Too Secretive Quotes & Sayings

Wizards are a secretive lot. — Patricia Briggs

At the local coffee-shop, hunched in one of the secretive, high-backed booths with hundreds of peoples' names gouged into the wood, we drank cup after cup of black coffee and talked frankly about sex. — Sylvia Plath

I have friends who are writers, but we don't tend to talk about literature very much. It's just not part of my process; I tend to be pretty secretive about what I'm working on. — Donald Miller

Stalin didn't write any memoirs. He was too secretive. He was afraid people might read them. — Jonathan Lynn

I listened humbly, resentfully. I knew I did not have charm. Neither Laura nor I had it. We were too secretive for charm, or else too blunt. We'd never learned it, because Reenie had spoiled us. She felt that who we were ought to be enough for anybody. We shouldn't have to lay ourselves out for people, court them with coaxings and wheedlings and eye-batting displays. — Margaret Atwood

The traditional gender ideals of the strong-silent man who plays his cards close to his chest and the mysterious woman who disguises her feelings with coyness go so far as to make a virtue of being unavailable and secretive. But wholehearted intimacy can develop only where two people are equally forthcoming and self-revelatory. To take the risk of loving, we must become vulnerable enough to test the radical proposition that knowledge of another and self-revelation will ultimately increase rather than decrease love. It is an awe-ful risk. — Sam Keen

I was anxious to deal with this shadow by myself alone -- and to this day I don't know why I was so jealous of sharing with any one the peculiar blackness of that experience. — Joseph Conrad

You're going to throw me naked into a pit and make me drench myself in baby lotion, aren't you?" Bride
You live in New Orleans, where they can't even dig a grave. So tell me where I'm going to find this pit?" Vane
"It's an above ground pit." Bride
"Hardly secretive." Vane
"But possible," Bride — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting. — Arthur Conan Doyle

When Jennifer was here in the summer, they were at the house most days. I would say generally that as they got older they became quieter, and though I enjoyed both, I sometimes missed the giggles and shouts. The quiet voices, just low enough for me not to hear from wherever I was, rising and failing in proportion to my distance from them, frightened me. Not that I believed they were planning or recounting anything really wicked, but there was a female seriousness about them, and it was secretive, and of course I thought: love, sex. But it was more than that: it was womanhood they were entering, the deep forest of it, and no matter how many women and men too are saying these days that there is little difference between us, the truth is that men find their way into that forest only on clearly marked trails, while women move about in it like birds. So hearing Jennifer and her friends talking so quietly, yet intensely, I wanted very much to have a wife. — Andre Dubus

One of the worst symptoms of HIV is secrecy...if you get HIV? You get secretive. Insular. Paranoid. Your life becomes a giant pretense so no one finds out you have this disease. You don't know what people will do for you because you are too afraid to tell them. — Regan Hofmann

I am going to be on 'True Blood.' It was really exciting. I had a great time shooting it. I spent the last nine months shooting this season and it was very secretive, very sexy, a lot of blood and fangs. — Scott Foley

You're grumpy and broody and secretive all the time. You're no joy to live with, I can tell you that!"
"I smile sometimes. I even laughed about your ... hat."
"MacHalo," I corrected tightly. "It's a brilliant invention, and it means I don't need you or V'lane to keep my safe from Shades, and that, Jericho Barrons, is worth its weight in gold: not needing either of you for something! — Karen Marie Moning

I'm a fool, to confuse this with goodness. I am not good.
I know too much to be good. I know myself.
I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. — Margaret Atwood

Carla might recognize herself in the lean girls against the bar, the girls in slender-cut suits with silver rings on each finger and thumb who looked so compact and secretive, so much as if all their essences were perfectly locked and kept, and only if you managed to please them could you unlock their fingers and pry them out. They smelled of a different perfume, they never quite met your eyes except in a swift and thorough appraisal whose conclusion you became aware of immediately when their eyes averted without the longed-for approving smile. You longed to go with them to secret apartments in the suburbs or condos on the lakeshore and there have their fingers brush down your back and have their maroon mouths kiss your thighs. — Dionne Brand

it, something naughty, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It's like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt with. — Margaret Atwood

A shade slinks over me and I'm caught off guard when he leans down, placing a blossom in my cleavage, his face shadowed and secretive. — Poppet

[Epilepsy] gave her an adversity to fight against. It had shaped her personality, the need to be careful and secretive, and the ability to see things a bit differently from the neurotypical. She granted that this feeling of having a broken brain that required her to be sensitive, to look always inward to survive, might be why she turned artist. — Thomm Quackenbush

Being natural and matter-of-fact about nudity prevents your children from developing an attitude of shame or disgust about the human body. If parents are very secretive about their bodies and go to great lengths to prevent their children from ever seeing a buttock or breast, children will wonder what is so unusual, and even alarming, about human nudity. — Lee Salk

These women are, quite simply, alive; they know that the source of true values is not in external things but in human hearts. This gives its charm to the world they live in: they banish ennui by the simple fact of their presence, with their dreams, their desires, their pleasures, their emotions, their ingenuities. The sanseverina, that 'active soul' dreads ennui more than death. To stagnate in ennui 'is to keep from dying, she said, not to live'; she is ' always impassioned over something, always in action and gay too '. Thoughtless, childish or profound, gay or grave, daring or secretive, they all reject the heavy sleep in which humanity is mired. And these women who have been able to maintain their liberty- empty as it has been- will rise through passion to heroism once they find an objective worthy of them; their spiritual power, their energy, suggest the fierce purity of total dedication — Simone De Beauvoir

Yes is too obvious,may be always incubates curiosity — Pushpa Rana

He headed back for the door, and a smile so quick and secretive passed between him and Iko that Cinder almost missed it. Iko didn't take her gaze from him until he was gone. — Marissa Meyer

Why were my visitors so secretive, hiding themselves behind my consciousness. I could only conclude that they were using me and did not want me to know why ... What if they were dangerous? Then I was terribly dangerous because I was playing a role in acclimatizing people to them. — Whitley Strieber

I sometimes think I know you entirely," I said. "You know me better than anyone ever has," Susan said. "And yet you're quite secretive," I said. "You surprise me often. — Robert B. Parker

(for the deeply secretive cannot grasp that protecting your secret too fiercely exposes it). — Kai Ashante Wilson

I think on 'ER,' my other long-running show, I had some ideas about what's going on. 'Stargate Universe,' they were kind of secretive too a little bit about what they wanted to do, but I kind of liked working this way. I like the surprises, and I like knowing just enough to work on the character. — Ming-Na Wen

I argued for a Kindle but they pointed out that if it could be associated with me, then the information bleed - Amazon logging every page turn and annotation - was a potential security hazard. Not to mention the darker esoteric potential of spending too much time staring at a device controlled by a secretive billionaire in Seattle. The void stares also, and so on. — Charles Stross

To struggle" was the verb most commonly associated with homosexuality within the ex-gay subculture. To accept the gay label was to associate with a lifestyle God didn't ordain and couldn't bless, yet to adopt the label straight seemed pretentious and disingenuous. We felt that the word struggle communicated the truth of it all. I was, and we were, struggling between two worlds. Trying not to be gay was one big excruciating struggle, because it is impossible. Trying to be straight is equally impossible. Such attempts are pretty much always motivated by shame and fear, unfortunately sending too many gay Christians into dangerous and secretive lives that most openly gay people would never lead. — Leslie Chambers

There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about those in power. There's something delightful about it, something naughty, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It's like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt. — Margaret Atwood

The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous and secretive economic and political force in America. — Bernie Sanders

Now I see how many wolf characteristics you had. You were wary, didn't really trust anyone or anything. You were elusive and secretive. You paced out behind the trees, watching everything and waiting for the moment when it was safe to come in and rest by the fire. But you weren't happy there -- no, I take that back, you were happy there, but you weren't comfortable. It wasn't what you knew. It wasn't what you trusted. You trusted meanness, not kindness. Kindness spooked you -- you were always looking for the trap in it. You trusted in a scrappy existence where you had to fight for your survival. — Helen Humphreys

I love all of you Ember - the ferocious, beautiful girl I first laid eyes on, the fiery girl who punched me in the face when I threw off her sheets, the penitent girl I found curled up in the shower, the curious girl who questioned a wanted man's guilt, the brave girl who pushed me down when she saw a gun, and the secretive girl who thinks she needs to carry the world on her shoulders. — Laura Thalassa

There had been no more attacks since those on Justin and Nearly Headless Nick, and Madam Pomfrey was pleased to report that the Mandrakes were becoming moody and secretive, meaning that they were fast leaving childhood. — J.K. Rowling

Yet literal-mindedness is not honesty or fidelity to truth
far from it. For it is the whole experience of mankind that sexual life is always, and must always be, hidden by veils of varying degrees of opacity, if it is to be humanized into something beyond a mere animal function. What is inherently secretive, that is to say self-conscious and human, cannot be spoken of directly; the attempt leads only to crudity, not to truth. — Theodore Dalrymple

First reason is, it's not authorized in the Constitution, it's an illegal institution. The second reason, it's an immoral institution, because we have delivered to a secretive body the privilege of creating money out of thin air; if you or I did it, we'd be called counterfeiters, so why have we legalized counterfeiting? But the economic reasons are overwhelming: the Federal Reserve is the creature that destroys value. — Ron Paul

Not the wretchedest man or woman but has a deep secretive mythology with which to wrestle with the material world and to overcome it and pass beyond it. Not the wretchedest human being but has his share in the creative energy that builds the world. We are all creators. We all create a mythological world of our own out of certain shapeless materials. — John Cowper Powys

Some of them will welcome me as small boys do a teacher, telling me the little secrets better to conceal the big ones.For I tell you, that secrets are not kept by being secretive; — Talbot Mundy

Toxically shamed people tend to become more and more stagnant as life goes on. They live in a guarded, secretive and defensive way. They try to be more than human (perfect and controlling) or less than human (losing interest in life or stagnated in some addictive behavior). — John Bradshaw

What was that about?" Henry's voice came out higher than he would have liked.
"Shh." Peter's eyes shifted around the square.
"I thought you cared about her," Henry said, careful to steady his voice this time.
Peter rubbed his eyes and hen opened them, hoping to find that Henry had gone. He hadn't.
"I do care." Peter sighed, seeing that we would have to give a genuine answer, that Henry wouldn't take anything less. "But" - Peter nodded in the direction of the tavern, where the Captain was - "I'm trying to be smart about it. — Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

It's so funny because if you tweet your lyrics and then you hear it in a song next week, you're like, 'Hey I had that same idea.' I'm very secretive with my music. We have to send emails password protected. Because once that song gets out, you aren't selling that thing. — Ester Dean

I'm a very secretive person. — Jim Crace

I value my privacy, and if sometimes my actions seem strange or arbitrary or capricious, I do not want them challenged. — George R R Martin

I'm not being secretive about anything. I just actually don't have opinions about society. — Tao Lin

In a small Swiss city sits an international organization so obscure and secretive ... Control of the institution, the Bank for International Settlements, lies with some of the world's most powerful and least visible men: the heads of 32 central banks, officials able to shift billions of dollars and alter the course of economies at the stroke of a pen. — Keith Bradsher

That is the operatic problem; the singer must keep up a big head of steam while trying to appear secretive, or seductive, or consumptive. Some ingenious composer should write an opera about a group of people who were condemned by a cruel god to scream all the time; it would be an instantaneous success, and a triumph of versimilitude. — Robertson Davies

Well, they've come a long way. To think that he now could access a secret document held in the Vatican archives, via electronic technology. — Peter J. Tanous

The pope was lying fully stretched out on the floor, his body half-obscured by Cardinal Villot, who was leaning over him. Calvi's heart jumped into his throat. The pontiff 's eyes were shut, his face distorted in pain. He wasn't breathing. He was life-less, drained of color. — Peter J. Tanous

Whenever people ask me what the story is for my next film, I won't tell and people feel it's because I'm being secretive or something, but it's actually because I'm ashamed to sum up a film in three sentences. — Abbas Kiarostami

He [Reed] had never overtly flirted with me; his way of showing me he cared was always subtle. Touching my hand. Meeting my eyes across a room. Playing my favorite songs when we were driving in his car. He was secretive about everything he did, including revealing emotion ... — Becca Fitzpatrick

The Queen gave him a look: special and secretive and shared between the two of them.You warned her about us, the look seemed to say.That we would hurt her, break her as you might break a twig between your fingers. But you, who thought you could not be touched - you are the one who has been broken. — Cassandra Clare

You are precious" I insisted. "Stubborn and secretive and independent to a fault, but precious. — Alyxandra Harvey

The diamond business has always been secretive. — Nicky Oppenheimer