Confidence Trick Quotes

Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.

If people can construct a simple and coherent story, they will feel confident regardless of how well grounded it is in reality.

I'm a short, fairly plain person who's bluffing his case and getting away with it.

I can bluff with the best of them.

The surest way to keep a secret is to make people believe they already know the answer.

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.

I'm pretty good at weaseling my way into a job, even if I have no business being there.

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.

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.

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.

It’s such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself. This is hard to do alone.

It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.

Give me an honest con man any day.

I've never felt as though I didn't belong, I just acted as though I did.

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.

I like to use big words so people will think I know what I'm talking about.

I’d discovered, after a lot of extreme apprehension about what spoons to use, that if you do something incorrect at table with a certain arrogance, as if you knew perfectly well you were doing it properly, you can get away with it and nobody will think you are bad-mannered or poorly brought up. They will think you are original and very witty.

Do I really have moves like Jagger? F**king A, no, I don’t. But I was going to tell everybody that I did and hoped they believed me.

Always dress like you're going to see your worst enemy.

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!

I think I'm quite good at being sexy in a unthreatening way.

The secret of my success? I speak in a loud clear voice and try not to bump into the furniture.

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

The only pitch I have to movie people is the same as this one: Just give me $8 million. I'm not telling you what it's about and I'm not telling you who's in it.

Like a stage magician, the con artist misdirects suspicion. While everyone’s watching for him to pull a rabbit out of a hat, he’s actually sawing a girl in half. You think he’s doing one trick when he’s actually doing another. You think that I’m dying, but I’m laughing at you.