Jeff

“Ender nodded. It was a lie, of course, that it wouldn’t hurt a bit. But since adults always said it when it was going to hurt, he could count on that statement as an accurate prediction of the future. Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“Those who write them do,” Ferus said. “They leave bits and pieces behind them when they lay down the words, some scraps and smears of their essential nature.” He sniffed. “Most untidy, really—but assemble enough scraps and one might have something approaching a whole.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“people who care will always be at the mercy of people who don’t.”
― Scott Meyer, Master of Formalities

“All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations