It’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order to simply make a poem, that you fail.
Charles BukowskiIt’s all make believe, isn’t it?
Marilyn MonroeIt may easily come to pass that a vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance.
Baruch SpinozaWho had deceived thee so often as thyself?
Benjamin FranklinActing is a nice childish profession – pretending you’re someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself.
Katharine HepburnMy mother was a professional sick person; she took a lot of pain pills. There are many people like that. It’s just how they are used to getting attention. I always remember she’s the daughter of alcoholics who’d leave her alone at Christmas time.
Jim CarreyYou cannot find peace by avoiding life.
Virginia WoolfThe nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
George OrwellThe thing about the truth is, not a lot of people can handle it.
Conor McGregorI would wear the blue overalls of the fieldworker and often wore round, rimless glasses known as Mazzawati teaglasses. I had a car, and I wore a chauffeur’s cap with my overalls. The pose of chauffeur was convenient because I could travel under the pretext of driving my master’s car.
Nelson MandelaThe person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.
Edmund BurkeI hate pain, despite my ability to tolerate it beyond all known parameters, which is not necessarily a good thing.
Hunter S. ThompsonNature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.
Jean-Jacques RousseauI’m afraid the SS’s relationship with the Catholic Church is something the Church still has to deal with and does not deny.
Christopher HitchensI have a terrifying long list of fears. Literally everything – diseases, spiders… and people getting tired of me.
Taylor SwiftWork is a necessary evil to be avoided.
Mark TwainThe basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that’s making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?
John LennonWhen we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we’d been saying they were.
John F. KennedyBy denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.
Galileo GalileiI try not to think about my life. I have no life. I need therapy.
Keanu ReevesThere are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility.
Lyndon B. JohnsonThe most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.
Friedrich NietzschePeople who lie to themselves about investing are the same as overweight people who blame their genes for their obesity.
Robert KiyosakiI am not a crook.
Richard M. NixonThe greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.
Leonardo da VinciI definitely don’t plead guilty to being a heartthrob.
Bruno MarsNeurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.
Carl JungLaughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
Kurt VonnegutIf you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
Oscar WildeFrom my close observation of writers… they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.
Isaac AsimovBelief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.
George EliotThrough pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.
Carl JungIt is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.
Jean-Jacques RousseauWe are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.
Johann Wolfgang von GoethePeople who think you could wave a magic wand and the legacy of the past will be over are blind.
Ruth Bader GinsburgIt is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
Henry David ThoreauUnlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheI was ill, and everyone could see it but me.
George BestWhat I’m denying is that I’m this cutthroat financier.
Abby Lee MillerSpiritual people don’t float around all day on clouds of glory; they live in the real world and deal with real issues in real ways.
Joyce MeyerA typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.
Theodore RooseveltThough silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.
Marcus Tullius CiceroWhen things are really dismal, you can laugh, or you can cave in completely.
Margaret AtwoodDon’t hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.
Theodore RooseveltWhen people are taken out of their depths they lose their heads, no matter how charming a bluff they may put up.
F. Scott FitzgeraldLightning is something which, again, we would rather avoid.
Richard BransonI re-invented my image so many times that I’m in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman.
David BowieI have owed you this letter for a very long time-but my fingers have avoided the pencil as though it were an old and poisoned tool.
John SteinbeckFear not those who argue but those who dodge.
Dale CarnegieWe were the first generation to have to deal with the modern stardom of football. Some handled it better than others.
George BestA man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
Albert EinsteinTime travel was once considered scientific heresy, and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a ‚crank.‘
Stephen HawkingThese things bring you to reality as to how fragile you are; at the same moment you are doing something that nobody else is able to do. The same moment that you are seen as the best, the fastest and somebody that cannot be touched, you are enormously fragile.
Ayrton SennaDenial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
Mark TwainGod is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
Mahatma GandhiTo avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.
Elbert HubbardIn one way, I suppose, I have been ‚in denial‘ for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.
Christopher HitchensThere are people in the world who have skills and strength and talent that I will never have. Never. These notions that you can ‚be whatever you want to be as long as you want it bad enough‘ are not true. They are fairy tales.
Jocko WillinkI go through a lot of depression, and I know other people do, too, but I have an outlet that so many people don’t. If you have that inside of you and can’t get it out, what do you do?
Billie EilishWe always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love – first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.
Albert Camus