The Masquerade Quotes

And the touch of her own mask, at first cool and clammy leather, but quickly like a second skin, and the play it gives her, herself a stage, her every breath a performance, and yet (herein lies the magic) also and entirely true. Every game, every lie flirting and cruel - and the house is full of them, games and lies - is real as knives, for the masquerade has come to define the night. The false face of everyday, that hides reality beneath flesh and skin, is itself hidden beneath the fantasy that, because it is a product and reflection of the mind, is an honest facade. Sadie has lived a wary, defensive life, always urged by that self-preserving instinct to stay small, hidden, safe. She did not know she had an imp inside her until she wore it on her face.

("One Of The Hungry Ones") ~ Holly Phillips

Just because some dreams never see light that doesn't make us nonbelievers, they are wings to our sky and fiction makes us dream. I know the truth is fatal, especially for the stubborn's but trust me the illusion is worse. ~ Parul Wadhwa

Let's be honest. You let yourself be pulled in because it felt good to be wanted, needed. But then it went too far, as projected images always do. If it's not a real image, but one that has been projected on to you, then you can keep up the masquerade for only so long before the mask cracks and the paint on the mask peels away. ~ Tori Amos

It's not what the Masquerade does to you that you should you fear, she wanted to tell Ake. It's what the Masquerade convinces you to do to yourself. ~ Seth Dickinson

The thread of shattered hopes covered us with the masquerade of betrayal. As always we will start picking up the pieces of our worthless life, scattered over the last 150 days in the hope of deliverance. With so many of us blinded for life ,some of us taken away for life all together, (you broke your promise once again), And I shall close the eyes of my conscience so that I don't introspect about the distrust,
long term suffering we will have to endure ,for we will always remain the nation of the suppressed!

Promises and lies!! ~ BinYamin Gulzar

Some questions are more complicated than their answers could be. ~ Parul Wadhwa

Good Mistake"

Blood on your hands
And your hands still roam
But your secret is safe with the garden gnome
Those marks on your neck never seem to fade
Bring a marching band
For the masquerade
Oh lonely man
You know you can
A pocket knife
Will serve you well
Remember what you're good for
There's much more to life

Under the sun
It's not what they can see
Until it's done
Your secret's safe with me

Blow out the candles on your cake
It's another year due with the same mistakes
Blind like a bat
When you hit that wall
Now who's gonna come
Who you gonna call
Oh lonely man
You know you can
A pocket knife
Will serve you well
Remember what you're good for
There's much more to life

Under the sun
It's not what they can see
Until it's done
Your secret's safe with me

I can see you run
I can see you're undone
Shadow to the sun
Shadow to the sun
See a rule to break
See another rule to make
It's a good mistake
Shadow next to none

Broken bones in a walking man
It's a trick to the eye
It's a rubber band
Don't let it go
Let it fall a part
It's a heavy load
For a tender heart ~ Mr. Little Jeans

He touched her chin. His eyes never left hers, and she almost felt as if he'd touched those as well. And then, with the softest, most tender caress imaginable, he kissed her. Sophie didn't just feel loved; she felt revered.
"I should wait until Monday," he said, "but I don't want to."
"I don't want you to wait," she whispered.
He kissed her again, this time with a bit more urgency. "You're so beautiful," he murmured. "Everything I ever dreamed of."
His lips found her cheek, her chin, her neck, and every kiss, every nibble robbed her of balance and breath. She was sure her legs would give out, sure her strength would fail her under his tender onslaught, and just when she was convinced she'd crumple to the floor, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed.
"In my heart," he vowed, settling her against the quilts and pillows, "you are my wife."
Sophie's breath caught.
"After our wedding it will be legal," he said, stretching out alongside her, "blessed by God and country, but right now - " His voice grew hoarse as he propped himself up on one elbow so that he could gaze into her eyes. "Right now it is true."
Sophie reached up and touched his face. "I love you," she whispered. "I have always loved you. I think I loved you before I even knew you."
He leaned down to kiss her anew, but she stopped him with a breathy, "No, wait."
He paused, mere inches from her lips.
"At the masquerade," she said, her voice ~ Julia Quinn

We somehow must become what we are not, sacrificing what we are, to inherit the masquerade of what we will be. ~ Shane Koyczan

I am a palette of emotions; I remember how I have cov-eted to be free from the school rules. I look around to see people casually dressed up and walking with an aim maybe to make a better career or just add fame of DU degree like me. The campus is buzzing with freshman and activity. I just hope, these corridors, hallways, and passages don't see me trip-ping and falling any day. I feel more comfortable standing in between the crowd of people moving. Like nobody is paying any heed. You can be yourself without feeling awkward about anything. ~ Parul Wadhwa

I am here not to let you fall alone, suffocate alone, quit life easy. I'll fight the fate for you and with you. ~ Parul Wadhwa

Out of all the things that look & bleed, the most bruised is a man who has seen his dreams crushed and experienced miserable hopelessness. ~ Parul Wadhwa

Irigaray remarks in such a vein that "the masquerade... is what women do... in order to participate in man's desire, but at the cost of giving up their own". ~ Judith Butler

College life is different, entirely different like you don't have to get ready and wear that red and crisp blue school uniform and look alike every day. Free to define ourselves with statement attire. Good thing. ~ Parul Wadhwa

In my opinion, Fiction is a figment of our imagination & it causes us to dream but Reality taints dreams, and the F.scott Fitzgerald has clearly depicted this in The Great Gatsby. ~ Parul Wadhwa

Living independent might come as appalling as the word to anyone but me. The one who thinks it's a cool idea and worth it, has sure forgotten that independence comes with a price. If one doesn't still agree, you gotta try staying at a hostel. ~ Parul Wadhwa

I believe in the complexity of the human story and that there's no way you can tell that story in one way and say, This is it. Always there will be someone who can tell it differently depending on where they are standing; the same person telling the story will tell it differently. I think of that masquerade in Igbo festivals that dances in the public arena. The Igbo people say, If you want to see it well, you must not stand in one place. The masquerade is moving through this big arena. Dancing. If you're rooted to a spot, you miss a lot of the grace. So you keep moving, and this is the way I think the world's stories should be told - from many different perspectives. ~ Chinua Achebe

Maybe I couldn't make it. Maybe I don't have a pretty smile, good teeth, nice tits, long legs, a cheeky arse, a sexy voice. Maybe I don't know how to handle men and increase my market value, so that the rewards due to the feminine will accrue to me. Then again, maybe I'm sick of the masquerade. I'm sick of pretending eternal youth. I'm sick of belying my own intelligence, my own will, my own sex. I'm sick of peering at the world through false eyelashes, so everything I see is mixed with a shadow of bought hairs; I'm sick of weighting my head with a dead mane, unable to move my neck freely, terrified of rain, of wind, of dancing too vigorously in case I sweat into my lacquered curls. I'm sick of the Powder Room. I'm sick of pretending that some fatuous male's self-important pronouncements are the objects of my undivided attention, I'm sick of going to films and plays when someone else wants to, and sick of having no opinions of my own about either. I'm sick of being a transvestite. I refuse to be a female impersonator. I am a woman, not a castrate. ~ Germaine Greer

Philosophy has been a masked ball in which a religious image of humankind is renewed in the guise humanist ideas of progress and enlightenment. Even philosophy's greatest unmaskers have ended up as figures in the masquerade. Removing the masks from our animal faces is a task that has hardly begun. ~ John N. Gray

Stop! Stop!"
Sophie shrieked with laughter as she ran down the stone steps that led to the garden behind Bridgerton House. After three children and seven years of marriage, Benedict could still make her smile, still make her laugh . . . and he still chased her around the house any chance he could get.
"Where are the children?" she gasped, once he'd caught her at the base of the steps.
"Francesca is watching them."
"And your mother?"
He grinned. "I daresay Francesca is watching her, too."
"Anyone could stumble upon us out here," she said, looking this way and that.
His smile turned wicked. "Maybe," he said, catching hold of her green-velvet skirt and reeling her in, "we should adjourn to the private terrace."
The words were oh-so-familiar, and it was only a second before she was transported back nine years to the masquerade ball.
"The private terrace, you say?" she asked, amusement dancing in her eyes. "And how, pray tell, would you know of a private terrace?"
His lips brushed against hers. "I have my ways," he murmured.
"And I," she returned, smiling slyly, "have my secrets."
He drew back. "Oh? And will you share?"
"We five," she said with a nod, "are about to be six."
He looked at her face, then looked at her belly. "Are you sure?"
"As sure as I was last time."
He took her hand and raised it to lips. "This one will be a girl."
"That's what you said last time."
"I know, ~ Julia Quinn

Eleanor reached over and stroked his foreman.
"Was I fair?" Henry whispered.
She nodded. "Very. Besides, I think our Ranulf gave you the justification for some of the changes you have been considering.Perhaps a court of law is needed."
"He did.And besides it was all highly entertaining.I had to bite my tongue when Craven started all that nonsense about Ranulf trying to kill him with an arrow."
"So you knew from the beginning..." Eleanor murmured in partial disbelief and admiration.
"That Ranulf was up to something? The man would never let anyone-even me-insult his honor without response. It was hard to wait until the oaf finished everything Ranulf needed him to say...and come to think of it...it was very convenient for Lady Bronwyn to be in disguise. How is it that you did not inform me earlier of what was to happen?"
"I did not know," Eleanor rejoined quickly. "I met with his wife, who never owned to her true identity...but I liked her and suspected she would enjoy the night much better as one of my ladies-in-waiting.It is a great honor,you know."
"And the idea of coming in masquerade?"
"Well,it has been dull lately."
"And you never knew who she was.Never thought to tell me you suspected Lady Bronwyn was not whom she professed to be."
"I only knew for sure that I liked her and that she was Laon's daughter. And as for the masquerade, I did it for you, my king."
"Me?"
"Mmm-hmmm," Eleanor purred against his ear. "I kno ~ Michele Sinclair

No man can know his deliverer, nor yet the thief of his soul. Their faces are covered; they swirl in the mob at the masquerade ball. Wine flows, and dance follows dance, and we are never certain of their names until that Midnight when all masks are removed ~ Robert V.S. Redick

He is quick witted, yes! Astute big time & level headed in opinion. It is my firsthand judgment of a man. ~ Parul Wadhwa

Rationality is the way to lead life. So high time,
let's stop feeding our dreams and shake hands with the reality. ~ Parul Wadhwa

Every day I am getting to know people, at any rate their circumstances, and sometimes one is able to see through their stories into themselves-- and at the same time one thing continues to impress me: here I meet the people as they are, far from the masquerade of "the Christian world"; people with passions, criminal types, small people with small aims, small wages and small sins-- all in all they are people who feel homeless in both senses, and who begin to thaw when one speaks to them with kindness-- real people; I can only say that I have gained the impression that it is just these people who are much more under grace than under wrath, and that it is the Christian world which is more under wrath than grace. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I hate the night, the awful night!
It muzzles the scream of pain, it rolls the spin of woes,
and the waves of the night are sweeping the town serving none
but the ill-fated ones.

The masquerade of time,
what does it conceal in its twists?
Agony and more in that night of bore.

The night, what a night!
A night of endless sighs and cries!

I hate the night, that awful night,
and I see no light, no hope for dawn, no peace in sight,
nothing but to suffer from the turmoil.

The night of pain!
The night of shame!
The untamed night of the wickedest symphonies! ~ Noha Alaa El-Din

I was never fond of this boyfriend-girlfriend game. Outsmart me, make me feel challenged and I can walk with you forever but to act like love smitten puppies in love is not my thing. ~ Parul Wadhwa

Glasses, yet to make the masquerade complete, at such a dinner there should have been wine or champagne. It ~ Aleatha Romig

If the Masquerade could not be stopped by spear or treaty, she would change it from within. ~ Seth Dickinson

I almost trust her to burn the bridges while standing at the cliff herself. She hardly agrees to be on the same page as others, either ahead of all or all in a different book. ~ Parul Wadhwa

A mask is a mirror. The masquerade is the only time I am me and it doesn't matter how many men I have sex with or how many girls I touch, I want more. ~ Chloe Thurlow

...pseudo-scientific minds, like those of the scientist or the painter in love with the pictorial, both teaching as they were taught to become architects, practice a kind of building which is inevitably the result of conditioning of the mind instead of enlightenment. By this standard means also, the old conformities are appearing as new but only in another guise, more insidious because they are especially convenient to the standardizations of the modernist plan-factory and wholly ignorant of anything but public expediency. So in our big cities architecture like religion is helpless under the blows of science and the crushing weight of conformity--caused to gravitate to the masquerade in our streets in the name of "modernity." Fearfully concealing lack of initial courage or fundamental preparation or present merit: reactionary. Institutional public influences calling themselves conservative are really no more than the usual political stand-patters or social lid-sitters. As a feature of our cultural life architecture takes a backward direction, becomes less truly radical as our life itself grows more sterile, more conformist. All this in order to be safe?
How soon will "we the people" awake to the fact that the philosophy of natural or intrinsic building we are here calling organic is at one with our freedom--as declared, 1776? ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

Life has been fair, destiny may have staged it well but the timings were terrible. ~ Parul Wadhwa

I am amazed at the intensity of your dreams; you rebuke the soul of me ~ Parul Wadhwa

No matter how much you love someone, time heals your pain and your death wish. ~ Parul Wadhwa

and I attempted, above all, to get at the truth, not the masquerade that declares itself as genuineness when, habitually, the truth is invoked, but a wholesale leveling of the artifices of personality, a selfless plunge into...into what I had thought must remain forever hidden, to the substance of what I had always kept in shadow ... to that point where self becomes sorrow ... ~ Evan Dara

I am sick and tired of coming good on expectations. ~ Parul Wadhwa

Abstract conversations are my favourite, for they unviel true convictions. ~ Parul Wadhwa

I think, in some ways, I like it when people tell me what they're thinking. I would rather have it that way than masquerade as if you're totally unbiased and objective. ~ Brian Lamb

I'm hideous"
"You could never be hideous"
"Forget it" I wanted this conversation over.
"I can't forget it," Gran said, not giving up so easily. "I don't like to hear you talk about yourself that way. Your scars do not define you, young lady. Your action do. ~ Cambria Hebert

Oh, how our persuasive and innocent little minds masquerade our true dreams and expectations. ~ Bree Lenehan

For Schuyler who doesn't like love stories ~ Melissa De La Cruz

He had fangs. So what? Plenty of things not a Dark-Hunter have fangs, including Hollywood actors and kids playing vampire. You should have checked his membership card before you attacked. Good grief, what if you'd run across a Masquerade group?" – Sundown ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Dating is about finding out who you are and who others are. If you show up in a masquerade outfit, neither is going to happen. ~ Henry Cloud

Masks reveal. They don't conceal. Masks reveal your cravings, your passion, your deepest most secret desires. ~ Chloe Thurlow

Delhi people can make anything look fancy. Delhi scares me with fast pace vehicles and running life, it can almost thrill anyone. ~ Parul Wadhwa

There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral. ~ Walter Lippmann

Such subtle Covenants shall be made,Till Peace it self is War in Masquerade. ~ John Dryden

Well, I can hardly lick champagne off your dazzling personality, now can I? ~ Mora Early

But I managed to masquerade as a person having a good time. ~ Tiffanie DeBartolo

If that made him heavy company sometimes, so be it. Who decreed that life was to be one long rowdy masquerade (punctuated with those little pets of melancholy indulged by a crowd who made a religion of their feelings)? ~ Howard Jacobson

...Both a baby and a poem masquerade as something we've created, when we know that they arrive from somewhere beyond us, that they are gifts. ~ Beth Ann Fennelly

Humans were not to be toyed with, they were to be respected. ~ Melissa De La Cruz

Shrikes were songbirds; he ought to know. ~ Jodi Meadows