those closest to them would quickly betray a life out-of-sync with their words. The mask fashioned by fluency with all subjects divine hides their real life. — John Bunyan

Bright Star
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors
No - yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever - or else swoon to death. — John Keats

One of the differences between us was that Marc wanted very badly to climb the Eiger, while I wanted very badly only to have climbed the Eiger. Marc, understand, is at that age when the pituitary secretes an overabundance of those hormones that mask the subtler emotions, such as fear. He tends to confuse things like life-or-death climbing with fun. — Jon Krakauer

With my guy, every now and then, he puts on a mask and does that, but he isn't that. Most of the time that we see him, he isn't that. Most of the time that we see him, he's fun to hang around with. I think that's unusual, to that extent. — James Frain

Yet after all there is nothing so deceptive as one's outward appearance. The reason of this is that as soon as childhood is past, we are always pretending to be what we are not
and thus, with constant practice from our youth up, we manage to make our physical frames complete disguises for our actual selves. It is really wise and clever of us
for hence each individual is so much flesh-wall through which neither friend nor enemy can spy. Every man is a solitary soul imprisoned in a self-made den
when he is quite alone he knows and frequently hates himself
sometimes he even gets afraid of the gaunt and murderous monster he keeps hidden behind his outwardly pleasant body-mask, and hastens to forget its frightful existence in drink and debauchery. — Marie Corelli

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

They needed to share one secret after another with a beautiful woman, to peel away layer after layer, mask after mask, and still find themselves worshiped. — Denis Johnson

Uncle alone in the house with the children said he'd dress up to amuse them. After a long wait, as he did not appear, they went down and saw a masked man putting the table silver into a bag. 'Oh, Uncle,' they cried in delight. 'Yes, isn't my make-up good?' said Uncle, taking his mask off. Thus goes the Hegelian syllogism of humour. Thesis: Uncle made himself up as a burglar (a laugh for the children); antithesis: it WAS a burglar (a laugh for the reader); synthesis: it still was Uncle (fooling the reader). — Vladimir Nabokov

Come then, come with us, out into the night. Come now, America the lovesick, America the timid, the blessed, the educated, come stalk the dark backroads and stand outside the bright houses, calm as murderers in the yard, quiet as deer. Come, you slumberers, you lumps, arise from your legion of sleep and fly. Come, all you dreamers, all you zombies, all you monsters. What are you doing anyway, paying the bills, washing the dishes, waiting for the doorbell? Come on, take your keys, leave the bowl of candy on the porch, put on the suffocating mask of someone else and breathe. Be someone you don't love so much, for once. Listen: like the children, we only have one night. — Stewart O'Nan

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

Organized crime is nothing more than capitalism with the mask of respectability removed. - Dave Mazza — J.D. Chandler

Ah yes, the facts. I've spent my whole life running after them, convinced that if I found demonstrable, incontrovertible facts I would also find some kind of truth. Now aged sixty-three, faced with this war which has only just begun and with an unsettling premonition of what is soon to follow, I'm beginning to think the facts are just a front and that the truth they mask is at best like a Russian doll: as soon as you open it up you find a smaller one inside, then another which is even smaller, then another and another, till finally all you are left with is something the size of a grain.
Letters against the war: Letter from Quetta, 2011. — Tiziano Terzani

Sometimes macho language is to mask things people are not ready to deal with. — Phil Klay

When I remembered Stefan first coming for me, it wasn't a man in a black mask or a crazy guy shoving Three Musketeers bars at me as he tried to convince me I was his brother. I remembered an ocean, dark as a universe without stars-black with guilt, despair, rage, violence, self loathing. All I could see was his hand reaching out of the water; the rest of him was buried in a liquid Hell he couldn't escape — Rob Thurman

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

The crew of the Argo II assembled at the rail and cut the grappling lines. Piper brought out her new horn of plenty and, on Percy's direction, willed it to spew Diet Coke, which came out with the strength of a fire hose, dousing the enemy deck. Percy thought it would take hours, but the ship sank remarkably fast, filling with Diet Coke and seawater. "Dionysus," Percy called, holding up Chrysaor's golden mask. "Or Bacchus - whatever. You made this victory possible, even if you weren't here. Your enemies trembled at your name ... or your Diet Coke, or something. So, yeah, thank you." The words were hard to get out, but Percy managed not to gag. "We give this ship to you as tribute. We hope you like it." "Six million in gold," Leo muttered. "He'd better like it. — Rick Riordan

There is a rowdy strain in American life, living close to the surface but running very deep. Like an ape behind a mask, it can display itself suddenly with terrifying effect. — Bruce Catton

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

The Mask "Put off that mask of burning gold With emerald eyes." "O no, my dear, you make so bold To find if hearts be wild and wise, And yet not cold." "I would but find what's there to find, Love or deceit." "It was the mask engaged your mind, And after set your heart to beat, Not what's behind." "But lest you are my enemy, I must enquire." "O no, my dear, let all that be, What matter, so there is but fire In you, in me?" — William Butler Yeats

I'm calling myself 'The Doodler,' and with the simple addition of a small burglar's mask, I achieve utter anonymity. — Chris Riddell

Were we in the habit of looking beyond the specific content of ideologies and doctrines, we should see that to claim kinship with one of them rather than some other does not at all imply much expenditure of sagacity. Those following one party imagine they differ from those following another, whereas all, once they choose, join each other underneath, participate in one and the same nature, and vary only in appearance, by the mask they assume. — Emil M. Cioran

By assembling the mosaic image of our own mosaic of "truth" (our own version of the "truth") from our accumulated knowledge and through comparisons with those of others, we shall not be free and do not get closer to Truth. We have only created a beautiful (or not so beautiful) spiritual mask, and behind it the Ego grins at us and the world created by itself. — Frank M. Wanderer

The mask can be a limitation, but you just deal with it. You do get superhuman strength and pumpkin bombs and all this other stuff to express yourself with.' — Willem Dafoe

Have you ever been in a great mood, or at least a good one, then decided, "You know what, I'm going to troll through Facebook and see what's happening with my friends."? I have.

I shouldn't though. It's a disco strangler of good days. It's the Ted Bundy of good moods. One minute you're cruising along and the next you're chained in a moldy hole in someone's basement, waiting to be transformed into some psycho's personal Halloween mask, metaphorically speaking, mind you. — Steve Bivans

Hidden away behind the closed doors of aristocratic and bourgeois privilege, concealed under those ultra-respectable masks of black frock coat and veil, the green glow of corruption flickers into sight, steadies, and spreads everywhere, fostered by Lorrain's horrified and complicitous gaze. This decadent detective is at one with the criminal he pursues, acknowledging openly that the representation of corruption is one of the most pleasurable forms that corruption can take. In this enterprise, art is the mask that both exposes and conceals culpability. — Jennifer Birkett

It's very different to live with a mask. — Johnny Hunt

I want to help you,' I say to Juliet, though I know that I can't make her understand, not like this.
'Don't you get it?' She turns to me, and to my surprise I see she's crying. 'I can't be fixed, do you understand?'
I think of standing on the stairs with Kent and saying exactly the same thing. I think of his beautiful light green eyes, and the way he said, You don't need to be fixed and the warmth of his hands and the softness of his lips. I think of Juliet's mask and how maybe we all feel patched and stitched together and not quite right.
I am not afraid.
Dimly, I have the sense of roaring in my ears and voices so close and faces, white and frightened, emerging from the darkness, but I can't stop staring at Juliet as she's crying, still so beautiful.
'It's too late,' she says.
And I say, 'It's never too late. — Lauren Oliver

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

Soul Alone by Hannah Baker

I meet your eyes
you don't even see me
You hardly respond
when I whisper
hello
Could be my soul mate
two kindred spirits
Maybe we're not
I guess we'll never
know

My own mother
you carried me in you
Now you see nothing
but what I wear
People ask you
how I'm doing
You smile and nod
don't let it end
there

Put me
underneath God's sky and
know me
don't just see me with your eyes
Take away
this mask of flesh and bone and
See me
for my soul

alone — Jay Asher

I was Pac-Man. It was the worst costume ever. You would expect a big round suit, but it was just a mask and a smock with a maze on it. — Ray Toro

Goodness was more difficult than evil. Evil men knew that more than good men. That's why they became evil. That's why it stuck with them. Evil was for those who could never reach the truth. It was a mask for stupidity and lack of love. Even if people laughed at the notion of goodness, if they found it sentimental, or nostalgic, it didn't matter
it was none of those things, he said, and it had to be fought for. — Colum McCann

I moonlight as the greatest actor. I smile. I choose the comedy mask every time. I tell those who worry that I am fine, that I always will be. There is nothing to gain from these lies. I win no awards, yet I bow. On that stage I tell my life story with the lightest of words, the heaviest of hearts. I bleed for the people who stay and watch. Behold: the comedy, the tragedy. They smile and cheer. They clap for this. And I bow, and I bow, and I bow. — Elijah Noble El

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

Jefferson's love of control was evident when he was at home. He was precise and demanding about his horses. When he was younger and his mount was brought to him, he would use a white cambric handkerchief to brush the horse's shoulders.63 If there were dust, the horse was returned to the stables. Only the perfect would suffice. His horses were sources of immense pleasure, but he also disliked animals with wills of their own, and his mask of equanimity could slip occasionally when it came to his horses. "The only impatience of temper he ever exhibited was with his horse, which he subdued to his will by a fearless application of the whip on the slightest manifestation of restiveness," said a grandson.64 — Jon Meacham

It drips on her head most days, says Champaben, but in the monsoon season it's worse. In rain, worms multiply. Every day, nonetheless, she gets up and walks to her owners' house, and there she picks up their excrement with her bare hands or a piece of tin, scrapes it into a basket, puts the basket on her head or shoulders, and carries it to the nearest waste dump. She has no mask, no gloves, and no protection. She is paid a pittance if she gets paid at all. She regularly gets dysentary, giardia, brain fever. She does this because a 3,000-year-old social hierarchy says she has to. — Rose George

She remembered reading how the American South had often compared itself to Rome back before the Civil War. In the old days their society had been all about impressive architecture, honor, and codes of chivalry. And on the evil side, it had also been about slavery. Rome had slaves, some Southerners had argued, so why shouldn't we?
Annabeth shivered. She loved the architecture here. The houses and the gardens were very beautiful, very Roman. But she wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history. Or was it the other way around? Maybe the evil history made it necessary to build beautiful things, to mask the darker aspects. — Rick Riordan