Walter Kirn Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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

It doesn't matter how rich you are - you know when you're being ripped off.

I believe we have been fleeced.

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

The best confidence artist makes us feel not as if we're being taken for a ride but as if we are genuinely wonderful human beings who are acting the way wonderful human beings act and getting what we deserve.

Serious collectors and art experts, among the world's most educated, often cannot fathom the possibility of being rooked, and then once taken, cannot face the humiliation of admitting it.

For the grifter, ripping people off is seldom the point. The grifter is an artiste who invests in the long con.

I had a gentleman steal or 'misplace' - I guess I should say 'allegedly' - a lot of money from me. It didn't make any sense when it was happening, because I just didn't understand why I didn't have any money. I was a perfect mark because I had all of this shame and insecurity about money.

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.

She can’t help it. She loves the con. I tell myself I’m not like her, but I have to admit I love it too.

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.

We’re flimflam artists. But remember, sonny, you can’t con people unless they’re greedy to begin with. W. C. Fields had it right. You can’t cheat an honest man.

Marks forget that whenever something's too good to be true, that's because it's a con.

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!

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?

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

Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.

I am disappointed in the music business, I feel like a lot of people in the music business are phoney, there's a lot of people who will abuse and take my kindness.

I had a weird situation were someone used my name to extort money from a woman. He took her for 60 or 80 thousand dollars. He is in prison now. It was on Sally.