Pretend To Like You Quotes & Sayings

Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do; it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless women get it, and men when they retire; it as if there had to be some outlet for their foiled creative fire. — W. H. Auden

Everyone changes so slowly, they don't even know that they have. And everyone likes to pretend that things are just the same yet they look at you like you could bring something back that's supposed to already be here. But home is a time. Not just a place. — Iain Thomas

I'm not perfect, and I'd like to pretend you aren't, either. — Aly Martinez

The universe is absurd. People want to make sense of it because we're hardwired to find reason in the randomness. We look for patterns in the chaos. See omens in coincidence. We look at the random distribution of stars in the sky and pretend they look like animals, call them constellations. For some reason, we want to give meaning to the meaningless. If you go looking for the number eighty-eight, you'll see it everywhere - the number of keys on a piano, the number of counties in Ohio - but it doesn't mean anything. — James Renner

There's no paradise in love! It's--you're thinking in the wrong way. Love--the sort you're asking me for--is of the earth, earthy. Beautiful, maybe--sometimes it be like a gold mine that one digs into. But of the earth--earthy. Tis all wrong to speak of paradise. Love may be the nearest human beings can get--but it is still outside the gates--for it is human--easily lost--animal in the way it work, though more, much more than animal. Oftentimes it--uplifts, transports...but--but it should not be mistaken. It is a--a terrible mistake to pretend it is something quite different. — Winston Graham

All money is imaginary," answered the Calcatrix simply. "Money is magic everyone agrees to pretend is not magic. Observe! You treat it like magic, wield it like magic, fear it like magic! Why should a body with more small circles of copper or silver or gold than anyone else have an easy life full of treats every day and sleeping in and other people bowing down? The little circles can't get up and fight a battle or make a supper so splendid you get full just by looking at it or build a house of a thousand gables. They can do those things because everyone agrees to give them power. If everyone agreed to stop giving power to pretty metals and started giving it to thumbnails or mushroom caps or roof shingles or first kisses or tears or hours or puffin feathers, those little circles would just lay there tarnishing in the rain and not making anyone bow their noses down to the ground or stick them up in the air. — Catherynne M Valente

He shrugged and laughed a little. "It was a stupid idea. Who takes a girl to a funeral as their first date?"
Dove fought through her gown so she could find his hand and hold it. She wanted to lick it, too, but restrained herself. "You do. It would be my honor to go to this old fart's funeral with you. Except pretend I said that like a person with a heart. — Debra Anastasia

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

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

Wha - what was that?" Heather lifted a brow. "What was that 'hey bro, make sure the blond chick doesn't cut any body parts off' look? Because I'll have you know, I'm an expert with butcher knives."
Tristan pointed at the weapon in Heather's hand. "That's a machete."
Puckering her lips, Heather looked at the blade. "Aren't they the same thing?"
"I'm going to pretend like you didn't just say that. Everybody ready? — Chelsea Fine

Maggie and I were delighted. It was now Jett's turn to go to the dark side. "I've never seen such a bunch of doom cookies," she said, wiping down the tables.
"What?"
"Doom cookies. You know, people who pretend to be something they're not, like girls in my class who pretend to be bad-ass but go home and read The Little House on the Prairie in their Disney princess bedrooms."
"Who were the Pie Night people pretending to be? I don't quite follow."
"They're pretending to be bad-ass pie bakers," Jett trilled in a church-lady falsetto, " 'Oh, leaf lard is the best.' 'No, I swear by a mixture of Crisco and butter.' When was the last time they actually baked a pie? If they did, they wouldn't be gorging themselves here on Pie Night. They probably don't even own a rolling pin." Jett sniffed. And then she added, diplomatically, "But your pie was good. — Judith Fertig

It is arrogant to pretend to understand everybody, and doing it in order to live with them, or love them-- well. If it depended on understanding, there would not be any communities, or relationships. Worse, if you spend your life waiting to be understood or, something more horrible, waiting for the others to be like you. Well, it is as useless, as always shouting the same word until it means nothing else. — Edward Wells II

I knew I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some stakes. Nobody had mentioned what the stakes were. It was all right with me. — Ernest Hemingway,

I have these secret pangs of shame about being single, like I wasn't good enough to get a husband. Rita reminded me of something I'd told her once, about the five rules of the world as arrived at by this Catholic priest named Tom Weston. The first rule, he says, is that you must not have anything wrong with you or anything different. The second one is that if you do have something wrong with you, you must get over it as soon as possible. The third rule is that if you can't get over it, you must pretend that you have. The fourth rule is that if you can't even pretend that you have, you shouldn't show up. You should stay home, because it's hard for everyone else to have you around. And the fifth rule is that if you are going to insist on showing up, you should at least have the decency to feel ashamed.
So Rita and I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed. — Anne Lamott

Because I finally can," Sebastian said. "You've no idea what it's been like, being around the lot of you these past few days, having to pretend I could stand you. That the sight of you didn't make me sick. You," he said to Jace, "every second you're not panting after your own sister, you're whining on and on about how your daddy didn't love you. Well, who could blame him? And you, you stupid bitch" - he turned to Clary - "giving that priceless book away to a half-breed warlock; have you got a single brain cell in that tiny head of yours? — Cassandra Clare

Let's pretend my career in music is a bell. Whether you like my music or not is up to you. But you've got to admit I rang that bell pretty hard and pretty often. — Henry Rollins

I don't like to pretend I was guided in any way by the supernatural world, but the more you talk about that, the easier it is to dismiss those notions. — Hannah Kent

I hadn't seen any novel make the statement that entering the workforce was like entering the grave. That from then on, nothing happens and you have to pretend to be interested in your work. And, furthermore, that some people have a sex life and others don't just because some are more attractive than others. I wanted to acknowledge that if people don't have a sex life, it's not for some moral reason, it's just because they're ugly. Once you've said it,
it sounds obvious, but I wanted to say it. — Michel Houellebecq

First, I'd like to point out that I didn't use 'one of mine.' You refused to let me pay for my ice cream cone with a good ol' fashioned credit card, and you forced your pretend money on me. Secondly, I can't take any currency seriously that looks like it belongs in a psychedelic-inspired Special Edition Monopoly box. — Elle Lothlorien

Recalling those gone times, old memories lit by the fire of the new, I did not this time wonder how long it would last; I was too smart for that now. Take what you get, and don't think. Of course it could never be that easy, but there were moments, like now, that I could successfully pretend that it was, and I had no inclination to try to peer past those moments. I'm not one who wants to know the future: at the best it spoils the present, with longing or dismay, and at the worst, well. Who really wants to find out how tight the sling is, for your own very personal ass, who wants to know how deep the shit will really be. Not you. Not me either. Because it's rarely bliss saved up, is it, when you finally get there. I'll take my now, waking with a lover's scent on me, around me, take my hopes before they're maybe tragedy; a good morning is a good morning, even if it leads to apocalypse at night. — Kathe Koja

Don't take this the wrong way, okay?" She chuckled grimly. "My idea of Hell would be going to Heaven and being forced to pretend I'm like you for the rest of eternity. — Chuck Palahniuk

I think you pretend to be cold so no one gets close."
"You're close now," he said against her lips.
"I am." Her breath hitched as her gaze drifted down his chest. "And I like what I feel. — Kristin Miller

Share what you like and don't pretend to like things you don't. There are many ways to be honest but polite. — Jay Woodman

I find many adults are put off when young children pose scientific questions. Why is the Moon round? the children ask. Why is grass green? What is a dream? How deep can you dig a hole? When is the world's birthday? Why do we have toes? Too many teachers and parents answer with irritation or ridicule, or quickly move on to something else: 'What did you expect the Moon to be, square?' Children soon recognize that somehow this kind of question annoys the grown-ups. A few more experiences like it, and another child has been lost to science. Why adults should pretend to omniscience before 6-year-olds, I can't for the life of me understand. What's wrong with admitting that we don't know something? Is our self-esteem so fragile? — Carl Sagan

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

You know, when I came home after our day in the city, I just crashed, thinking about Remi and how much I missed him. And then the next day was worse, And when you walked up to me at that ice cream machine, I just felt myself crumble inside. Around Remi, I felt like I was always trying to act like I was good enough. But around you, I don't want to pretend or hide. That's why I didn't say anything in the cafeteria that day, I knew that in five seconds, I'd be crying on your shoulder."
"That's what it's there for, Ethan."
Alek leaned in, took Ethan's face in his hands, and kissed him. — Michael Barakiva

Care like hell! Sit around the bars and drink, and pose, and pretend, all you want to, but in reality, deep down underneath, care like hell. — Lincoln Steffens

I always at home as a kid tried to move something with your hand and it doesn't move and then you get to do it in a movie. I mean my superpower is quickness but you know what I'm saying. You get a superpower and you're like "Man this is awesome. I get to pretend I have a superpower." — Evan Peters

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

I'm very powerful, Ivy. I've told you that a hundred thousand times before, but you probably just ignored me. Big things come in small packages."

"That . . . explains nothing," I stated.

He cocked his head to the side. "Well, I am kind of like a house elf."

"Oh my God!" I shrieked, jumping off the couch. "You are not a house elf! This isn't the wizarding world of fucked up! You're fully grown. Likeman-sized grown."

"I'm going to pretend you did not speak of the wizarding world in such a tone,'" he replied snottily. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Just play it cool," Dax says.
He has forced me to don a pair of dark gray slacks and a white button-up shirt. Contrary to his protests, I have pushed the sleeves of the shirt up past my elbows, but I make sure the scars on my arm, which spell out Daphne's name, are covered. I feel overly warm and suffocated in these clothes. "I don't understand. You want me to pretend to be cold?" I fake a shiver. "Like this? What's the point?"
Dax tries to stifle a laugh - not very well - and I realize I've been tripped up by another one of these "figures of speech" that I keep running into. I'm beginning to hate the English language. — Bree Despain

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

It's fine to pretend that people are one-dimensional, like in body size; the problem comes when you forget that you are just pretending. — L. Todd Rose

I like to act. I guess letting what you love be what you do is key. I've worked very hard for that to be the case, probably because I'm very lazy and I only want to do things that are fun and I run away from anything that feels like work ... Acting for me is like lunch at school ... you're just in a playground where you get to pretend and play. — Dichen Lachman

Wounds that haven't healed properly still hurt you. You pretend to allow them faze you, but I see past the mask. Shame, that a pretty woman like you has to perish by fire." Cain shrugged. "I'm surprised they didn't burn you in the witch trials." He shook his head as if he corrected himself. "No, what am I saying? You were with Saain during that time. — Millicent Ashby

Cade thought about this. "Let me get this straight - you secretly pretend to like poetry to impress the smart girl in your English class, while she's secretly pretending to like football to impress you." He paused. "That's gotta be the cutest fucking thing I've ever heard."
"I guess her subconscious finds my subconscious pretty irresistible," Zach said, all teenage confidence right then.
"You were lucky to pull that line off once, Garrity. I wouldn't push it. — Julie James

But mostly I remember every morning before school. How she'd say "Hey, honey!" just I was walking out the apartment door. And me stopping and turning around and saying "What?" And her saying "I love you." And me rolling my eyes like I just wanted to hurry up so I didn't miss the bus. I'd start going again and she'd say "Hey, honey!" and I'd pretend I was so annoyed 'cause she was wasting time and I had to go catch the bus. And how secretly it was my favorite part of every day. — Matt De La Pena

I blame Photoshop", my friend Maile once told me. " I use Photoshop to make my waist smaller and my neck longer and then I feel like I need to make those things happen in real life so that people on the internet don't see me tagged in a non-touched-up picture and say "Oh my God, what happened to you??" And then I have to pretend I've been in a fire or something. — Jenny Lawson

The thing is, the kids always rebel against what the parents try to push on them so I'm going to pretend like I don't want [my son] to hear the rock. I'm going to listen to it only in my private chambers. He'll hear echoes of it and say: "What was that you were listening to papa?" And I'll say: "Nothing son, you're not ready." — Jack Black

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

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

Everyone feels awkward, everyone feels uncomfortable, everyone gets older, everyone gets lonely, everyone gets sick, everyone eventually dies. You're at the Aspen Ideas Fest, and you have these really smart, really accomplished people who pretend like they've somehow figured out a way to bypass the human condition. We live in this culture where there are so many things that want us to pretend that we're not truly human. — Moby

When you go to auditions, pretend you already have the job and you're just presenting - almost like you're at the table read. Don't go in with an air of, 'Please like me,' or, 'Please hire me.' You're like, 'Here's my take on it. Take it or leave it. I've got a lot of other things to do today.' — Mary Lynn Rajskub

For me, it's all or nothing. I can't half-ass this. If we do this, I will pursue you like no man has ever pursued you before. And even after I've caught you, I plan to continue pursuing you like my life depends on it. If you're not prepared for that, if you're not ready to be treated as something special and treasured and precious, then I need you to roll over, go back to sleep, and pretend none of this ever happened. — Catherine Gayle

I had no intention of providing any answers or solutions, because you'd only look a fool, but I did want to talk about what it's like to be in a state where you're wondering. And perhaps I was also receptive to the fact I was entering middle age and those thoughts come - to pretend that they don't come is just crazy. — Peter Morgan

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

The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life ... The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the road side and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber ... Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. — Lysander Spooner

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

It takes alot of energy to pretend you're fine when you're not. A bit like being in a play that never ends. I get an intermission, but I always have to go back on stage. — Chelsea M. Cameron

I've learned to get really good at this - say one thing when I'm thinking about something else, act like I'm listening when I'm not, pretend to be calm and happy when I'm really freaking out. It's one of the skills you perfect as you get older — Lauren Oliver

I know Mark,' I reply. 'And I don't like him.'
'But I do. And part of being social means being civil to someone you don't like.'
'That's stupid. It's a huge world. why not just get up and walk away?'
'Because that's rude,' Jess explains.
'I think it's rude to stick a smile on your face and pretend you like talking to someone when in reality you'd rather be sticking bamboo slivers under your fingernails. — Jodi Picoult

Why do authors wish to pretend they don't exist? It's a way of skinning out, of avoiding truth and consequences. They'd like to deny the crime, although their fingerprints are allover the martini glasses, not to mention the hacksaw blade and the victim's neck. Amnesia, they plead. Epilepsy. Sugar overdose. Demonic possession. How convenient to have an authorial twin, living in your body, looking out through your eyes, pushing pen down on paper or key down on keyboard, while you do what? File your nails? ... A projection, a mass hallucination, a neurological disorder - call her what you will, but don't confuse her with me. — Margaret Atwood

You were just babies in the war - like the ones upstairs!" I nodded that this was true. We had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood. "But you're not going to write it that way, are you." This wasn't a question. It was an accusation. "I - I don't know," I said. "Well, I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs." So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Man, Rhage is playin' with fire," Butch said as he started to rack up the balls.
"I give Fritz thirty seconds before he's - Here he comes."
"I'm going to pretend I'm not here."
V took a swig of his Goose. "Me too."
While they got busy grabbing balls, Fritz came steaming across the foyer like a missile seeking a heat source.
"Watch your ass, Hollywood, true?" V muttered as Rhage came over with a basket of popped-and-fluffy.
"It's good for him. He needs the exercise - Fritz! How are you, buddy?"

-Butch, Vishous, & Rhage — J.R. Ward

It all suddenly seemed like a hopeless fight, but so what? I told myself. What does it cost you to pretend that the can change (for the better)? That history is an arc and it bends toward justice, even if it is long? — Kelly J. Cogswell

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

I'm sorry, I will not change what I am or pretend to be something else just so that you will like me. Why? Because I don't want to wake up one day and realize that everyone likes me...except me! — Brooke Hampton

Rakitin doesn't like God, oof, how he doesn't! That's the sore spot in all of them! But they conceal it. They lie. They pretend. 'What, are you going to push for that in the department of criticism?' I asked. 'Well, they won't let me do it openly,' he said, and laughed. 'But,' I asked, 'how will man be after that? Without God and the future life? It means everything is permitted now, one can do anything? — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

Ooh, can you make it look like bugs are exploding out of my skin?"
He dropped a few inches in his hovering. "Seriously?"
"Could be cool,right? If you want, I'll even pretend to be scared."
"It's not the same when you're faking." He dropped down to my eye level; this left about half of him beneath the floor, but he didn't seem to notice. — Kiersten White

If you like small government you need to work hard at having a strong national defense that is not so militant. Personal liberty is the purpose of government, to protect liberty - not to run your personal life, not to run the economy, and not to pretend that we can tell the world how they ought to live. — Ron Paul

I don't like to think of her as pretend Peabody anymore. The more we find out, the meaner and crazier she gets. It's like it's bad enough fake Peabody got murdered, but now fake Peabody is a dead, blackmailing asshole on top of it. It's depressing."
"Yeah, it's all really too bad for you."
"Well, it kind of is. How am I supposed to enjoy the vid now, when I'll be thinking how behind the scenes I was trying to blackmail McNab into bed, and the whole time he's in love with you? And that maybe there's a vid of the two of you all naked and sexy and - "
"Stop right there before I boot."
"Hey! Maybe there's a vid of fake Peabody and fake Roarke all naked and sexy. That would definitely make up for it. Maybe I can get a copy."
"There's going to be a vid of me tearing strips off your ass then using them to wallpaper my office. I'll make copies for everybody. Get Marlo down here. I'll start on Julian. — J.D. Robb

Sober strip clubs are horrible. When you are sober you see the matrix code behind a strip club. You're paying girls to pretend to like you until you run out of money so they can walk away. — Chris Hardwick

He taunted me, "Pony boy, pony boy," because I liked ponies. Pony boy. He always came to vent his anger of dragons on me. They must really like us. They hide behind their Wasp Queen and pretend to hate us dragons, but in truth they love us. Why else would they bother with fucking us? That sentence probably turned you off. Thing is, I'm a very vulgar boy.
-Chance Karrucci (the Sweet Dragon) — L'Poni Baldwin

You let every other guy have you. You give away pieces of yourself like they're candy." I went rigid trying to make sense of this different side of Bennett. He looked lost and miserable and desperate. "Maybe this is the only way. Maybe if I pretend to be like them. — Christina Lee

You don't know what it's like to grow up with a mother who never said a positive thing in her life, not about her children or the world, who was always suspicious, always tearing you down and splitting your dreams straight down the seams. When my first pen pal, Tomoko, stopped writing me after three letters she was the one who laughed: You think someone's going to lose life writing to you? Of course I cried; I was eight and I had already planned that Tomoko and her family would adopt me. My mother of course saw clean into the marrow of those dreams, and laughed. I wouldn't write to you either, she said. She was that kind of mother: who makes you doubt yourself, who would wipe you out if you let her. But I'm not going to pretend either. For a long time I let her say what she wanted about me, and what was worse, for a long time I believed her. — Junot Diaz

Don't do it gurl," he said with a wink. "You need to pretend like that phone is your best friend's husband's dick now drop it. — Ethan Day

Samhain had its origins, like many modern holidays or celebrations, in pagan times. As the sidhe-seers had been inclined to erect churches and
abbeys on their sacred sites, the Vatican had been wont to "Christianize" ancient, pagan celebrations in an if-you-can't-beat-them-and-don't-wantto-
join-them-rename-it-and-pretend-it-was-yours-all-along campaign. — Karen Marie Moning

When you ask for help listen. It's one thing to ask the question and it's another thing to listen to the answer. Many people ask questions but they do not like what they hear and so they pretend that they heard nothing at all. — Gary Zukav

Accepting things. That's what the talk was about. About how insane it is to try to pretend something isn't a certain way, or that you can make it another way, just because you don't like it. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

Have it your way, then. Pretend you don't hear your own voice inside the din. Pretend its not telling you things you don't want to know. Pretend that your deepest, most secret wish isn't that someone would love you like you know Malick can, if you let him. — Carole Cummings

The first step off this downward spiral is to acknowledge these bad feelings as natural. When women feel this way, our society has sympathy, and Oprah gives them cars. But when men feel this way, our society demonizes these feelings as signs of weakness, amplifying the shame and self-judgment, repeating the macho advice to "suck it up" and "get over it." This bullshit makes the problem worse. It's impossible to pull yourself out of depression by your bootstraps when all you want to do is hang yourself with them. Bad advice can't fix bad feelings, and neither can ignoring those feelings. Don't try to push them away or pretend they're not there. These feelings evolved to protect us from harm, like our fight-or-flight responses. — Tucker Max

You have to pretend you get an endgame. You have to carry on like you will; otherwise, you can't carry on at all. — Rainbow Rowell

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

I used to cold call labels and pretend I was one of their artist's attorneys. I'd say, 'This is Jay-Z's attorney, we need to speak with Craig Kallman,' you know, owner of Atlantic, and they'd say, 'Right away,' and then I'd be like, 'Please just listen to my demo tape!' — Benny Blanco

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

After the waitress left, I rounded on him. "what, can't I eat food?"
"you could. Probably five or six whole bites before you had to purge it. your digestive track has been altered. Pretend to drink your hot chocolate."
I slouched lower in the booth, my arms over my chest. "but I really like food. It's the best part about being here in this world. — Kalayna Price

Jamie: Please don't pretend like you know me, ok?
Landon: But I do, I do. We've had all the same classes in the same school since kindergarten. Why you're Jamie Sullivan. You sit at lunch table 7. Which isn't exactly the reject table, but is definitely in self exile territory. You have exactly one sweater. You like to look at your feet when you walk. Oh, oh, and yeah, for fun, you like to tutor on weekends and hang out with the cool kids from "Stars and Planets." Now how does that sound?
Jamie: Thoroughly predictable, nothing I haven't heard before.
Landon: You don't care what people think about you?
Jamie: No. — Nicholas Sparks

That's what I don't like about college, by the way. It's like a lot of people don't believe these years really count, so you're allowed to experiment with ... whatever. There's such a casual view about things like sex and drinking and even drugs. I know that sounds really old-fashioned, but I just don't get it ... to be honest, I'm kind of disappointed in those two people I heard about, and I don't want to sit there trying to pretend that I'm not. I know I shouldn't judge, ... but still, what was the point? Shouldn't you save things like that for someone you love? So that it really means something? - Savannah — Nicholas Sparks

That's my ocean. I have to pretend as best I can to be like people on the mean so people don't call me a robot. I'm not a robot. I'm real and I have feelings the same as everyone else. And I want a boyfriend. Except my ocean doesn't make me want to be dead. It makes me want to fight. I want you to fight too, Jeremey. I want us to carry our oceans together. — Heidi Cullinan

With everything that you do, once the costume is on, and you're in the pretend hospital, and you're there with your co-workers, it all sort of snaps into place: Who you are, what it feels like, who these people are to you. — Edie Falco

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

Pretend that you're the paddle and the rubber ball is your feelings. When something bad happens to us, our natural instinct is to try to push the bad feelings away. It's like we hit the rubber ball as hard as possible to make it vanish, but the harder we hit it, the stronger and faster the ball bounces back. It's like the ball doesn't want to leave us. Grief feelings are like that. They need to sit still and be understood. The good news is that if we talk about your feelings, we can make many negative aspects of the ball disappear. — Rob Dobrenski

You have no idea what it's like trying to pretend I'm normal, when deep inside I know I'm completely screwed up. — Kristi Cook

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

The only thing that consoles me is to be surrounded by people as depressed as I am. The readers down here, they're seriously depressed and that cheers me up. You yourself for instance, if I can put this politely, you don't exactly look like a bundle of laughs. No, don't pretend, I can see right through you. — Sophie Divry

The pain he feels in his own gut is either something to do with the caffeine, or the stress of realizing that if it's not snipers or blindness stealing your children, it's cancer coming to snipe your wife, and there's not a fucking thing a guy can do about any of it except to drop to his knees and pray, to pretend like someone or something that gives a shit is on teh other end of the line, to pretend anything, like you did when you were a kid until the pretending seems real, because without that all you've got for comfort is what's in front of your face ... — Scott Wrobel

You will find, Ofilwe, that the people you strive so hard to be like will one day reject you because as much as you may pretend, you are not one of their own. Then you will turn back, but there too you will find no acceptance, for those you once rejected will no longer recognize the thing you have become. So far, too far to return. So much, too much you have changed. Stuck between two worlds, shunned by both. — Kopano Matlwa

If you follow the ancient maps written on the stars, no person will ever understand you. So if you could read these maps, would you follow them? And forever be misunderstood? Or would you close your eyes tightly and pretend to be like everyone else? — C. JoyBell C.

One of the privileges of not knowing who you are is that you can pretend to be anyone you like. — Cameron Jace

Little girls are like old cats. If they don't like you nothing on Earth will make them pretend to. — David Mitchell

A final caution to students: in making judgments on literature, always be honest. Do not pretend to like what you really do not like. Do not be afraid to admit a liking for what you do like. A genuine enthusiasm for the second-rate is much better than false enthusiasm or no enthusiasm at all. Be neither hasty nor timorous in making your judgments. When you have attentively read a poem and thoroughly considered it, decide what you think. Do not hedge, equivocate, or try to find out others' opinions before forming your own. But having formed an opinion and expressed it, do not allow it to petrify. Compare your opinion then with the opinions of others; allow yourself to change it when convinced of its error: in this way you learn. Honestly, courage, and humility are the necessary moral foundations for all genuine literary judgment. — Laurence Perrine

I dare say it is rather hard to be a rat," she mused. "Nobody likes you. People jump and run away and scream out: 'Oh, a horrid rat!' I shouldn't like people to scream and jump and say: 'Oh, a horrid Sara!' the moment they saw me, and set traps for me, and pretend they were dinner. It's so different to be a sparrow. But nobody asked this rat if he wanted to be a rat when he was made. Nobody said: 'Wouldn't you rather be a sparrow? — Frances Hodgson Burnett

You like to help everybody, don't you?
I only pretend to. — F Scott Fitzgerald

At night, with only the bedside lamp on, I would pretend to sleep and listened to Dad's muffled crying in the semi-darkness, wishing that I could cry like him, that I could bring Stevan back from the dead by the strength of my tears. But they were regular tears carving the same slicing-hot trails down my cheeks, and in the end, I could not summon a distinct kind of grief for Stevan. Just the same grief that has gripped mankind for centuries, which time would inevitably ebb into a notch in one's skin or a small limp in the way one walks or a bottled memory that would only resurface some nights. And soon, you'd struggle to remember how that person talked or how that person used to occupy a customized space in your life. And you don't want to forget, but you don't want to remember either, and there seemed to be no place where you could just exist. — V.J. Campilan

You will never let go of the past by ignoring the most painful thing the person you loved has done to you. When you begin to minimize it, second guess yourself and others, ignore it or even pretend it didn't happen you cheat yourself out of healing. Naturally, your mind would rather believe the lies you are telling it, rather than accept the truth. The soul has a way of protecting itself from trauma, but if left in denial there is no growth or change. Healing requires going to that place you avoid and asking yourself why you are so afraid to accept the reality of what happened to you? Why have you minimized it like this person has wanted you to? What is it about your self esteem that allows you to continue being a doormat? — Shannon L. Alder

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

Whenever I feel like this, I am gentle with myself, pretend like I'm someone else, someone good. I walk on eggshells around myself, like I'm some fragile piece of porcelain you have to place quietly, deliberately back on the shelf. — Andrea Portes

Well, besides, I've arranged with the computer that anyone who doesn't look and sound like one of us will be killed if he - or she - tries to board the ship. I've taken the liberty of explaining that to the Port Commander. I told him very politely that I would love to turn off that particular facility out of deference to the reputation that the Sayshell City Spaceport holds for absolute integrity and security - throughout the Galaxy, I said - but the ship is a new model and I didn't know how to turn it off."
"He didn't believe that, surely."
"Of course not! But he had to pretend he did, as otherwise he would have had no choice but to be insulted. And since there would be nothing he could do about that, being insulted would only lead to humiliation. And since he didn't want that, the simplest path to follow was to believe what I said."
"And that's another example of how people are?"
"Yes. You'll get used to this. — Isaac Asimov

The last thought on your mind before you sleep is like a mirror showing you the reflection of who you are! No matter what you pretend to be all-day long, that one last thought is enough to sum up your entire life. — Mehek Bassi