The upheavals of adolescence silenced 'A Christmas Carol' for a few years. I became a firebrand atheist. Christmas - humbug! Too commercial! Then I became an agnostic. Christmas was a pro-forma affair basically a chore. Buy mother a book dad a new tie my brother and sister small gifts. Pretend thanks for the fountain pens and shirts I received.

Let's stop pretending we can arrest our way to safety and security. Despite all the fine work that policemen and women do we have got to find other solutions to deter crime.

Can I just say here how much I hate the word 'pamper'? While pretending to celebrate and indulge women it actually implies that their bodies are so revolting that even their 'me time' must be dedicated to turning them into living dolls if potential suitors are to be prevented from running screaming in horror.

Women can go on marrying and pretending that their boyfriends and husbands are Mr. Darcy or some RomCom dream man. But where's that going to get 'em? Besides divorce court?

A man who pretends to understand women is bad manners. For him to really to understand them is bad morals.

She belongs to a race of delightful women who never do any harm whom everybody calls good and who are very severe on those who do not pretend to be good.

I came all this way for a reason. Today is the day of salvation. Trust Jesus to save you. Then be sincere as God knows a pretender.

Acting is a nice childish profession - pretending you're someone else and at the same time selling yourself.

It is not good to see people who have been pretending strength all their lives lose it even for a minute.

I had fun pretending to be a sportscaster. People always think that was a down thing for me. I had the best job in sports broadcasting for two years.

Even if you're unhappy just pretend that you're happy. Eventually your smile will be contagious to yourself. I had to learn that. I used to think 'I'm being fake ' but you know what? Better to be fake and happy than real and miserable.

I guess we've had a very close relationship because I don't pretend to know about cinema and I think I do know a bit about theatre but he does he respected that and so we really just had a collaboration which went completely like this.

I couldn't be in a relationship and behave like somebody else or pretend I felt something I didn't feel. And that includes saying things I thought might jeopardize the relationship.

Don't throw petals on the floor if they have no meaning. I would rather have a fun casual relationship than have someone pretending they're completely in love with me.

I have a lot of nice Italian winter clothes that make me look like a sophisticated Lebanese professor so my friend Robert and I go around pretending to be experts in Arabic politics. It doesn't work in the summer though. I don't have the right clothes.

I wrote The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God in five hours but I had it all planned out. It isn't poetry and it does not pretend to be but it does what it sets out to do.

Even the people who have had success and made money writing these books of fiction seem to feel the need to pretend it's no big deal or part of a natural progression from poetry to fiction but often it's really just about the money the perceived prestige.