Carlos Fuentes Quotes

The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.

Modern man lives under the illusion that he knows what he wants, while he actually wants what he is supposed to want.

We all came into this world naked. The rest is all drag.

Whoever the kid had been, whoever had the grand attitude, has finally heeded the admonishment of parents, teachers, governments, religions, and the law: "You just change your attitude now please, young man." This transformation in kids - from flashing dragonflies, so to say, to sticky water-surface worms slowly slipping downstream - is noticed with pride by society and with mortification by God, which is a fantastic way of saying I don't like to see kids throw away their truth just because it isn't worth a dime in the open market.

People like beauty and purity. They pretend that's what it's all about.

If mankind were only just what they pretend to be, the problem of the millennium would be immediately solved.

Playing normal is hard - especially playing normal that's not you.

I just want to be normal, like everybody else." "Are you sure that being like everybody else will make you happy?

Why had such a promising world been crucified on the tree of obligation, thorned by duties, hanged by hypocrisy, smothered by customs?

I don't want to stay folded anywhere, because where I am folded, there I am a lie.

If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to wear a mask. If you want to be honest then you have to live a lie.

All of us have to be prevaricators, hypocrites, and liars every day of our lives; otherwise the social structure would fall into pieces the first day. We must act in one another's presence just as we must wear clothes. It is for the best

Our happiness often depends upon social hypocrisies to which we will never stoop.

Well, I try my best to be just like I am, But everybody wants you to be just like them, They sing while you slave and I just get bored

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.

Truth is, I've always been selling out. The difference is that in the past, I looked like I had integrity because there were no buyers.

Perhaps one never seems so much at ones ease as when one has to play a part.

I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash.

A monster is a person who has stopped pretending.

The moment the light went out, everyone stopped pretending.

We had better appear what we are, than affect to appear what we are not.

This world is so full of hypocrisy, the only way you can be honest is to be a hermit.

One of the old philosophers says that it is the part of wisdom to sometimes seem a fool; but in our day there are too many ready-made ones to render this a desirable policy.

It was then that I realized that while playing the well-meaning tolerant individual (in short: liberal) garnered you fans and grades, it didn't matter. In my heart and head, I was a fraud.

A priestess of Avalon does not lie. But I am cast out of Avalon, and for this, and unless it is all to be for nothing, I must lie, and lie well and quickly