Quotes / Hidden in Plain Sight

Anime & Manga

"If you're that obvious about it people will actually be less suspicious."

— Inukai explaining why she named her shop "Witch's home", Flying Witch

Comic Books

"This abandoned island prison is one of my secret lairs. It's equipped with my most advanced weapons. Who would suspect I'd use a prison for a hideout?"

— Lex Luthor, The Super-Revenge of Lex Luthor

''"This is how they see you. [...] You're their champion. Bigger than life. No wonder the eyeglasses work— nobody would look for you dressed like them!

— Supergirl, The Supergirl from Krypton (2004)

Film

"It's so overt, it's covert."

— Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes (2009)

"I keep returning, in my mind, to the Glass Onion; something that seems densely layered, mysterious and inscrutable, but in fact the center is in plain sight. And that is why this case has confounded me like no other, why every complex layer peeled back has revealed another layer, and another layer, and come to naught! And that was the problem, right there — you see, I expected complexity. I expected intelligence. I expected a puzzle, a game. But that's not what any of this is. It hides not behind complexity, but behind mind-numbing obvious clarity. Truth is, it doesn't hide at all, and I was staring right at it ..."

— Benoit Blanc, Glass Onion

Literature

"Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest."

— Father Brown, The Broken Sword

Rlain: We choose a form based on what we need, the job required of us. Dullform, one of those forms, looks a lot like a parshman. Hiding among them is easy.
Navani: We account our parshmen with precision.
Rlain: Yes, and we are noticed—but rarely questioned. Who questions when you find an extra sphere lying on the ground? It's not something suspicious. It's merely fortune.

— Words of Radiance (second book of The Stormlight Archive)

Later she ordered a check on all shuttles going up the Line. Not even an invisible man could have got past the telltales secret in the gangways. He'd hardly attempt to board a freight shuttle - most were not even pressurized.
He didn't. Kin realized later that he had bought a ticket under an assumed name and just walked past the security net, flaunting his visibility like a cloak.

— Strata

"When do you notice a pin least? When it is in a pincushion."

— Hercule Poirot, The ABC Murders

"It keeps people from looking at us too hard. No one with anything to lose would be sitting in Denny's after midnight, eating pancakes."

— Erin, Middlegame

"The trick is not learning to disappear. The trick is learning to hide in plain sight, until everyone around you swears you belong exactly where you are."

— Jane Harrington-Price, Magic for Nothing

Live-Action TV

"We were contracted to build a structure. It had to be hidden in plain sight and have power for fifty thousand people. At first, you know, I said, 'That's a joke. What about a nuclear reactor?' The next day, I was given specs for a nuclear reprocessing facility and the Army Corps of Engineers as a work force."

— Lawrence Szilard, Person of Interest, "God Mode"

"A thing that looks like a police box standing in a junkyard, it can move anywhere in time and space?"

— Ian Chesterton, Doctor Who, "An Unearthly Child"

Video Games

"So, how do you keep a secret from the world's greatest detective? Well, do you know? It's easy! You stick it right in front of him, right under his long, pointy nose... and wait! Ha-ha!"

— The Joker, Batman: Arkham City

"Nothing quite like the view of extreme poverty to make a cocktail penthouse party really swing."

— Max Payne, Max Payne 3

"An octopus could be hiding right under your nose, AND YOU'D NEVER KNOW IT... I mean... If they weren't extinct, of course!"

— Marina^note who is herself an Octoling, Splatoon 2

Webcomics

Chelle: "Non-Redundant Spares?" What does that even mean?
Para: It means "this is just a boring crate that everybody should ignore because it's totally not a big box full of angry robot."

— Schlock Mercenary, 2016-10-19

Web Video

Polnareff: He's somewhere in Egypt, but where...?
[DIO shows up, messing around with a throwing knife.]
DIO: Jojo...
Jotaro: DIO!!
DIO: You probably thought I was hiding somewhere in Egypt, but I was traveling with you all along!
Joseph: DIO, you son of a!!!

— Vaguely Recalling JoJo

While doing research for that video, I asked Babbaj if he knew anything about the exploit. He replied with "no comment". Little Did I Know, at the time, he was actually telling me the name of the exploit. It was hiding in plain sight and we were all oblivious to it.

— FitMC, The Fall of Minecraft's 2b2t

Western Animation

"Paperweight, my ass. As my father used to say: you want to hide something, hide it where everyone can see it."

— Dr. Venture, The Venture Brothers

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