Pretending Is Still Just Pretending Quotes & Sayings

George Bush ran a campaign where he bragged about being an anti-intellectual, dismissing his Harvard and Yale pedigree, pretending he was an American every day, ordinary everyman, and as a result of that, played up his fumbling speech because it signified that he was a good guy. That is deeply and profoundly anti-intellectual. — Michael Eric Dyson

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

And, nothing I can do can change that I am sure that I also have prejudice/bias against some certain people. But, it has been my experience that I cannot always change such judgements just because I do my best. It is the person with the bias who must change not the other way around. If the person is a good and yet I have bias against that person, even if that person does something good, I may still look at that person as just pretending to be good. It is sort of similar to that. I don't think that is something that I can do anything about. It is impossible for everyone to like me. Even if things do change, it takes a really long time. — Goo Hye Sun

What's the difference between spending your life trying to be invisible, or pretending to be the person you think everyone wants you to be? Either way, you're faking. — Jodi Picoult

A liberal pretending to be a conservative? That's like a straight person pretending to be gay to get greater acceptance. — David Mamet

We live through the belief of children ... Regicide is suicide, citizens. Inscribe that in your hearts. The Great Pretend is a fragile construct. — Bill Willingham

{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

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

I let myself get lost in the fantasies I created when I was looking at the world through my lens. Life was easier to ignore when I was busy pretending for other people. — Claire Contreras

How crazy it would be
if the moon did spin
and the earth stood still
and the sun went dim!

How absolutely ludicrous
if snakes could walk
and kids could fly
and mimes did talk!

How silly it would be
if the nights were tan
and the mornings green
and the sun cyan!

How totally ridiculous
if horses chirped
and spiders sang
and ladies burped!

How shocking it would be
if the dragons ruled
and the knights were daft
but the fish were schooled!

How utterly preposterous
if rain were dry
and snowflakes warm
and real men cried!

I love to just imagine
all the lows as heights,
and the salty, sweet,
and our lefts as rights.

Perhaps it is incredible
and off the hook,
but it all makes sense
in a storybook! — Richelle E. Goodrich

With her back turned, she loosened each plait until her hair hung in waves that curled around her waist. Then she spun to face him and puffed a sigh.
"Fine. You caught me. I guess there's no use pretending anymore."
Doran settled in and waited for the punch line.
"I lured you onto this ship," she said, "because I couldn't get enough of your scintillating personality."
There it was.
"Kiss me, Doran," she cried, flopping onto the mattress with one arm slung over her eyes and the other clutched to her breast. "I burn for you, hotter than a thousand hells."
He cocked his head to the side. "I think there's an ointment for that. — Melissa Landers

In The Great Stagnation, Cowen bemoaned the lack of big technological advances and argued that the American economy has slowed and wages have been depressed as a result. "In a figurative sense, the American economy has enjoyed lots of low-hanging fruit since at least the seventeenth century, whether it be free land, lots of immigrant labor, or powerful new technologies," he wrote. "Yet during the last forty years, that low-hanging fruit started disappearing, and we started pretending it was still there. We have failed to recognize that we are at a technological plateau and the trees are more bare than we would like to think. That's it. That is what has gone wrong." In — Ashlee Vance

When there's evil standing in your way, you got to get around it however you can, Natalie. You got to look it in the eye, let it know you see it and that it can't creep up on you. What's dangerous is pretending it isn't there at all and letting it get closer and closer while you're looking someplace else, until suddenly evil's walking alongside you like you were two friends out for a stroll on Sunday. So you look it in the face. You tell it with your eyes that you know what it is, that it don't have you fooled. You tell it you know what GOOD looks like. — Kate Milford

DRAMA: Be careful about being baited into the personal battles and confusion of others. If you want to help someone out emotionally, be certain he or she has made a commitment to the sacrifice before you intervene for his or her success. If you don't, you're likely to be drained of all your healthy energy with his or her selfish petty, pitiful pretending and negotiating. Be encouraged but more importantly if you can't make it better, whatever you do don't make it worse, for them and especially yourself — Kerry E. Wagner

I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions
poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed
which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished.
It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity. — Howard Zinn

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

The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, is the cause of Man's error and misery. — Alexander Pope

Why would I do that? Why would I put all this effort into pretending to be ... less than I am. — Caitlin Moran

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

So ... Now that we got that over with, let's get back to love at first sight, Evan said.
Not infatuation at first sight ... Love. With a capital L, he clarified.
Love? Heeb asked, playfully pretending not to know the concept.
Yeah. The real thing. The conviction that if you had this one woman, all other women would become irrelevant. You'd never again be unhappy And you'd give up anything to have her and keep her.
You've experienced that?
Only once. And I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since.
Tell me more.
Sometimes I think that I still chase women just to forget about her. Because I know I can never have her. But I can't seem to forget about her, no matter what girl I'm chasing ... No one can possibly compare ...
Who is she?
Delilah, Evan said wistfully.
Delilah?, asked Heeb, intrigued
Delilah Nakova, Evan replied, with a hint of awe and reverence in his voice. — Zack Love

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

Now all of a sudden I'm so less interested in pretending to be a lot of other people, and much more interested in being me. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Kind of," I said, "still, think about this. Everyone's built the same. It's like we're all riding together on a broken airplane. Of course there are lucky people, there are also unlucky people. There're tough people, and weak people, rich people, and poor people. However, not a single person's broken the mold with his toughness. We're all the same. Everyone who has something is afraid of losing it, and people with nothing are worried they'll forever have nothing. Everyone is the same. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you'll want to get stronger. Even if you're just pretending. Don't you think? — Haruki Murakami

For a moment I just watch Sean wrap Corr's leg, watching how his shoulders move when they're not hidden by his jacket, how he tilts his head when he's involved in his work. He either hasn't noticed my arrival or he's pretending that he hasn't, and either's fine by me. There's something rewarding about watching a job done well, or at least a job done with everything you've got. I try to put my finger on how it is that Sean Kendrick seems so different to other people, what it is about him that makes him seem so intense and still at the same time, and I think, finally, that it's something about hesitation. Most people hesitate between steps or pause or are somehow uneven about the process. Whether that process is wrapping a leg or eating a sandwich or just living life. But with Sean, there's never a move he's not sure of, even if it means not moving at all. — Maggie Stiefvater

You knew what I was," he said, taking his hair back from his face, eyes wild with the will to make me believe. "You knew that my face is a lie, just pretending to be human. And you still wanted me, you could touch me, you could see what I am, the only one who knew and wanted me all the same, and you said I wasn't a
" his chest hitched. "Not a monster. I was going to tell you, and then I thought, well, I'm probably going to die in the underworld, so why can't I have this until then? I'm the stupid one; not you. I'm so sorry. — Karen Healey

The sun goes down and my headlights bathe the trees and bushes. What's behind the Cascade Mountains? Winthrop. Bridgeport. The Grand Coulee Dam. But how do I know this? I've seen maps and globes and books and films, images inked on paper an shot in studios by people I've never met, but how do I know for sure anything I haven't seen? Anyplace I've never been?
What if everyone's just pretending? What if the world is still unknown? — Isaac Marion

Tomorrow we go back to normal?"
"Sure," Mab said. "It'll be like none of this happened. Except I'll still be pregnant, and you'll still be making dragons, and Glenda will still be pretending that Dreamland is Cancun, and Weaver will still own the only green velvet demon in captivity. Other than that, perfectly normal."
"I just meant no demons trying to kill us," Cindy said. "My baseline for normal is a lot lower than yours. — Jennifer Crusie

I think that after the first time you give your heart away, you never get it back. The rest of your life is just you pretending that you still have a heart. — Tarryn Fisher

Without people coming in to our lives we never evolve, we just remain stagnant. Surely there is more to life than standing still whilst letting it pass you by. What's even worse, is living a life pretending to be someone, or something that you believe others want you to be. — Skye High

I believe humankind has looked at Climate Change in that same way: as if it were a fiction, happening to someone else's planet, as if pretending that Climate Change wasn't real would somehow make it go away. — Leonardo DiCaprio

That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession. — Jim Morrison

So what, then? Pete? Clyde?"
Cabel rolls over, pretending to sleep.
"It's Fred, isn't it?"
"Janie. Stop."
"You named your thing Janie?" She giggles.
Cabel groans deeply. "Go to sleep. — Lisa McMann

There is a history of gay people pretending to be straight. I want to balance the sides. I'm a straight person pretending to be gay. I've had a lot of people to imitate. It's easy when you're British; we're camp by nature, anyway. — Robbie Williams

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

Everyone in a position of authority is hysterical, and everyone else is pretending to be asleep. — Samuel R. Delany

At its most intense, the admissions process didn't force kids to be Lisa Simpson; it turned them into Eddie Haskell. ("You look lovely in that new dress, Ms. Admissions Counselor.") It guaranteed that teenagers would pursue life with a single ulterior motive, while pretending they weren't. It coated their every undertaking in a thin lacquer of insincerity. Befriending people in hopes of a good rec letter; serving the community to advertise your big heart; studying hard just to puff up the GPA and climb the greasy poll of class rank - nothing was done for its own sake. Do good; do well; but make sure you can prove it on a college app. So — Andrew Ferguson

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

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

Horace, fit, and athletic and light on his feet, gave their guards the fewest opportunities to beat him, although on one occasion an angry Tualaghi, furious that Horace misunderstood an order to kneel, slashed his dagger across the young man's face, opening a thin, shallow cut on his right cheek. The wound was superficial but as Evanlyn treated it that evening, Horace shamelessly pretended that it was more painful than it really was. He enjoyed the touch of her ministering hands. Halt and Gilan, bruised and weary, watched as she cleaned the wound and gently pated it dry. Horace did a wonderful job of pretending to bear great pain with stoic bravery. Halt shook his head in disgust.
"What faker," he said to Gilan. The younger Ranger nodded.
"Yes. He's really making a meal of it isn't he?" He paused, then added more ruefully, "Wish I'd thought of it first. — John Flanagan

Now is when we can stop pretending to be normal. — E. Lockhart

I can't fuck up his whole life and take away everything that means something to him just because I think I've found my soul mate.' 'Yeah, but ... ' 'Yeah, but. I know. Having found my soul mate, how cruel is it for me to stay with Bob, pretending I feel more for him than I do and preventing him from going out and finding someone who loves him the way I love Mark?' 'You can't be responsible for other people's feelings, — Scarlett Thomas

Ulrich Van Holtz continued to read the latest tome on world economics, pretending to be bored, but in truth absolutely fascinated! — Shelly Laurenston

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

We come to the nations pretending to escape persecution, we the most deadly persecutors in all the wretched annals of man. — Samuel Roth

By fall, they can read. It happened by osmosis, the way it ought to: after they have spent several months on Daddy's lap, following his spoken words with their eyes and pretending to read, their comes a day when they no longer have to pretend. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

Poker is a skill game pretending to be a chance game. — James Altucher

But today, government is taking those rights from us, pretending that it gives us our rights. Indeed, those rights come from God, and it was recognized throughout our history as such. — Roy Moore

There's no such thing as normal. There is no definition of normal. Normal is subjective. You can't - and shouldn't - force yourself to want something 'normal' and stop wanting what you truly want. It's a sure way to make your life miserable. — Alessandra Hazard

A monster is a person who has stopped pretending. — Colson Whitehead

I've been living off rats mostly. Can't steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I'd draw attention to myself."
He grinned up at Harry, but Harry returned the grin only reluctantly.
"What're you doing here, Sirius?" he said,
"Fulfilling my duty as godfather," said Sirius, gnawing on the chicken bone in a very dog-like way. "Don't worry about me, I'm pretending to be a loveable stray."
He was still grinning, but seeing the anxiety in Harry's face, said more seriously, "I want to be on the spot. Your last letter... well, let's just say things are getting fishier. — J.K. Rowling

I think of relationships as having a really safe place with someone where you are, and making an effort to show up everyday - to see them and feel seen, especially as an actor when you're already pretending to be other people all the time. It's an incredible gift to feel seen by one person; a culture of two. — Maggie Grace

To pretend is to do nothing more than imagine life as something wonderful so that we don't have to incur the pain that it takes to actually make life wonderful. — Craig D. Lounsbrough