Why Keep Secrets Quotes & Sayings

We all want to live in a world where we can make a difference ... That's why Spider-Man fights the good fight. Or Captain Marvel. Or me. Or ... There are a lot of us. And we don't all wear masks these days. Iron Man went public. So did Captain America. Others. Probably because it's harder to keep secrets in an internet surveillance age. But I think some of it, too, is that the ethical paradox can wear you down. No one on the white-hat side has ever hidden his or her identity with less than noble intent: to make the fight about something bigger than us. To represent a greater justice, where the focus can be on right and wrong ... and not on whether the bad guys will exact reprisal on those close to us. And sometimes you have to lie ... because you can justify a lie if lives are riding on it. Even as you fight for, as the saying goes, truth and justice ... even if you're a lawyer who has sworn to live by the truth ... you willingly bear false witness. — Mark Waid

Why, Uruvi always wondered, would Queen Madri consign herself to the flames, when no queen before her had joined their husband in the funeral pyre? Moreover, why would the mother of tiny, helpless six-month-old twins, Nakul and Sahadeva, kill herself and leave them orphaned and under the care of her husband's first wife? It was strange. Had Madri, too, been mortally wounded like her husband, King Pandu, when they had been attacked? Had she been able to talk to Kunti before she died? Had Shakuni played up the curse of the sage to his advantage after all? If he could instigate Duryodhana to burn the Pandavas and the Queen Mother in the lac palace, he would not have any qualms in murdering King Pandu too. The only person who probably knew the truth was Kunti - but she was an evasive lady who knew how to keep her secrets. Uruvi recalled how she had pestered her on her wedding day about whether she had any regrets, but had got nothing out of her. — Kavita Kane

It wasn't just love that held people together. There was secrets, and the price you paid to keep them. — Stephen King

The first rule of being a team is trusting one another. And if you trust someone, you let her keep her secrets. When she is ready to tell you, she will. You dont have to know everything, Anaka.
Why not? Why should I trust Oona if she doesnt trust me? How do I know she's not hiding somthing more dangerous?
Oona was worried the rest of you would see her differently, Kiki bristled. Don't prove her right. — Kirsten Miller

Women of the Gallagher Academy, who comes here?" she asked.
Just then, every girl at every table (even the newbies) stood and said in unison, "We are the sisters of Gillian."
"Why do you come?" my mother asked.
"To learn her skills. Honor her sword. And keep her secrets."
"To what end do you work?"
"To the cause of justice and light."
"How long will you strive?"
"For all the days of our lives," we finished and I felt a little like a character in one of my grandma's soap operas. — Ally Carter

Perfection isn't everything," she said as she turned and walked away. "I think the flaws are what make it perfect. — Trisha Leaver

I have to ask, sir ... Why does it have to be done like this?"
Vetinari smiled. "Can you keep a secret, Mister Lipwig?"
"Oh, yes, sir. I've kept lots."
"Capital. And the point is, so can I. You do not need to know. — Terry Pratchett

I lend everyone my ear,
But nobody my heart,
And I sure would like to change that,
But I don't know where to start,
I smile more to myself,
Than the world will ever see,
Because the only time my smile is real,
Is in my own company,
People don't know how I feel,
They never even ask,
It seems I have fooled them all,
They can't see past my mask,
If they were with me late at night,
When the world was still asleep,
Maybe I'd let them sort,
Through the secrets that I keep,
But when I wake at 2am,
Nobody is ever there,
And I learnt that why I hide my heart,
Is because no-one really cares. — Erin Hanson

Nowhere can a secret keep
Always secret, dark and deep,
Half so well as in the past,
Buried deep to last, to last.
Keep it in your own dark heart.
Otherwise the rumors start.
After many years have buried
Secrets over which you worried,
No confidant can then betray
All the words you didn't say.
Only you can then exhume
Secrets safe within the tomb
Of memory, of memory,
Within the tomb of memory.
-The Book of Counted Sorrows — Dean Koontz

He had never wanted to know anything about the part of her intimate life that he had not shared with her. Why should he take an interest now, still less take offense at it? Anyhow, he asked himself, what is an intimate secret? Is that where we hide what's most mysterious, most singular, most original about a human being? Are her intimate secrets what make Chantal the unique being he loves? No. What people keep secret is the most common, the most ordinary, the most prevalent thing, the same thing that everybody has: the body and its needs, its maladies, its manias-constipation for instance, or menstruation. We ashamedly conceal these intimate matters not because they are so personal but on the contrary, they are so lamentably impersonal. — Milan Kundera

Secrets had an immense attraction to him, because he never could keep one, and he enjoyed the sort of unhallowed thrill he experienced when he went and told another animal, after having faithfully promised not to. — Kenneth Grahame

Deep, dark secrets always hurt to share. That's why we keep them in the deep dark. — Roxanne St. Claire

Do we have to confess our loves to everyone?" asked Thorne softly. "Can we not keep some secrets? — Anne Rice

Some things should never be said. Not out loud in clear, simple words. You talk around them. You leave gaps and blanks. You use other words and talk in curves and arcs for the worst things because you need to keep them like mist. Words are dangerous. Like a spell, if you name the mist, call out all of the words that describe it sharp and clear, you turn it solid, into something that no one should ever hold in their hands. Better that it stays like water, slipping between your fingers. — Alexia Casale

HAN: 'Tis said that sometimes those who knew us in
Our youth did know us best. From them we have
No secrets and cannot pretend to be
Another thing that what we are. They keep
Our living honest, for they know who we
Have been. — Ian Doescher

People like to keep their little secrets to themselves. It's like growing mushrooms in the cellar and running down to take a look at them now and then. — Marjorie Kellogg

I'm not really good at keeping my own secrets. I can keep other people's secrets pretty well. Unless they're really good and people deserve to hear them. And I'll disseminate the information accordingly. — John Mayer

What about you?You stay by my side day and night and take the hardest hits of them all.Why,Will?Why have you stayed with me all these centuries?You watch me die again and again,yet you never leave. You keep trying to save me, even though you know I'm doomed. All because some angel told you to?Come on.No more secrets,you said.Tell me. — Courtney Allison Moulton

AFTER BEING IN LOVE, THE NEXT RESPONSIBILITY
Turn me like a waterwheel turning a millstone.
Plenty of water, a Living River.
Keep me in one place and scatter the love.
Leaf-moves in wind, straw drawn toward amber,
all parts of the world are in love,
but they do not tell their secrets. Cows grazing
on a sacramental table, ants whispering in Solomon's ear.
Mountains mumbling an echo. Sky, calm.
If the sun were not in love, he would have no brightness,
the side of the hill no grass on it.
The ocean would come to rest somewhere.
Be a lover as they are, that you come to know
you Beloved. Be faithful that you may know
Faith. The other parts of the universe did not accept
the next responsibility of love as you can.
They were afraid they might make a mistake
with it, the inspired knowing
that springs from being in love — Rumi

In this age of communications that span both distance and time, the only tool we have that approximates a 'whisper' is encryption. When I cannot whisper in my wife's ear or the ears of my business partners, and have to communicate electronically, then encryption is our tool to keep our secrets secret. — John McAfee

I just asked her if she'd seen anything odd, and she started to say-"
"Oh - that - that's nothing to do with the Chamber of Secrets," said Percy at once.
"How do you know?" said Ron, his eyebrows raised.
"Well, er, if you must know, Ginny, er, walked in on me the other day when I was - well, never mind - the point is, she spotted me doing something and I, um, I asked her not to mention it to anybody. I must say, I did think she'd keep her word. It's nothing, really, I'd just rather
"
Harry had never seen Percy look so uncomfortable. — J.K. Rowling

Dogs do not lie...but we do keep secrets. — Ralph E. Vaughan

We're definitely in an era where the government wants to keep more secrets and it wants to come after anyone who's exposing those secrets and in many cases exposing government illegality. They're coming after the journalists and they're coming after the whistleblowers. It's not a good sign if the government is expending much energy trying to find out who journalists are talking to. — Laura Poitras

Darcy looked at her sister for a beat, deciding whether or not to tell her about her strange dream. Grace knew more than anyone about the dark secrets of Darcy's life, but not even her sister knew it all. And Darcy wanted to keep it that way. "I — K.J. Emrick

A big part of becoming a spy is learning all the secrets that are used to keep things under wraps. A spy has to be able to pass information and do their job without being noticed or caught in the act. While there are a few things that they do to accomplish this, nothing is quite as important as a spy's disguise. — P.D. Adler

The thing about secrets is that they are usually best kept by just one person. That was the special thing about secrets. Some people seemed to think that the best way to keep a secret was to tell as many people as possible; what could possibly go wrong for a secret when there were so many people defending it? — Terry Pratchett

Ah well that I can't tell you." Diana ducked her head so that the brim of her bonnet covered her face. "Some things must remain a mystery and for now I think I'll keep my opinion of you and your compliments to myself. — Anna Godbersen

After that, Marya Morevna understood that she belonged to her secret and it belonged to her. They had struck a bloody bargain between them. Keep me and obey me, the secret said to her, for I am your husband and I can destroy you. — Catherynne M Valente

A secret is a strange thing. There are three kinds of secrets. One is the sort everyone knows about, the sort you need at least two people for. One to keep it. One to never know. The second is a harder kind of secret: one you keep from yourself. Every day, thousands of confessions are kept from their would-be confessors, none of these people knowing that their never-admitted secrets all boil down to the same three words: I am afraid. And then there is the third kind of secret, the most hidden kind. A secret no one knows about. Perhaps it was known once, but was taken to the grave. Or maybe it is a useless mystery, arcane and lonely, unfound because no one ever looked for it. — Maggie Stiefvater

So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours.
This is, in part, why there is less magic in the world today. Magic is secret and secrets are magic, after all, and years upon years of teaching and sharing magic and worse. Writing it down in fancy books that get all dusty with age has lessened it, removed its power bit by bit. It was inevitable, perhaps, but not unavoidable. Everyone makes mistakes. — Erin Morgenstern

A sharp blade of sadness goes through me, deep and quick. I guess it was bound to happen
eventually. I've always known it would. Everyone you trust, everyone you think you can count on, will eventually disappoint you. When left to their own devices, people lie and keep secrets and change and disappear, some behind a different face or personality, some behind a dense early morning fog, beyond a cliff. That's why the cure is so important. That's why we need it. — Lauren Oliver

Confidentiality refers to the boundaries surrounding shared secrets and to the process of guarding these boundaries. While confidentiality protects much that is not in fact secret, personal secrets lie at its core. The innermost, the vulnerable, often the shameful: these aspects of self-disclosure help explain why one name for professional confidentiality has been "the professional secret." Such secrecy is sometimes mistakenly confused with privacy; yet it can concern many matters in no way private, but that someone wishes to keep from the knowledge of third parties. — Sissela Bok

The secrets of dreams keep us safe
Reminding our subconscious
Of what we can't face in our waking hours. — Sandra Easter

Only a couple of people have figured out what a weirdo super freak I am on the inside. And those people all have a reason to keep my secret, because ... well, I've helped them resolve their own secrets.
One person especially. Miraculously, he fell in love with me.
Don't ask me why. I think I'm fabulous, but I'm not entirely sure what he sees in me (except the fact that I've saved his life a few times. But he's returned the favor). — Meg Cabot

I may add here that one of the secrets of my happy life is that i have never made the mistake of learning to drive a car. I have never lacked people, usually women, longing to drive me withersoever I wanted. Why keep bitches and bark yourself? — Iris Murdoch

Why am I telling you this?" he went on. "A secret's only a secret as long as you keep it. Once you tell someone it loses all its power--for good or for ill--like that, it's just another piece of information. But a real mystery can't be solved, not completely. It's always just out of reach, like a light around the corner; you might catch a glimpse of what it reveals, feel its warmth, but you can't know the heart of it, not really. That's what gives it value: It can't be cracked, it's bigger than you and me, bigger than everything we know. Those tight-ass suits can keep their secrets, they don't add up to anything. This deep in the game, pal, I'll take mystery every time. — Mark Frost

It is up to the government to keep the government's secrets. — Robert Novak

Secrets.
We keep them to protect ourselves.
We keep them to protect others.
We keep them out of shame.
We keep them out of fear.
We keep them... wait... do we keep them for do they keep us? — Ellen Hopkins

Secrets have power. And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours. — Erin Morgenstern

He is the Truth, and He wants us to deal in truth with ourselves and our loved ones. We want the truth about you and your family to flood into and overrun the secrets that keep you in bondage to dysfunctional behavior and relationships — Henry Cloud

Are we all living like this? Two lives, the ideal outer life and the inner imaginative life where we keep our secrets? — Jeanette Winterson

The man who can keep a secret may be wise, but he is not half as wise as the man with no secrets to keep — Edgar Watson Howe

I want you to remember what was good in me, not what was most awful. The people you love should be allowed to keep their worst to themselves. — Joe Hill

There are some secrets we keep because we can't bear to let them out and some because it's better to keep them in. — Ally Carter

I always prayed the same way at night: "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Please bless my mother, father, sister, everyone in the word, and me. And please make my father quit drinking."
As a child growing up in a family battling alcoholism, this is what I know: Something bad is coming; it always does. I can't ask for help; I'm too ashamed. I can't talk about our secrets; no one understands. I can't trust anyone; they always leave.
Questions bounced off my self-constructed wall of values
a barricade I'd made from the fears I'd pushed into my darkness.
How could Ryan, a professional baseball player, really resist all those women? How could I really trust Jerry, my childhood friend? I'd barely awakened to sex and already boys were the seventh wonder of the world. Did anyone really trust another person? I needed proof. That proof hadn't revealed itself ... yet. — Pamela Taeuffer

There comes a point in a relationship when you realize that you trust someone enough to let them keep their secrets. — Robert Breault

I want to keep my own guard, I want to keep my secrets, I want to keep my private life for me. — Emmanuel Petit

I loved Trevor wholly. In all the good ways that made me feel alive and special and important. But also, in the bad ways. The ways that shut me off from others and left me alone with my pain. The ways that had me keep secrets. I loved Trevor in all the ways that I thought mattered, even though I knew that I didn't. — Steph Campbell

Just what she needed. More filth in her soul. Someday, maybe, she would explode from it, someday maybe, every rotten thing that had every been done to her and every rotten thing she'd ever done would erupt from her in a fountain of sewage and sorrow, all those secrets she kept even from herself spilling out and adding to the muck she could never wash off no matter how hard she tried.
She'd never been bound by magic to keep those secrets. Just by her own shame. — Stacia Kane

I think secrets are something that you keep or are afraid to share because you think they're going to harm you in some way. So if you don't have any secrets, then there's no way anyone can harm you. — Don Lemon

Our secrets, odd or not, are the pins that keep our inner life in place: the inform our psyche with meaning. — Andrei Codrescu

My Christian Louboutins are also one of the secrets to my not-for-profit success. Here's why - and it's something that everyone who manages employees, whether in a for-profit business or a not-for-profit, should keep in mind: A little extravagance goes a long way. — Nancy Lublin

But if I had to choose between where I live and you, I'd rip up everything I own because the only landscape worth looking is the landscape of the human body. I kiss your Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I kiss your Missouri and Monongahela and Susquehanna and Shenandoah and Rio Grande. I kiss the confluence of all those rivers. I kiss your amber waves of grain. I kiss your spacious skies, your rocket's red glare, your hand I love, your purple mountain'd majesty. But most of all I kiss your head. I kiss the place where we make our decisions. I kiss the place where we keep our resolves. The place where we do our dreams. I kiss the place behind the eyes where we store up secrets and knowledge to save us if we're caught in a corridor on a dark, wintry evening. — John Guare

We keep secrets from ourselves that all along we know. — Susan Griffin

One could keep open secrets only so well before they became a threat to others. — Ted Dekker

For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all the while that it is there, but until it is needed you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that could be given a name. — George Orwell

Always remember the secrets you were trusted to keep. Those become weapons, and I've developed an arsenal. — Teresa Mummert

My fear tries to keep my secrets locked down, but my hope keeps slipping you the key. — David Levithan

If this is true, how is it no one knows?" "The knights of the Kingsguard are sworn to keep the king's secrets. Would you have me break my oath?" Jaime laughed. "Do you think the noble Lord of Winterfell wanted to hear my feeble explanations? Such an honorable man. He only had to look at me to judge me guilty." Jaime lurched to his feet, the water running cold down his chest. "By what right does the wolf judge the lion? By what right?" A violent shiver took him, and he smashed his stump against the rim of the tub as he tried to climb out. — George R R Martin

We're only as sick as the secrets we keep. — Maria Nemeth

There are some secrets you want to keep to yourself, even if they don't matter. They might only matter if you keep them secret. — Lemony Snicket

These guys, my guys, are a bunch of assholes and I have to dig deep to find things about them I like so I can keep their secrets and keep them alive. Then they do these things, they betray me, and I have to let go of the love I worked so hard to find and splatter their brains all over the wall. — Bonnie Morse