Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.

So easy now that Elder Sister has explained to her what all young girls in houses are taught—that with care and meticulous acting and tears of pretended pain and fear, and the final modest telltale stains cautiously placed, a girl can, if necessary, be virgin ten times for ten different men.

Mundus vult decipi'—the world wants to be deceived. To live without deception presupposes standards beyond the reach of most people whose existence is largely shaped by compromise, evasion and mutual accommodation. Could they face their weakness, their vanity and selfishness, without a mask?

This society WISHES I was the person it tries to portray me as. It WISHES I was all the things it accuses me of. I WISHES I was trying to be something else, lying, cheating and etc. But that's not me. It wants SO bad to pin something on me but it doesn't have anything now so it makes up stuff.

If someone is playing on my fear, the natural tendency for a person is to throw all their energy and focus into protecting that vulnerability. But I say if you’re playing on my fear to the left, I’m going to look to the right and try to find out what you’re taking or attacking.


I like transparent boxes, so would-be thieves can see what’s inside. Deception by invisibility—the walls are invisible, and that makes the contents inside visible, and therefore invisible, because people look but they don’t see, as they assume nothing of value would be out in the open.

إذا أردت أن تخدع المرأة فقل لها الحقيقة - فهي لن تصدقك !

This explained to me--and I suppose, forgave me--my inability to see the face of this man, because whoever must deceive us in order to live will by necessity far exceed the skill of ordinary men, who are as much tempted by the desire to be honest as they are plagued by guilt and shame when they have broken faith.

When you look at the past without God’s eyes, you subject yourself to deception. The past no longer exists and God doesn’t linger there. However, Satan will show you whatever you want to see and believe, so you will be trapped in an emotion that cannot communicate truth, beyond what you want to remember.

87.—Men would not live long in society were they not the dupes of each other. [A maxim, adds Aimé Martin, "Which may enter into the code of a vulgar rogue, but one is astonished to find it in a moral treatise." Yet we have scriptural authority for it: "Deceiving and being deceived."—2 TIM. iii. 13.]

The green girl necessarily pines for the past, because the present is too uncomfortable to be present in and the future, unimaginable. The need to long, to desire that which she cannot have, that which has eluded her, because she deceives herself that it was this person, this chance, where she would have found happiness.

Together we agree that there are few tableaus more pathetic than a woman poring over a plethora of self-help books, while in a small café across town her husband is sharing a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé and fettucini Alfredo with a beautiful woman, fondling her fishnet knee and making careful plans to escape his life.

The ability to lie persuasively is one of the greatest gifts a woman can possess in this life. Some critics, principally men, will argue that deception in women is inherently evil; but having spent the last fifteen years of my life in the theater, I can attest that lying not only is sometimes expedient but can save one's career.

The genre of self-help for depression is littered with well-intentioned books that overpraise solutions and raise false hopes. It would be nice to defeat your depression in ten easy steps, but rarely is it so easy. Books that overpraise solutions produce frustrated, disappointed and demoralized readers and damage the credibility of experts.

…I wanted to remove,my diamond earrings,for I felt they were,weighing a little heavy.I wanted to remove my heels,for I felt they were,taking me a little,above the ground,than I needed to be.I wanted to,throw away my blazer,for it was too much,of a thick layer,to what I am deep inside.” (Poem- Unambitious, Book- Ginger and Honey)