Pretending To Be A Fool Quotes & Sayings

I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I think someone who claims to understand but who is obviously calm, someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in tranquility, is a fool and a liar. To understand is to tremble. To recollect is to reenter and be riven. An acrobat after spinning through the air in a mockery of flight stands erect on his perch and mockingly takes his bow as if what he is being applauded for was easy for him and cost him nothing, although meanwhile he is covered with sweat and his smile is edged with a relief chilling to think about; he is indulging in a show-business style; he is pretending to be superhuman. I am bored with that and with here it has brought us. I admire the authority of being on one's knees in front of the event.
- Innocence, from My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead — Harold Brodkey

For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool
by making his world a little colder ... — The Beatles

I won't stand there and watch while men die behind me. We have to be better than that! We can't look away like the lighteyes, pretending we don't see. This man is one of us. Just like Dunny was.
"The lighteyes talk about honor. They spout empty claims about their nobility. Well, I've only known one man in my life who was a true man of honor. He was a surgeon who would help anyone, even those who hated him. Especially those who hated him. Well, we're going to show Gaz, and Sadeas, Hashal, and any other sodden fool who cares to watch, what he taught me. Now go to work and stop complaining! — Brandon Sanderson

All that I've lived I've forgotten, as if I'd vaguely heard it. All that I'll be reminds me of nothing, as if I'd lived and forgotten it. — Fernando Pessoa

At the snowy summit of all these things, however, is the fact that you simply cannot go about locking your siblings in towers when they misbehave. It is unseemly and betrays a sad lack of creativity. — Catherynne M Valente

Anyone who is a Palestinian citizen, whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, should decide together in a very free referendum. There is no need for war. There is no need for threats or an atom bomb either. — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The Internet is an incredible business tool. First of all, the Internet/the cell phone - the cell phone is just another way to get at it - I think is having a huge impact in Africa most particularly, where it enables people - suddenly, they know crop prices. They can communicate. It makes their lives more efficient. — Esther Dyson

Friends ... They are kind to each other's hopes. They cherish each other's dreams. — Henry David Thoreau

The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you are not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one. All the shortcuts and economies and common-sense changes that your native intelligence suggests to you are mistakes. Learn to quash them. Constantly ask yourself, "How would I do this if I were a fool?" Throttle down your mind to a crawl. Then you will never go wrong. — Herman Wouk

I suppose about the only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody. — Booth Tarkington

I'm tired of saying, "How wonderful you are!" to fool men who haven't got one-half the sense I've got, and I'm tired of pretending I don't know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they're doing it. — Margaret Mitchell

In the midst of the night a star brings us the message of eternal light. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

I wish to Heaven I was married," she said resentfully as she attacked the yams with loathing. "I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I want to do. I'm tired of acting like I don't eat more than a bird, and walking when I want to run and saying I feel faint after a waltz, when I could dance for two days and never get tired. I'm tired of saying, 'How wonderful you are!' to fool men who haven't got one-half the sense I've got, and I'm tired of pretending I don't know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they're doing it ... I can't eat another bite. — Margaret Mitchell

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

Innocent?" He was incensed at her suggestion he was somehow responsible for this mess. "I've done nothing wrong, I intend nothing wrong. I am innocent!"
"Half the evil in this world occurs while decent people stand by and do nothing wrong. It's not enough to refrain from evil, Trell. People have to attempt to do right, even if they believe they cannot succeed."
"Even when it's stupid to try?" he asked with savage sarcasm.
"Especially then," she replied sweetly. "That's how it's done, Trell. You break your heart against this stony world. You fling yourself at it, on the side of good, and you do not ask the cost. That's how you do it. — Robin Hobb

When I abandoned the smoking habit of more than three decades I was given a supposedly helpful pill called Wellbutrin. But as soon as I discovered that this was the brand name for an antidepressant, I tossed the bottle away. There may be successful methods for overcoming the blues but for me they cannot include a capsule that says: 'Fool yourself into happiness, while pretending not to do so.' I should actually want my mind to be strong enough to circumvent such a trick. — Christopher Hitchens

you sit across from me in the garden,
pretending that you have to leave shortly,

I know, as always, you want me to play the fool,
and ask, Am I keeping you?

Yes.

Well, if so, then
can I keep you?

This is the paradigm of us. We are civilization and paradise, but
We are Armageddon, and wastelands. — Terrence Alonzo Craft

Everybody's strange everywhere. Most of the trick of being a social animal is pretending you're not. But who do you fool? Nobody worth talking to. — Catherynne M Valente

Only a fool takes pride in pretending that a skill he doesn't possess is worthless. — Bernard Cornwell

Life don't care 'bout sorry's," Will says. "Bad things happen, and you can't let 'em harden you. Whatever happened to yer pa, it ain't yer fault, Nate, and you gotta let it go. — Erin Bowman

Look at us all
we are all of us lost and in all of our different ways of pretending, we all fool ourselves into the very same hell.
Look at the cross
we are all of us loved and one God meets us all at the point of our common need and brings to all of us
all who will let Him
salvation. — Rich Mullins

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