Nothing is more exasperating than being lied to when both of you know and neither will admit it; yet this goes on all the time.
Mar 112013
To a quite unwreckable Lie,
To a most impeccable Lie!
To a water-tight, fire-proof, angle-iron, sunk-hinge, time-lock, steel-faced Lie!
Not a private hansom Lie,
But a pair-and-brougham Lie,
Not a little-place-at-Tooting, but a country-house-with-shooting
And a ring-fence-deer-park Lie.
—-Kipling
Nothing is more exasperating than being lied to when both of you know and neither will admit it; yet this goes on all the time.
It is the truth in the stereotype that is objectionable.
Your terrible secret is that you have no terrible secret.
The successful liar is never forgiven for showing us how tawdry the stories are in which we are eager to believe.
Sometimes one lies to avoid the appearance of lying.
Beneath our surface of deceit and pretense lies a core of pretense and deceit.