Not Pretending Quotes & Sayings

A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we're pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we're safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we're two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we've found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life. — Richard Bach

Oh, I must be ambitious, mustn't I? I'm sure I always have been. I think you can only get away with pretending you're not for so long. After that, it becomes ridiculous. — Anne-Marie Duff

I'm not a liar, sir,' she said.
'No, I'm sure you sincerely become whatever it is you're pretending to be. — Orson Scott Card

But they were not living, thought Harry: They were gone. The empty words could not disguise the fact that his parents' moldering remains lay beneath snow and stone, indifferent, unknowing. And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot then instantly freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending? He let them fall, his lips pressed hard together, looking down at the thick snow hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay, bones now, surely, or dust, not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under the snow with them. — J.K. Rowling

Pretending to be a princess is fun, but it is definitely not a career. — Sonia Sotomayor

You're literally being an actor - you're pretending - and that's not what I like to do. — Kristen Stewart

Pretending/imagining is pretty much the real thing if you do it well enough (if not better) — Myself

I think this is the part where we stop pretending we're not going to see each other again. — Hannah Moskowitz

Howl backed into the door to shut it and leaned there in a tragic attitude. "Look at you all!" he said. "Ruin stares me in the face. I slave all day for you. And not one of you, even Calcifer, can spare time to say hello!"
Calcifer said, "I never do say hello."
"Is something wrong?" asked Sophie.
"That's better," Howl said. "Some of you are pretending to notice me at last. Yes, something is wrong. — Diana Wynne Jones

No one can remain married today because they are not married to the one they love, they are married to their sacrifice, and pretending to love is too damned painful. Love and build, love and work, love and fight. Always love first. Anything placed before love will fail. — Sister Souljah

In raising problems without solutions, in posing questions without answers, in retreating to the hermetic, cavernous abode of complaint, pessimism is guilty of that most inexcusable of Occidental crimes - the crime of not pretending it's for real. Pessimism fails to live up to the most basic tenet of philosophy - the "as if." Think as if it will be helpful, act as if it will make a difference, speak as if there is something to say, live as if you are not, in fact, being lived by some murmuring non-entity both shadowy and muddied. — Eugene Thacker

Masturbation is not the happiest form of sexuality, but the most advisable for him who wants to be alone and think. I detect the aroma of this pleasant vice in most philosophers, and a happily married logicians is almost a contradiction in terms. So many sages have regarded Woman as temptress because fornication often leads to marriage, which usually leads to children, which always leads to a respectable job and pretending to believe the idiocies your neighbors believe. The hypocrisy of the sages has been to conceal their timid onanism and call it celibacy. — Robert Anton Wilson

{Rogers} sexual aim is "to convert a creature who is cool, dry, calm, articulate, independent, purposeful into a creature who is the opposite of these: to demonstrate to an animal which is pretending not to be an animal that it is an animal. — Kingsley Amis

As I looked out at the water, I realized there was nowhere to go, nowhere left to run. And I just had to stay here, facing this terrible truth. I felt, as more tears fell, just how tired I was, a tiredness that had nothing to do with the hour. I was tired of running away from this, tired of not telling people, tired of not talking about it, tired of pretending things were okay when they had never, ever been less than okay. — Morgan Matson

One of my proudest achievements is that when an authoritative book about Hungarian literature came out about a decade ago, there was a little article about me which said I was a Hungarian writer but pretending not to be. Bearing in mind I can hardly write a cheque in Hungarian, I was delighted to be included in the pantheon of Hungarian writers. — Tibor Fischer

Admitting that this job isn't always easy doesn't make somebody a bad mother. At least, it shouldn't. We're all on this ride together. We are not the first ones to ever accidentally tell our children to shut up, or wonder - just for a moment - what it would be like if we'd never had children. We aren't the first mothers to feel overwhelmed and challenged and not entirely fulfilled by motherhood. And we certainly won't be the last. Nothing can be lost by admitting our weaknesses and imperfections to one another. In fact, quite the opposite is true. We will be better mothers, better wives, and better women if we are able to finally drop the act and get real. Who are we pretending for, anyway? — Jill Smokler

The girl entered the room, not looking at Fire, glaring mutinously at the feather duster in her own hand. Still, at least she had come. Some of them scurried away, pretending not to hear. — Kristin Cashore

It was the perfect moment to tell her. This is my last year. But I couldn't say it. Not yet. I wanted another minute, another hour, another night of pretending this wasn't the end. — Maggie Stiefvater

If you are ready to wake up, you are going to wake up. If you're not you are going to stay pretending that you are just a poor little me ... — Alan Watts

But sleep didn't come. She could hear Jace's soft piano playing through the walls, but that wasn't what was keeping her awake. She was thinking of Simon, leaving for a house that no longer felt like home to him, of the despair in Jace's voice as he said 'I want to hate you', and of Magnus, not telling Jace the truth: that Alec did not want Jace to know about his relationship because he was still in love with him. She thought of the satisfaction it would have brought Magnus to say the words out loud, to acknowledge what the truth was, and the fact that he hadn't said them - had let Alec go on lying and pretending - because that was what Alec wanted, and Magnus cared about Alec enough to give him that. Maybe it was true what the Seelie Queen had said, after all: Love made you a liar. — Cassandra Clare

Anyone pretending to be a guide through wild and fabulous territory should know the territory. I wish I knew it better than I do. I am not Jed Smith. But Jed smith is not available these days as a guide, and I am. I accept the duty, at least as much for what I may learn as for what I may be able to tell others. — Wallace Stegner

I'd seen better days, but I wasn't about to instigate widespread panic with my appearance, either. I made a show of washing up and pretending that I was an ordinary, civilized woman who was, perhaps, recovering from a bad date - and who had most certainly not been hiding bodies in anybody's basement. — Cherie Priest

Because sometimes when things are going really well, we find the one thing we're pretending we're not looking for. — Susan Mallery

The thing was, Jeremiah was right. I did love him. I knew the exact moment it became real too. Conrad got up early to make a special belated
Father's Day breakfast, only Mr. Fisher hadn't been able to come down the night before. He wasn't there the next morning the way he was
supposed to be. Conrad cooked anyway, and he was thirteen and a terrible cook, but we all ate it. Watching him serving rubbery eggs and
pretending not to be sad, I thought to myself, I will love this boy forever. — Jenny Han

Rachel Dolezal stepped down from her position as president of an NAACP chapter after it was revealed that she was a white woman pretending to be black. Now her brother says he knew about it but she asked him not to blow her cover. Unfortunately, her cover had already been blown by God when he made her a blond-haired, blue-eyed white lady. — Jimmy Fallon

The difficult thing, the glorious thing, was to be who you really were, even if that person was cruel or dangerous, particularly if cruel and dangerous. There was courage in not distinguishing the animal you happened to be. On the other hand, you had to avoid pretending to be more of an animal than you were: take that path, start exaggerating or faking and you became just another Cubby, just as much of a liar, a hypocrite — J.K. Rowling

She set her hands neatly in her lap. "But you just said he liked you."
"No, I said he enjoys my company. That is, he enjoys hating me. Or pretending to hate me. I don't know which.
But I'm finding it difficult to completely dislike someone who gets pleasure from having me around ... "So he likes being mean to you," she said. "And you like that he likes being mean to you."
"And I like being mean to him, too, don't forget."
"Of course not. Pleasure from meanness. There's a name for it: sadomasochism. — Kristin Walker

Anyone who lives in her own world is crazy. Like schizophrenics, psychopaths, maniacs. I mean people who are different from others.'
Like you?'
On the other hand,' Zedka continued, pretending not to have heard the remark, 'you have Einstein, saying that there was no time or space, just a combination of the two. Or Columbus, insisting that on the other side of the world lay not an abyss but a continent. Or Edmund Hillary, convinced that a man could reach the top of Everest. Or the Beatles, who created an entirely different sort of music and dressed like people from another time. Those people
and thousands of others
all lived in their own world. — Paulo Coelho

Let me tell you humans something. You are not fighters. You don't have what it takes to actually change your current living situations. You can't even organize a decent group to combat oppression. How can beings of such low stature hope to do anything? You are not heroes. Stop pretending you are helping by playing commando and get out of the way of someone who can. — Charles Lee

Making you believe what he wanted you to believe was his very reason for being. Maybe his only reason. I was intrigued by the way he turned events, or hints I had given him about people, into reality
that is, his kind of reality. This obsessive reinvention of the real never stopped, what-could-be having always to top what is.
...
I began to wonder which was real, the woman in the book or the one I was pretending to be upstairs. Neither of them was particularly "me." I was acting just as much upstairs; I was not myself just as much Maria in the book was not myself. Perhaps she was. I began not to know which was true and which was not, like a writer who comes to believe that he's imagined what he hasn't.
...
The book began living in me all the time, more than my everyday life. — Philip Roth

You say you just want to be my friend. I know that you mean you want to relate to my mind but not my body. I can understand that and will not ask you to relate to me in a way that you don't want to, or talk to me about subjects you find uncomfortable. But likewise I refuse to castrate myself for you by pretending not to have the feelings I have. If you want me as your friend you will have to accept my penis along with me. — Hugh Prather

It's hard to remember who you were when you're constantly pretending to be someone you're not. — Amy Ewing

But now came another old theme: self-blame. She was selfish, crabbed, drily ambitious. Pursuing her own ends, pretending to herself that her career was not in essence self-gratification, denying an existence to two or three warm and talented individuals. Had her children lived, it would have been shocking to think they might not have. And so here was her punishment, to face this disaster alone, without sensible grown-up children, concerned and phoning, downing tools and rallying round for urgent kitchen-table conferences, talking sense to their stupid father, bringing him back. But would she take him in? — Ian McEwan

And they have a display of bananas, which are not bananas but called plantains and are more like a potato pretending to be a banana. — Lauren Child

Don't go on pretending to be someone you are not — Sizzla

believed in The Good Luck of Right Now. Believing - or maybe even pretending - made you feel better about what had happened, regardless of what was true and what wasn't. And what is reality, if it isn't how we feel about things? What else matters at the end of the day when we lie in bed alone with our thoughts? And isn't it true, statistically speaking - regardless of whether we believe in luck or not - that good and bad must happen — Matthew Quick

Nature to all things fixed the limits fit
And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit.
As on the land while here the ocean gains.
In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains
Thus in the soul while memory prevails,
The solid power of understanding fails
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away
One science only will one genius fit,
So vast is art, so narrow human wit
Not only bounded to peculiar arts,
But oft in those confined to single parts
Like kings, we lose the conquests gained before,
By vain ambition still to make them more
Each might his several province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand. — Alexander Pope

But there was no use pretending: I was not the sort of person who counted blessings; I was the sort of person for whom there could never be enough blessings. — Jamaica Kincaid

When banks place credits into your account, they are merely pretending to lend you money. In reality, they have nothing to lend. Even the money that non-indebted depositors have placed with them was originally created out of nothing in response to someone else's loan. So what entitles the banks to collect rent on nothing? It is immaterial that men everywhere are forced by law to accept these nothing certificates in exchange for real goods and services. We are talking here not about what is legal, but what is moral. — G. Edward Griffin

Whatever. I've never understood what the big deal is about reading." He shuts the door and locks it, turning for the stairs. "Going to another place. Getting lost in time. Pretending that you're living a different life." He heads down the stairs and I follow him. "What's not to love? — Jessica Sorensen

Quite simply, if God knows me better than I know myself, what point is there [in] pretending I am other than I am before God? Prayer is not the place for pretended piety; prayer is the place for getting down to brass tacks. . . . Thus we might as well acknowledge our true state when we pray. We pray to God from where we are, not from where we consider we should be. And God, who knows us where we are, can lead us to where we can be.17 — Terence E. Fretheim

Well, friends, learning about the "world" is not pretending you're a hooker while a guy from the part of New Jersey that's near Pennsylvania decides which Steely Dan record to put on at 4:00 A.M. The secrets of life aren't being revealed when someone laughs at you for having studied creative writing. There is no enlightenment to be gained from letting your semiboyfriend's bald friend touch your thigh too close to the place where it meets your crotch, but you let it happen because you think you might be in love. — Lena Dunham

It's not so much religion per se, it's false certainty that worries me, and religion just has more than its fair share of false certainty or dogmatism. I'm really concerned when I see people pretending to know things they clearly cannot know. — Sam Harris

The mother of the heating contractor does not
Have the same problem as the mother of the poet.
When the mother of the heating contractor talks about her son
It's usually understood, from the beginning, that her son,
The heating contractor, is not pretending to be a heating contractor. — Matt Cook

Quit the bitching on your blog
And stop pretending art is hard.
Just limit yourself to three chords
And do not practice daily.
You'll minimize some stranger's sadness
With a piece of wood and plastic.
Holy fuck it's so fantastic,
Playing ukulele. — Amanda Palmer

Pretending that the world's religions are the same does not make our world safer. Like all forms of ignorance, it makes our world more dangerous. What we need on this furiously religious planet is a realistic view of where religious rivals clash and where they can cooperate. — Stephen R. Prothero

But how he acts, and what he says, and what he does, and who he is, they don't line up anymore, and the lie is in that not lining up, the lie is in not being what she needs but pretending that he is. No one says a word, and she sees it every minute they have together. — Brad Barkley

Normally it is not polite to go into somebody's room without knocking, but you can make an exception if the person is dead, or pretending to be dead. — Daniel Handler

You see what I mean? Being rich must be a condition, much like sickness or health. Say you are rich, you might, in some mysterious way, be rich forever, but however much money you have, you never feel properly rich. Maybe you need to believe in your wealth in order to be properly rich - I mean, the way saints and revolutionaries believe they are different. And you can't afford to feel guilty if you are rich: if you felt guilty for a second you'd be finished. The not-truly-rich, those who have visions of the poor while indulging in a beefsteak and drinking Champagne, will eventually lose out, because they are insincere in their wealth. They're not rich out of conviction, they are only pretending, cowardly, sneakily, to be rich. You have to be very disciplined to be rich. You can perform a few charitable acts, but only as a kind of a fig leaf. — Sandor Marai

Pretending that we know more than we really do is one big reason we're not as successful as we should be. It's probably the worst self-limiting behavior that we have. — Dan Waldschmidt

I haven't felt the excitement for so many years. I feel guilty beyond words about these things. When we're back-stage and the lights go out, and the manic roar of the crowd begins, it does not affect me. The fact is, I can't fool you. It isn't fair to you or to me. The worst crime I can think of is to trick people by faking it, and pretending to be having 100% fun. — Robert Hilburn

The disappointments seemed to escape the family's notice, though. That was another of their quirks: they had a talent for pretending that everything was fine. Or maybe it wasn't a quirk at all. Maybe it was just further proof that the Whitshanks were not remarkable in any way whatsoever. — Anne Tyler

Before Kiki and I headed toward the Keep, I thanked my friends.
"For what? We didn't do anything," Janco grumbled.
"For caring enough to follow my guards. And the next time, I might need the help."
"There better not be a next time," Ari said, giving me a stern look.
"How touching," Janco said, pretending to wipe his eyes.
"Get going, Yelena. I don't want you to see me cry." He faked a sniffle.
"I'm sure your ego can handle it," I said. "Or will you need to beat up some trainees to feel like a man again?"
"Very funny," he said. — Maria V. Snyder

I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me, excite my blood. Being always on one's guard, catching every glance, the significance of every word, guessing at intentions, frustrating their plots, pretending to be tricked, and suddenly, with a shove, upturning the whole enormous and arduously built edifice of their cunning and schemes - that's what I call life. — Mikhail Lermontov

For the first time, in Golconda, she had practiced Larry's choice of withdrawing if the people were not of quality. Of preferring solitude to the effort of pretending he was interested in them. — Anais Nin

The baby was warm against my chest. I knew I was broken too. I wasn't like other people. I was scared and weird and anxious and sad lots of the time, and I didn't know why. My parents thought I was abnormal, I was pretty sure. They said I wasn't, but you don't get sent to a therapist if you're normal.
Sometimes we really aren't supposed to be the way we are. It's not good for us. And people don't like it. You've got to change. You've got to try harder and do deep breathing and maybe one day take pills and learn tricks so you can pretend to be more like other people. Normal people. But maybe Vanessa was right, and all those other people were broken too in their own ways. Maybe we all spent too much time pretending we weren't. — Kenneth Oppel

It's really best not to tell people when you feel bad. Growing up is about keeping secrets, and pretending everything is fine. — Caitlin Moran

Embracing new things often requires us to embrace our fears, however trivial they may seem. You deal with fear not by pretending it doesn't exist, but by refusing to give it decision-making authority. — Chris Guillebeau

For crying out loud, stop comparing and start living! And you'll be happier with your life, I guarantee. This is crucial: the most difficult thing in the world is to be who you are not. Pretending and trying to be someone else is the official pastime of the human race. And the easiest thing in the world is to be yourself. Be happy. Live! There must be a reason why God made you tall or short or fat or thin or bumpy all over. Love who you are! — Bo Sanchez

Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?
Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice.
God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching.
Harper: And then up you get. And walk around.
Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending.
Harper: That's how people change. — Tony Kushner

Emma convinced herself she'd lost him because she was fast. She was also adept at convincing herself of things that might not be - good at pretending. She could pretend she took classes at night by choice, and that blushing didn't make her thirsty
A vicious growl sounded. Her eyes widened, but she didn't turn back, just sprinted across the field. She felt claws sink into her anckle a second before she was dragged to the muddy ground and thrown onto her back. A hand covered her mouth, though she'd been trained not to scream.
"Never run from one such as me." Her attacker didn't sound human. "You will no' get away. And we like it." His voice was guttural like a beast's, breaking, yet his accent was ... Scottish? — Kresley Cole

My dear,' said the old men gently, 'I think that you are repeating what you have heard older people say. You are pretending to be touchy; but you are not really. Stop being so tiresome, and tell me instead what part of the church you want to see. To take you to it will be a real pleasure. — E. M. Forster

Remember, the Law of Attraction does not care whether you are remembering, pretending, celebrating, playing, creating, complaining or worrying. It simply responds to what's in your Vibrational Bubble. So, find proof, rejoice and send out a positive vibration. — Michael J. Losier

Psychologists at the end of the nineteenth century made a very interesting discovery: when we repress the truth, we suffer for it. If deep down we know something is true but we walk around pretending it isn't, it creates a conflict; and this conflict, in turn, prevents the different parts of ourselves from communicating with each other effectively. Parts of us get split off and ignored. And the more they're ignored, the angrier they get - the more frustrated. A man cannot serve two masters, Jesus said, and a house divided cannot stand. In saying this, Jesus made not only one of the greatest spiritual statements, but one of the greatest psychological ones as well. — Anonymous

And I'm sure everyone else would too if you only allowed them to see more of who you really are, rather than pretending to be someone you're not! — Adele Rose

We might say that psychoanalysis revealed to us the complex penalties of denying the truth of man's condition, what we might call the costs of pretending not to be mad. — Ernest Becker

But isn't the whole idea of sanctification the fact that we're not really there yet? That we're still growing and becoming? Still learning how to live the gospel out? Then why this obsession with pretending to be something for other people, who are pretending to be something for us? It's madness. You see that, don't you? The cross of Jesus, while definitely meant to include us in the family of God, is also designed to out us as people who desperately need what its forgiveness and power provide. The — Matt Chandler

I wonder what you look like under your t-shirt. I wonder what you sound like when you're not wearing words. I wonder what we have when we're not pretending ... — Ani DiFranco

Actors are pretending for you, but they're not lying. They are not putting on a guise instead of themselves. They are finding things inside that they have experienced. — Mike Mills

I laughed. "I don't care if you're nice or not. I just want you to be you. No more pretending. I think it's time we all got to know the real Logan Lyke."
"What if I don't know who the real me is?" he asked.
"Then I guess you better find yourself," I smiled. — Micalea Smeltzer

No man will subject himself to the ridicule of pretending that any natural connection subsists between the sun or the seasons, and the period within which human virtue can bear the temptations of power. Happily for mankind, liberty is not, in this respect, confined to any single point of time, but lies within extremes, which afford sufficient latitude for all the variations which may be required by the various situations and circumstances of civil society. — James Madison

Xmas all grown ups sa is the season for the kiddies but this do not prevent them from taking a tot or 2 from the bot and having, it may seme, a better time than us. For children in fact Xmas is often a bit of a strane wot with pretending that everything is a surprise. Above all father xmas is a strane. You canot so much as mention that there is no father xmas when some grown-up sa Hush not in front of wee tim. So far as i am concerned if father xmas use langwage like that when he tripped over the bolster last time we had beter get a replacement. — Geoffrey Willans

Everything I write is sinful, full of lies, especially the big one, the one you go to hell for: pretending not to be a fool. — Sallie Tisdale

I think a lot guys get laid pretending to be Shaggy 2 Dope because without his paint he's a lot more unrecognizable. He's not a gimpy gorilla like me. — Joseph Bruce

Remember that it is not enough to have everything around you beautiful, remember that there must also be change and flux, because it is through change that we pretend that we can make decisions, and keep our pride, and go on pretending that both change and choice exist. — Marian Engel

I'm not for pretending that bad stuff doesn't exist, and a passion for justice and truth is a libertarian trait. But the idea of liberty should also reveal new forms of beauty in the world, astonishing evidence of order without dictate, lovely examples of innovation without planning, and other magical things. Surely these deserve some attention too. — Jeffrey Tucker

No one has it all figured out, especially not the people who are acting like they do and judging you because of it. Pretending to be something you aren't because you're trying to please a bunch of judgmental hypocrites and shitheads is not the way to be happy. Living the life you want to live is. It really is that simple. — Tucker Max

He isn't what he's pretending to be with her. I watch him all the time. I'm going to be there when he stops pretending. I'm going to be her bulletproof vest, her shield, her fallen fucking angel, whether she wants one or not. He's pretending he's almost human. He's no more human than me. — Karen Marie Moning

The thing is, you make choices. You do some things and you don't do others and in the end there's not much point in asking what different choices might have gained you, and lost you, unless you have a time machine. You become those choices, you embody them ...
I'd known I couldn't stay, just as I'd known years before I couldn't be with him, even as I'd gone on pretending I had a choice. I was who I was, and I wanted what I already had. — Leah Stewart

The microwave clock spills over into midnight, and the marionette girl walks up the stairs to sleep in her puppet bed in the puppet house, filled with not-puppet people. They are made of flesh and blood, and she is made of wood and lies. — Michelle Painchaud

Im gonna be a pretender the rest of my life. Pretending i dont wish every girl i kiss isnt you. Pretending i dont wish every girl i sleep with isnt you. Im gonna have to pretend i dont wish my next relationship wont be with you. Pretend that i dont wish the girl i get engaged to isnt you. Pretend i dont wish the girl i marry isnt you. Pretend i dont wish the mother of my kids to be you. Pretend its not you i want to spend the rest of my life with. Everything will be a lie the rest of my life. Thats so hard to accept. — Michael A. Perez

Many of the artists are not pretending to have an objective point of view. They're revealing the subjectivity. — Massimiliano Gioni

I'm more interested in the idea of role-playing in general than the idea of role-playing in art. I like the childlike quality of making pretend or the optimistic idea of pretending something's happening when it's not. — Laurel Nakadate

You're not very good at this," Emma said, laughing at the frustration on Sean's face.
He pulled his hand out from under the back of her T-shirt. "You're distracting me."
"How am I distracting you?" She shook the bag at Sean, reminding him to pull two letter tiles to replace the C and the T he'd used to make CAT.
"You look totally hot. And you did it on purpose so I wouldn't be able to concentrate and you'd win."
Emma laughed. Sure, she'd thrown on baggy flannel boxers and an old Red Sox T-shirt after her shower just to seduce him out of triple-word scores. "You not having a shirt on is distracting. And you keep pretending you want to rub my back so you can peek at my tile rack."
"Nothing wrong with checking out your rack." He craned his neck to see better and she shoved him away. It wasn't easy playing Scrabble sitting side by side on the couch, but after a long workday, neither was willing to take the floor. — Shannon Stacey

Married relationships are not what we are pretending they are. It is not the '40s or the 50s anymore - we cannot pretend, things are changing. — Matthew Ashford

If I had died it would have been even better for you political bratchnies, would it not, pretending and treacherous droogs as you are.' But all that came out was er er er. — Anthony Burgess

By the time we landed in the hospital, most of our families considered us insensitive liars, but we didn't start out that way. We started out as ultrasensitive truth tellers. We saw everyone around us smiling and repeating "I'm fine! I'm fine! I'm fine!" and we fund ourselves unable to join them in all the pretending. We had to tell the truth, which was: "Actually, I'm not fine. — Glennon Doyle Melton

My father-in-law tripped on a crack in the pavement and spent the rest of the week politely pretending he had not dislocated his shoulder. — Tina Fey

Hypocrisy means deliberately pretending. None of us lives up to his ideals; none of us is all that he would like to be or all that he could be in Christ. But that is not hypocrisy. Falling short of our ideals is not hypocrisy. Pretending we have reached our ideals when we have not - that is hypocrisy. — Warren W. Wiersbe

I think people need a break. It's not like they're out there selling bacon and booze. They want to pretend for a few hours a day that we don't live in this awful hole getting squeezed by State on one side and pious airheads on the other, all while smiling our shit-eating grins so that the oil companies keep shoveling money into our pockets. Surely God wouldn't mind people pretending life is better, even if it involves fictional pork. — G. Willow Wilson

It is a mark of the depth of their wounding that they are pretending they suspected it all along. Everything that they have seen and been told about love so far has been an inside perspective, and they are not prepared for the crashing weight of this exclusion. It dawns on them now how much they never saw and how little they were wanted, and with this dawning comes a painful re-imagining of the self as peripheral, uninvited, and utterly minor. — Eleanor Catton

When was the last time you felt like someone knew you and not the person you've been pretending to be. When was the last time you felt like yourself. — Lang Leav

Prince Bolo, who didn't like his Pages to say, 'I told you so,' snapped back: 'What's this, Blabbermouth? Are you a girl?'
You /noticed/, sire,' said Blabbermouth. 'No point /pretending/ any /more/.'
'You tricked us,' said Bolo, blushing. 'You tricked /me/.'
Blabbermouth was outraged by Bolo's ingratitude. 'Tricking you isn't exactly /difficult/, excuse /me/,' she cried. '/Jugglers/ can do it, so why not /girls/? — Salman Rushdie

Lovegood had got out The Quibbler again. Meanwhile, at the Hufflepuff table Ernie Macmillan was one of the few still staring at Professor Umbridge, but he was glassy-eyed and Harry was sure he was only pretending to listen in an attempt to live up to the new prefect's badge gleaming on his chest. Professor Umbridge did not seem to notice the restlessness of her audience. Harry had the impression that a full-scale riot could have broken out under her nose and she would have ploughed on with her speech. The teachers, however, were still listening very attentively, and Hermione seemed to be drinking in every word Umbridge spoke, though, judging by her — J.K. Rowling

The kind of trust that is necessary to build a great team is what I call vulnerability-based trust. This is what happens when members get to a point where they are completely comfortable being transparent, honest, and naked with one another, where they say and genuinely mean things like "I screwed up," "I need help," "Your idea is better than mine," "I wish I could learn to do that as well as you do," and even, "I'm sorry." When everyone on a team knows that everyone else is vulnerable enough to say and mean those things, and that no one is going to hide his or her weaknesses or mistakes, they develop a deep and uncommon sense of trust. They speak more freely and fearlessly with one another and don't waste time and energy putting on airs or pretending to be someone they're not. Over time, this creates a bond that exceeds what many people ever experience in their lives and, — Patrick Lencioni

An actor needs something to stabilize his personality, something to nail down what he really is, not what he is currently pretending to be. — Humphrey Bogart

Acting was my classroom in many ways and I always believed and I still do that acting is not just about pretending to be someone else, it's also about discovering yourself and reaching deeper inside yourself. — Kristen Stewart

At twenty-one, Richard Wright was not the world-famous author he would eventually be. But poor and black, he decided he would read and no one could stop him. Did he storm the library and make a scene? No, not in the Jim Crow South he didn't. Instead, he forged a note that said, "Dear Madam: Will you please let this nigger boy have some books by HL Mencken?" (because no one would write that about themselves, right?), and checked them out with a stolen library card, pretending they were for someone else. With the stakes this high, you better be willing to bend the rules or do something desperate or crazy. To thumb your nose at the authorities and say: What? This is not a bridge. I don't know what you're talking about. Or, in some cases, giving the middle finger to the people trying to hold you down and blowing right through their evil, disgusting rules. Pragmatism is not so much realism as flexibility. — Ryan Holiday

life pretending to be someone they're not." He — AnnaLisa Grant

tucked an arm around the back of Prophet's neck and Prophet buried his face in Doc's shoulder as Doc said, "It's not fair. I know it's not. But before you do anything else, you have to tell Tom." "How do you know I haven't?" "How do I know the sun rises in the morning?" "Fucker," Prophet muttered against Doc's shoulder. "Disability-hater." Doc rubbed the back of his neck but didn't make a move to let him go. And Prophet was okay with that. "Do you want me to tell him?" Doc asked finally. "Yeah. But you can't." God, it was safe right here, with Doc. And Prophet wanted it to be this safe with Tommy . . . and it was, except for this issue. Which he hadn't given Tommy the chance to deal with. "I can be there with you. I'll answer the questions he'll have, so you don't have to." Prophet lifted his head. "Yeah, I get you're trying to make it easier on me, but fuck, it's not going to be at all. I can't pretend anything will help." "Not pretending is the first step. — S.E. Jakes