“What’s the good of pretending to be what you aren’t? Well, even on the human level, you know, there are two kinds of pretending. There’s a bad kind, where the pretence is there instead of the real thing; as when a man pretends he’s going to help you instead of really helping you. But there’s also a good kind, where the pretence leads up to the real thing. When you’re not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the best thing you can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave as if you were a nicer chap than you actually are. And, in a few minutes, as we’ve all noticed, you will be really feeling friendlier than you were. Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already.”
—C S Lewis.
