I don’t let the left hand know what the right hand is doing.

The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.

I’m a very private person. I don’t go out much. I’m home with kids. I go to work. I don’t really like being the focus of attention, which is why I like being behind the camera more.

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

I never talk about my next project.

On the Internet, you think everything is going to be public.

It’s against all of our policies for an application to ever share information with advertisers.

I’m standing behind a wall of jokes. You don’t know about my personal life, my girlfriends, or what I do when I’m not on the road. There’s this guy, this comedian, and this is how he thinks, but people really don’t know anything about me.

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.

I’ve learned that usually, the less I know about other people, the better off I am.

Actions are visible, though motives are secret.

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.

A career is born in public – talent in privacy.

If I were to make public these tapes, containing blunt and candid remarks on many different subjects, the confidentiality of the office of the president would always be suspect.

I don’t let a lot of reporters meet my children.

I do not recognize the right of the public to break in the front door of a man’s private life in order to satisfy the gaze of the curious… I do not think it right to dissect living men even for the advancement of science. So far as I am concerned, I prefer a post mortem examination to vivisection without anaesthetics.

There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.

The only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves.

Writers are always writing about infidelity. It’s so dramatic. The wickedness of it, the secrecy, the complications, the finding that you thought you were one person but you’re also this other person. The innocent life and the guilty life. My God, it’s just full of stuff for a writer. I doubt it will ever go out of fashion.

I don’t want to be on the Internet.

The real question for me is, do people have the tools that they need in order to make those decisions well? And I think that it’s actually really important that Facebook continually makes it easier and easier to make those decisions… If people feel like they don’t have control over how they’re sharing things, then we’re failing them.

Ultimately, who you choose to be in a relationship with and what you do in your bedroom is your business.

If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure – the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?

I can walk through a hotel lobby and watch people at the desk and see what they’re doing. People don’t look at me. They don’t even know I’m there.

You have to be careful about how much you reveal to people that look up to you so much.

You don’t know when you’re being watched. That’s one of the weird things about celebrity. It’s my least favorite part of acting, celebrity.

There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing.

At home I am a nice guy: but I don’t want the world to know. Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far.

There is a need for aloneness, which I don’t think most people realise for an actor. It’s almost having certain kinds of secrets for yourself that you’ll let the whole world in on only for a moment, when you’re acting. But everybody is always tugging at you. They’d all like sort of a chunk of you.

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.

When I’m surfing, I’m sure not thinking about the paparazzi. I guess if they start getting on floaties and coming out there in the water, then I might be a little upset.

I don’t think you get successful to brag and throw what you have in the world’s face. That’s all private.

I’ve never had that much trouble with the paparazzi, but I don’t run the same circles that a lot of these people that do get hounded by the paparazzi.

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

Secrets are things we give to others to keep for us.

As soon as I go out into the world, I belong, in a way, to everyone else. It’s legal to follow me. It’s legal to stalk me at the beach. And I can’t call the police or ask them to leave.

I don’t have people following me around, like bodyguards. I don’t know how people live like that. Maybe the young movie stars have to live like that, I don’t know. But it seems a little crazy to me. I don’t think you need all that stuff.

Well, in order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times.

Should surveillance be usable for petty crimes like jaywalking or minor drug possession? Or is there a higher threshold for certain information? Those aren’t easy questions.

I do get recognized, but I must say Edinburgh is a fantastic city to live if you’re well-known. There is an innate respect for privacy in Edinburgh people, and I also think they’re used to seeing me walking around, so I don’t think I’m a very big deal.

In order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times. That is what we do.

Once you’ve lost your privacy, you realize you’ve lost an extremely valuable thing.

I like to hide behind the characters I play. Despite the public perception, I am a very private person who has a hard time with the fame thing.

Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.

People are very reluctant to talk about their private lives but then you go to the internet and they’re much more open.

I don’t want to write an autobiography because I would become public property with no privacy left.

Give yourself more opportunities for privacy, when you are not bombarded with duties and obligations. Privacy is not a rejection of those you love; it is your deserved respite for recharging your batteries.

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.

No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.

The very word ‚secrecy‘ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.

Since the civil war in Laos was resumed in earnest in 1963, American participation has been veiled in secrecy.

I don’t have anything to hide.

Big Brother is watching you.

Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I’m very grateful for the support and kindness that we’ve gotten. People have respected their privacy and in that way, I think, you know, no matter what people may feel about my husband’s policies or what have you, they care about children and that’s been good to see.

I let people fill in the blanks on their own. If they want to think about their ex, that’s fine. If they want to think about maybe who one of my exes is, then that’s fine. And it might not be right, because I’m the only one who knows what these songs are really about. It’s the one shred of privacy I have in the matter.

There is nothing we like to communicate to others as much as the seal of secrecy together with what lies under it.

The biggest guru-mantra is: never share your secrets with anybody. It will destroy you.

I don’t want everybody to see exactly where I live, what my sofa or my fireplace looks like.

Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense.

If I have the chance to say something, I will say it – but that doesn’t obligate me to always say something, or to shed light on every problem, as if I were a lawmaker.