Charles Bukowski Quotes

Masks beneath masks until suddenly the bare bloodless skull.

Camouflage is a game we all like to play, but our secrets are as surely revealed by what we want to seem to be as by what we want to conceal.

A mask tells us more than a face.

All words are masks and the lovelier they are, the more they are meant to conceal.

You have to put on more faces to pretend who you are.

The voice that arms itself to be heard. / The face that hides itself to be seen.

Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding.

Men take more pains to mask than mend.

The mask, given time, comes to be the face itself

It doesn't ever occur to you, as you fashion your mask so carefully, that it will grow into your skin and graft itself, come to seem irremovable.

Meet me in Cognito, baby. In Cognito, we'll have nothing to hide.

Let's all pretend to be someone else, and then perhaps we'll find out who we are.

Truth is for tailors and shoemakers. I, on the contrary, have always held that the Lord has a penchant for masquerades.

Masks are what they seem to be; not so the faces beneath them.

No one can keep a mask on long.

It’s amazing what lies people can sustain behind the mask of their real faces.

Vice knows [its] ugly, so [it] puts on [a] mask.

And that's just what I'm saying. I would never want to be like certain people, who change the way they dress, go out in disguise, wear a big floppy hat and dark shades. I would hate that.

Depth must be hidden. Where? On the surface.

I'm from really humble beginnings. I've never been this Hollywood diva, but you get caught up in what you're pretending to be.

A mask of gold hides all deformities.

I've had to spend an awful lot of my life trying to pretend I'm not posh. Although once I open my mouth, I rather let things out the bag.

It's very rare that people are exactly who they appear to be.

The plays I choose to work on are about having masks. We all have masks in life, but there is a different inner life going on. The audience has to work hard to see what is going on. I love what is not on display.

All my work's been disguise, really: hiding behind the character.