Erin McKean Quotes

Reagan conspired in the underestimation of his own ability.

I'm smarter than the average; I just act dumb. That's what gets people's attention; you act dumb, you get people's attention.

Sometimes I can't tell that someone is a selective asshole because they're so nice to me and the people around me that I don't realize it until someone else says, "You know, that person is an asshole." So I'll be fooled by selective assholes sometimes . . . lately.

Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers; deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all.

Pretences go a great way with men that take fair words and magisterial looks for current payment.

He who holds the hook is aware in what waters many fish are swimming.

Machination is worth more than force.

What valor cannot win, flattery may.

You just let people do what they do and look at them and give them enough rope until they do what you thought they were going to do... which is screw you over.

Playing with appearances and mastering the arts of deception are among the aesthetic pleasures of life. They are also key components in the acquisition of power.

It might be argued, that to be a knave is the gift of fortune, but to play the fool to advantage it is necessary to be a learned man.

When he pretends to flee, do not pursue.

One may outwit another, but not all the others.

See how he throws his baited lines about,/And plays his men as anglers play their trout.

The lie has long since lost its honest function of misrepresenting reality. Nobody believes anybody, everyone is in the know. Lies are told only to convey to someone that one has no need either of him or his good opinion.

The whole power of cunning is privative; to say nothing, and to do nothing , is the utmost of its reach. Yet men, thus narrow by nature and mean by art, are sometimes able to rise by the miscarriages of bravery and the openness of integrity, and, watching failures and snatching opportunities, obtain advantages which belong to higher characters.

O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.

'T is woman that seduces all mankind; By her we first were taught the wheedling arts.

Lure him out. Send in a 'customer' with a message from me needing to meet him. I'm not the kind of person he can ignore-well, that he used to not-never mind. Once he's out, we can get him to a place we choose." I nodded. "I can do that." "No," said Dimitri. "You can't." "Why not?" I asked, wondering if he thought it was too dangerous for me. "Because they'll know you're a dhampir the instant they see you. They'll probably smell it first. No Strigoi would have a dhampir working for him-only humans." There was an uncomfortable silence in the car. "No!" said Sydney. "I am not doing that!

Is that how you're going to take me? Scare me into voluntarily coming aboard, then steal my Ice Cube?" "It's always cubes with you," noted Foaly, somewhat randomly. "What's wrong with a nice sphere?

Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.

Why didn't you guess this would happen?" Elayne demanded. He looked at her, expressionless. One side of his mouth twitched up, then he pulled his hat down, shading his eyepatch. "Light," Elayne said. "You knew. You spent this whole week planning with us, and you knew the entire time you'd throw it out with the dishwater.

You still don't get it, do you, Margaret?' Kat smiled almost sadly. 'We never had to steal the Antony. All we had to do was get it next to the Cleopatra and switch the signs.

Everyone should have an evil secret plan.

Tricks and treachery are merely proofs of lack of skill.