artificial behavior Quotes

when we leave society and come into the presence of Nature, we become children again; and the fictions of thought and action assumed among men drop off like a garment.

I try to live my life as honestly as I can, and the last thing I want is to pretend to be something I'm not. To pretend to myself I am a sex symbol would somehow be dishonest. I'd feel, in my heart, that I were behaving artificially and that's the last thing I want to do.

Those who assume a character which does not belong to them, only make themselves ridiculous.

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue. It is the practice of sacrificing to those whom we meet in society, all the little inconveniences and preferences which will gratify them, and deprive us of nothing worth a moment's consideration; it is the giving a pleasing and flattering turn to our expressions, which will conciliate others, and make them pleased with us as well as themselves. How cheap a price for the good will of another!

She knows the rituals, she knows how we're supposed to be behaving...But I think these things are impenetrable and fraudulent, and I can't do them without feeling I'm acting.

Politics requires tolerance for triviality, artifice, nonsense I have found in short supply.

How do men feel whose whole lives (and many men's lives are) are lies, schemes, and subterfuges? What sort of company do they keep when they are alone? Daily in life I watch men whose every smile is an artifice, and every wink is an hypocrisy. Doth such a fellow where a mask in his own privacy, and to his own conscience?

I cannot come and suddenly put on a persona. Like, I cannot be Mike Tyson. When you saw him it was raw, it was intense, 'I want to hurt you.' But now everybody tries it. I don't enjoy that. It's not real.

I begin to grow heartily tired of the etiquette and nonsense so fashionable in this city.

The idea that people can behave naturally, without resorting to an artificial code tacitly agreed upon by their society, is as silly as the idea that they can communicate by a spoken language without commonly accepted semantic and grammatical rules.

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad.

I had become a perfect fake human, saying the stupid and pointless things that humans say to each other all day long.

Most actors and actresses are performative as people.

If you go out to Hollywood you'll find a lot of fantastic plastic people there in the business and a lot of people in life generally. They find it so hard to be themselves that they have to be plastic.

I didn't go Hollywood on the outside with flashy cars, upstairs maids and mink-covered bathroom fixtures. I went Hollywood on the inside, and that's worst of all. I tried to avoid being natural. I lowered my voice. I copied the mannerisms of other stars. I struck poses.

I think all the business stuff - the promotion, the hype, the high-power lunches, and the permanently injected smiles - is boring.

Because of jealousy you are in constant suffering; you become mean to others. And because of jealousy you start becoming phony, because you start pretending. You start pretending things that you don't have, you start pretending things which you CAN'T have, which are not natural to you. You become more and more artificial. Imitating others, competing with others, what else can you do? If somebody has something and you don't have it, and you don't have a natural possibility of having it, the only way is to have some cheap substitute for it.

I didn't go Hollywood on the outside with flashy cars, upstairs maids and mink covered bathroom fixtures. I went Hollywood on the inside and that's worst of all. I tried to avoid being natural. I lowered my voice. I copied the mannerisms of other stars. I struck poses. I received bad advice - from dramatic coaches, from agents, and from studio executives. I stopped being a human being. I blame myself and I blame Hollywood's star system.

I've grown to love L.A., but it's the most socially awkward place. All these people have come there not to be something but to pretend to be someone trying to be someone. Even in line for coffee, you're standing with someone who's trying to be so interesting.

It's not that you aren't likable. On the contrary. You are. It's just that one wonders if you haven't made a career out of being so likable.

It's like you always have to put on a happy face, be the phony baloney, and I'm so not that. I never was that; I'll never be that. That is part of the business that I don't like.

Reserve is an artificial quality that is developed in most of us but as the result of innumerable rebuffs.

All the gestures of children are graceful; the reign of distortion and unnatural attitudes commences with the introduction of the dancing master.

Trying to be fascinating is an asinine position to be in.

If you've gotta think about being cool, you ain't cool.