The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.
Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion.
The public history of all countries, and all ages, is bet a sort of mask, richly colored. The interior working of the machinery must be foul.
Making the world safe for hypocrisy.
AMANDA: I think very few people are completely normal really, deep down in their private lives.
A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.
The only very marked difference between the average civilized man and the average savage is that the one is gilded and the other is painted.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
Our civilized world is nothing but a great masquerade. You encounter knights, parsons, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, priests, philosophers and a thousand more: but they are not what they appear - they are merely masks... Usually, as I say, there is nothing but industrialists, businessmen and speculators concealed behind all these masks.
Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding.
You’re not an adult at all - you're just a tall child holding a beer, having conversations you don't understand...
Fake confidence on the outside often trumps truthful turmoil on the inside.
Pope had been flattered till he thought himself one of the moving powers of the system of life. When he talked of laying down his pen, those who sat round him intreated and implored; and self-love did not suffer him to suspect that they went away and laughed.
The public has always expected me to be a playboy, and a decent chap never lets his public down.
Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops.
Respectability is the dickey on the bosom of civilization.
It's nice to dig deeper into people who may look one way but always have a story to tell. I obviously write about that a lot.
Many, affecting wit beyond their power, Have got to be a dear fool for an hour.
Dissimulation is the only thing that makes society possible; without its amenities the world would be a bear-garden.
Most lives are spent putting on and taking off masks.
We live in a permanent state of bad faith, a mutual representation of ourselves to one another for the sake of remaining sane and following our biological imperative to continue as a species.
People are sad. People are broke. People are worried about money, people are worried that they're not enough and not amounting to anything and they don't feel good about themselves. People have rough times, and everybody's pretending it's not true, and we need to break that veneer.
I'm too busy acting like I'm not Naive. I've seen it all, I was here first.
We're actors in our lives, pretendin' to be who we want people to think we are.
Many shed tears merely for show, and have dry eyes when no one's around to observe them.
Money doesn't change you; it reveals who you are when you no longer have to be nice.
