Pretending It's Okay Quotes & Sayings

Just like a kitten pretending to be a lion. — Kiki Hamilton

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

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

We have to stop pretending that Islam is a religion. Islam is a totalitarian ideology that aims to conquer the West. — Edward Cline

This was a new skill she'd acquired, the ability to look, to the outside world, utterly serene and even cheerful, while, in her skull, all was chaos. — Dave Eggers

{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

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

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

The game is pretending. It's going through the motions of life. But it's not living.

The game is for people who want rules because they're afraid to believe anything everyone else doesn't already believe. They're all scared to leave the street where they live and do something with their lives. the game is for people who want to be told what to do. Okay. Good for them, if that's what they want. — Laird Koenig

I just watched the news. Seeing crazy people doing crazy stuff to other people and pretending that they're the good guys really helped. — Casper Crump

When you're going through a breakup, you should just let yourself feel everything so you can get over it as opposed to pretending everything's okay and dragging it out. — Hannah Simone

Ana feels like pushing her neighbour up against the wall and telling him that the locker room where those boys sit telling their stupid jokes end up preserving them like a tin can. It makes them mature more slowly, while some even go rotten inside. And they don't have any female friends, and there are no women's teams here, so they learn that hockey only belongs to them, and their coaches teach them that girls only exist for fucking. She wants to point out how all the old men in this town praise them for "fighting" and "not backing down," but not one single person tells them that when a girl says no, it means NO. And the problem with this town is not only that a boy raped a girl, but that everyone is pretending that he DIDN'T do it. So now all the other boys will think that what he did was okay. Because no one cares. — Fredrik Backman

It is much harder to pretend than it is to simply be who you already are. — Susan Meissner

When she saw a strange man whom she didn't trust, she did an immediate breakdown in her mind. It was quicker - honoring the pragmatics of fear - than pretending she shouldn't think this way. — Alice Sebold

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

When I was a kid, I used to pretend to be Bond; I used to make up scenarios and irritate my sister and annoy my mother and father pretending to be someone else, so I kind of was already acting when I was a child. I just didn't really know it. — Aneurin Barnard

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

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

A small, quiet, grassroots movement that starts with each of us saying, "My story matters because I matter." A movement where we can take to the streets with our messy, imperfect, wild, stretch-marked, wonderful, heartbreaking, grace-filled, and joyful lives. A movement fueled by the freedom that comes when we stop pretending that everything is okay when it isn't. A call that rises up from our bellies when we find the courage to celebrate those intensely joyful moments even though we've convinced ourselves that savoring happiness is inviting disaster. Revolution — Brene Brown

I always think that I'm still this 13-year old boy that doesn't really know how to be an adult, pretending to live my life, taking notes for when I'll really have to do it. — Richard Linklater

He liked to start sentences with okay, so. It was a habit he had picked up from the engineers. He thought it made him sound smarter, thought it made him sound like them, those code jockeys, standing by the coffee machine, talking faster than he could think, talking not so much in sentences as in data structures, dense clumps of logic with the occasional inside joke. He liked to stand near them, pretending to stir sugar into his coffee, listening in on them as if they were speaking a different language. A language of knowing something, a language of being an expert at something. A language of being something more than an hourly unit. — Charles Yu

Okay, pull me up."
The rope didn't move.
"Ascanio?" What was it now? Did he see a butterfly and get distracted?
The rope slid up, as fast as if wound by a winch. I shot upward. What the ... ?
I cleared the edge and found myself face to face with Curran.
Oh boy.
He held the rope with one hand, muscles bulging on his arm under his sweatshirt. No strain showed on Curran's face. It's good to be the baddest shapeshifter in the city. Behind him Ascanio stood very still, pretending to be invisible.
Curran's gray eyes laughed at me. The Beast Lord reached out and touched my nose with his finger. "Boop. — Ilona Andrews

I didn't just foster the delusions. I lived them. Even after the world crashed, I clung to them. But after he died, I told myself no more. No more brave fronts or false hopes or pretending everything's okay when nothing is. I thought I was being tough by pretending, calling it being optimistic, brave, keeping my head up or whatever bullshit seemed to fit the moment. That's not tough. That's the very definition of soft. — Rick Yancey

Dear today,
i spend all of you pretending i'm okay when i'm not, pretending i'm happy when i'm not, pretending about everything to everyone. — Nina LaCour

The truth is .. I'm okay with people not liking me. I'm not okay with them pretending that they do. Keep it real. Everybody ain't for everybody. — Nakia R. Laushaul

She is walking several feet ahead, pretending I don't exist, but that's okay, I'm used to it, and what she doesn't know is that is doesn't faze me. People either see me or they don't. I wonder what it's like to walk down the street, safe and easy in your skin, and just blend right in. No one turning away, no one starring, no one waiting and expecting, wondering what stupid, crazy thing you'll do next
Then I can't hold back anymore, and I take off running, and it feels good to break free from the slow, regular pace of everyone else. I break free from my mind, which is, for some reason, picturing myself as dead as the authors of the books she has collected, asleep for good this time, buried deep in the ground under layers and layers of dirt and cornfields. I can almost feel the earth closing in, the air going stale and damp, the dark pressing down on top of me, and I have to open my mouth to breath. — Jennifer Niven

Eriously, Drew. What kind of Vampire are you? You spend most of your eternal life pretending to be human - and miserably, I might add, while constantly being ashamed of what you really are. Okay, I get it. I moaned for over a decade when I was turned, but I got over it. You are one of the most gifted of our kind, and in spite of that, You are the most stupid Vamp I know, because you've just revealed what you are and all of us in fact, to a human. — Stella Coulson

It hit me then that I just couldn't do it anymore. The lying, the hiding, the pretending to be okay with it. I was done. — Dahlia Adler

It's okay not to know all the answers. It's better to admit our ignorance than to believe answers that might be wrong. Pretending to know everything, closes the door to finding out what's really there. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I look at my snow boots, counting the grommets while I try to name what I'm feeling. This has been a problem lately. It's never been a problem before - I've been happy, and sad, and frustrated.
I've felt angry and sentimental.
I've loved. I've been loved back.
Maintaining long moments of wordless eye contact with the man who is supposed to make me feel okay about going blind, noticing all the exact shades of blue and how I can always tell he's going to smile before he does, pretending I'm not responding to some tension between us?
I'm a little exhausted. — Mary Ann Rivers

Tom was okay, but we were just pretending to like each other, hoping that eventually, if we pretended hard enough, it would turn real. Maybe it would and maybe it wouldn't. But Jonah was already real. Even Matthew was real, though I'd never seen him. And they made me real. — Natalie Standiford

The Janitor: You're the only one around here that treats me like a real person.

Elliot: What did you say?

The Janitor: There was one other girl a few years ago: red-haired doctor. She used to eat lunch with me, until the other residents started making fun of her. They called her Janitor-lunch-eater. Not the most clever group...Anyway, I know that you don't think about me the way that I think about you. And I never really believed that you would or that you could. But just pretending for today made me feel good for a change.

Elliott: It's okay. I actually had a good time.

The Janitor: Thanks...Elliot. — Bill Lawrence

It was surprising that you could spend hours in the middle of the night pretending things were okay, and know in thirty seconds of daylight that simply wasn't so — Gillian Flynn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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