Jacob Weisberg Quotes

The con movie is a little bit different where maybe we tell you what we're going to do but it never goes down the way you expect because there's so much double-crossing and cheats and lies going on along the whole way.

Just like my Uncle Charlie used to say, just before he sprung the trap: He said, "You can't cheat and honest man! Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump!

My opinion is that he's a swindler and you're a sucker.

My family has something of a special relationship with confidence tricks: my grandfather was a professional swindler.

A successful swindler has to be a great salesman even more than a great actor.

I'm a blagger by trade.

Three-card monte is one of the most persistent and effective cons in history. The games still pop up along city streets. But we tend to dismiss the victims as rubes.

It was the heart of any scam or fiddle -- keep the punter uncertain, or, if he is certain, make him certain of the wrong thing.

You set me up," I say. "One big con. You can't blame me because I turned out not to be gullible enough. You can't blame the mark. That's not how it works. Have some respect for the nature of the game.

Every swindle is driven by a desire for easy money; it's the one thing the swindler and the swindled have in common.

This is the ultimate con game - I'm having fun and people pay me to do it.

I know every trick in the book, in terms of schemes and fraud.

The name 'con artist' really does capture it. They're artists, and I have admiration for all artists.

So far I’m not seeing a lot of difference between me and a carnival con-man.

I know a con when I see one.

Even the longest con was never more than an assortment of moments that were in themselves very very short.

We can all be conned but at what point do we realize that we're being conned and to what point do we allow ourselves to be conned?

I love con-men characters in film.

And I think it's because good cons are all based on the victim's need, and the successful con artist is the one, I guess, who can exploit that. I remember reading something about this, that one of the great traits of confidence tricksters is the level that they flatter their victim.

Hey, I fool the camera. I'm a liar, a magician.

I've always loved movies about con men. I think con men are as American as apple pie.

The reason con artists get away with what they get away with is, their victims are ashamed of their own blindness and their own gullibility, and they tend to just quietly go away.

This is very clever. They have created a system to cheat.

A certain portion of the human race / Has certainly a taste for being diddled.

One of the things about the con artist lifestyle is that all the romance is sort of sloppy and fast and loose.