Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

I'm not a great one for chatting people up because it's phoney.

There are some people I've met and it's stressful just speaking to them, because they're really pretentious and I don't know how to talk to them without being pretentious back.

We all appear as dunces when feigning an interest in things we care nothing about.

I can't stand people who try too hard.

I was raised to be charming, not sincere.

I don't like it when people are trying too hard. That goes for clothes, for acting, for everything. It's just not good when it seems like you're making too much of an effort.

I just don't like people coming up to me and saying something. It immediately makes you become insincere. There is no way you can react to it sincerely.

Actually, in my own life I think I probably feign neuroses to be more interesting than I am.

Affectation is a very good word when someone does not wish to confess to what he would none the less like to believe of himself.

A single moment spent in a business meeting or at a pub is more than enough to reveal the basic human truth that we are all faking it most of the time. We congratulate a rival on a triumph when actually we are choking on spite. We are cordial and attentive to crashing bores.

I don't like LA. The majority just seem to be so artificial. Look at how they worship everything they think is fashionable. Isn't it sick?

I can't stand the club scene. It's all about impressing people.

It was so draining. Going to parties to rub elbows with so-and-so and act like it's no big deal, when really all I was doing was hoping I'd have the success they had.

I don't like affectation.

You have to pretend to be cool, which I never am.

Being natural is one of the most irritating poses I know in people.

Even if I'm not having the best time in a social situation, I'll force a smile.

There's never a case of, 'Ooh, I touched a nerve there.' It's make believe.

Affectation is a very good word when someone does not wish to confess to what he would none the less like to believe of himself.

Restaurants are minefields for the socially inept

The English are a nation of consummate cant.

I've wasted a lot of time pretending to be interested in people who weren't terribly interesting.

For a much lauded writer, I'm not terribly self-absorbed. In social situations, which are difficult for me - I mean, this is an interview - I'm normally uncomfortable talking about myself.

Half the time she did things not simply, not for themselves; but to make people think this or that; perfect idiocy she knew for no one was ever for a second taken in.

There aren't any embarrassing questions — just embarrassing answers.