True Pretenses Quotes

“People liked to imagine their feelings were obvious, that their emotions were written all over their face. But generally, no one looked carefully enough to notice anything, or knew you well enough to understand what they noticed.”
― Rose Lerner, True Pretenses

“People say things die in winter, but it isn't true, mostly. They just gather their strength.”
― Rose Lerner, True Pretenses

“The human heart is like a big mess of embroidery silks, and the more you pull, the more they tangle. The thing is, the threads have only got one end, if that. You can't sort them all out into colors. You just pick the ones you want and hold one to them as best you can.”
― Rose Lerner, True Pretenses

“Secrets are my profession. I know them inside and out. What separates me from someone I'm lying to isn't the lie. It's that I know I'm lying. It's a pane of glass---they can't see it, but I don't forget it's there.”
― Rose Lerner, True Pretenses

“Drek. He was definitely in love with her now.”
― Rose Lerner, True Pretenses

“You might forget,' he said. 'You can't hold on to a person when they're gone. You can't even hold on to people who are alive sometimes. I don't remember my mother's face. Not really. But I tell myself -- I'm still here. So much of who I am and what I do comes from her, I'm remembering her just by living. Every time I tilt my head or pick up a teacup the way she used to, that's a little bit of her still in the world.”
― Rose Lerner, True Pretenses

“She was the kind of art that was so valuable it wasn't even for sale, and she smiled when she saw Ash. His pulse jumped.”
― Rose Lerner, True Pretenses

“She nodded without conviction, wishing she could be so carefree, and not the sort of person for whom an unanswered letter gnawed away at the back of her mind. Nobody liked a stick-in-the-mud...but they liked all the things sticks-in-the-mud did for them, didn't they? They liked not having to worry because someone else, someone who couldn't sleep when she had left a duty unperformed, would make sure that nothing too terrible happened.”
― Rose Lerner, True Pretenses

“Learning that he was a professional swindler should have made her shame a hundred times worse. Instead, it took the sting out of it. The whole affair was disgusting, and she was unwise to have trusted him, but she had been one of many victims. She wouldn't stand out in his mind as more foolish than other women.

What a strange, vain thing the mind was.”
― Rose Lerner, True Pretenses