Masking Pain Quotes

All of us have ways in which we mask and cover our pain.

I had long ago become a creation, a public image made to be consumed, piled on top of a precarious shell of a little boy wanting to be loved.

I pretend I'm not hurt, I walk about the world like I'm having fun.

...[P]eople who shout joy from the rooftops are often the saddest of all... (p.24)

A part of me likes to pretty up feelings that aren't so pretty.

People thought I had no feelings, that I was hard. But really, I was extremely sensitive to everything.

People might look great on the outside but they all have something that they're dealing with.

To me, 'Alors On Danse' is the definition of clubbing. Because everyone is just trying to forget their problems, but actually, it's so sad, clubbing. We try to sell happiness in clubs, but you can't.

'Perfect' is about a set-up that looks perfect from the outside - beautiful country house, beautiful wife and mother, everything where it should be - and the deep fissures that, in fact, lie beneath that. 'Perfect' was partly a response to the shock of my first book, 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry,' being a success.

There's nothing grimmer than the tragedy that wears a comic mask.

When you're happy you don't always have to be laughing, and when you're sad you don't have to be crying; sometimes it's the opposite. You laugh when you're the most upset.

A sight game is that I am hurt, but I aim to make you believe I am not even hurt, and with this confidence appearing on my face, I don't panic, otherwise your opponent will know that you are hurt. That's the whole art game in boxing.

But she wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history. Or was it the other way around? Maybe the evil history made it necessary to build beautiful things, to mask the darker aspects.

Sometimes I dread the truth of the lines I say. But the dread must never show.

If you hear somebody say something absolutely horrendous about their own life, in quite a flippant, offbeat kind of way, when you meet people clearly trying to be strong and brave, the ones who are really good at it are the ones who break my heart the most.

Generally speaking, talk to any stand-up comedian, the people in this world who are the brightest and have the biggest smile often are struggling with a lot of things under the surface.

I know a lot of people who are depressed, and they walk around, and they're smiling every day, but no one's asking them how they're really doing.

Be fond of the man who jests at his scars, if you like; but never believe he is being on the level with you.

I've lived kind of a sad-happy life. It's like, every time you take a breath, it's heavy, but on the outside you're like a clown family traveling along the universe.

I can see his pain, see it in the way he runs his fingers through his hair, over and over, and I understand what it costs him to hide it all.

If you say, 'I listen to pop,' you picture this kind of perfect, colorful, polished song. I want to have that, but when you open it, you see this gritty dark - kind of like dancing your tears away. Disguise the sadness in a pop beat.

Looking good and feeling like death is a difficult combination for people to understand.

I think I have a dark view of the world. I have to make everything funny, otherwise it all seems so sad.

Death, of course, is a refuge. It's where you go when a new name, or a mask and cape, can no longer hide you from yourself. It's where you run to when none of the principalities of your conscience will grant you asylum.