SECRETS QUOTES III

quotations about secrets

Two may keep counsel, putting one away.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Romeo and Juliet


That, my dear, is what makes a character interesting, their secrets.

KATE MORTON

The Forgotten Garden


A secret is powerful when it is empty. People often mention the "Masonic secret." What on earth is the Masonic secret? No one can tell. As long as it remains empty it can be filled up with every possible notion, and it has power.

UMBERTO ECO

The Paris Review, summer 2008

Tags: Umberto Eco


Some secrets are too delicious not to share.

SUZANNE COLLINS

Mockingjay

Tags: Suzanne Collins


He's the quiet kind
Doesn't need a plan
Can't read his mind at all
He's a secret man

STEVE WINWOOD

"Secrets"


A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept.

CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON

The Shadow of the Wind

Tags: Carlos Ruiz Zafon


Something surely must be wrong
You're living secret lives

ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA

"Secret Lives"


Some men are tempted to violate secrecy from the uneasiness secrecy gives them, and others, merely to impress you with the extent of their confidence.

NORMAN MACDONALD

Maxims and Moral Reflections

Tags: Norman MacDonald


The trouble with a secret life is that it is very frequently a secret from the person who lives it and not at all a secret for the people he encounters. He encounters, because he must encounter, those people who see his secrecy before they see anything else, and who drag these secrets out of him; sometimes with the intention of using them against him, sometimes with more benevolent intent; but, whatever the intent, the moment is awful and the accumulating revelation is an unspeakable anguish.

JAMES BALDWIN

Another Country

Tags: James Baldwin


We are bound by the secrets we share.

ZOE HELLER

What Was She Thinking?


Men with secrets tend to be drawn to each other, not because they want to share what they know but because they need the company of the like-minded, the fellow afflicted.

DON DELILLO

Libra

Tags: Don DeLillo


Very few things will be secret anymore, and those things which are kept secret won't stay secret very long.... The real goal in security now is to retard the degradation of the half-lives of secrets.

JOEL BRENNER

attributed, "Our Transparent Future", Scientific American, March 2015


I love the night
So many shadows
Unholy light
Secrets of the heart
Leave them in the dark
Forever

DIO

"Lord of the Last Day"


Secrets are a mortgage on friendships.

H. W. SHAW

attributed, Day's Collacon


I hear you in my sleep
I've fallen in too deep
Sometimes it's hard to keep
Secrets

AMERICA

"Whispering"


Old secrets are like old wounds; they fester.

PAUL CHRISTOPHER

The Lucifer Gospel

Tags: Paul Christopher


Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants willing to be dethroned.

JAMES JOYCE

Ulysses

Tags: James Joyce


Never divulge secrets.

PERIANDER

attributed, Day's Collacon


The more you leave out, the more you highlight what you leave in.

HENRY GREEN

interview, The Paris Review, summer 1958


Never trade a secret, you'll always get the short end of the bargain.

JOHN LE CARRÉ

The Mission Song

Tags: John le Carré