Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In the old days, a con man would be good looking, suave, well dressed, well spoken and presented themselves real well. Those days are gone because it's not necessary. The people committing these crimes are doing them from hundreds of miles away.
I've repeatedly seen unscrupulous lenders use every con in the book to charm and lie to homeowners. Lenders actually paid brokers a premium to put people in higher-priced loans with toxic features, such as adjustable rates and prepayment penalties.
One of the most interesting things about the cognitive theory is the idea that anger and interpersonal conflict ultimately result from a mental con. In other words, you're telling yourself things that aren't entirely true when you're fighting with someone.
Sometimes you trust someone who turns out not to be honest. There are a lot of things that happen in life that don't turn out the way you're given the impression that they will. And I think that's all kind of a con. But I think we've probably all been hurt.
Ponzi and all of his successors tap into a fundamental part of human nature. One part of our brain tells us this is too good to be true. The other side tells us this is too good to miss. The key to any con is getting a mark to tip to the too-good-to-miss side.
The cosplayers are very fun. The kids are the best. Everyone is a kid at a comic con. There are some amazing stuff that goes on at these cons. The people have a blast. It's so neat to see the fans lining up to see you and talk with you. And asking you questions.
George V. Higgins's 'The Friends of Eddie Coyle' (1970) added an extra literary layer to the con novel; James Crumley's 'The Last Good Kiss' (1978) influenced countless writers and will be remembered forever for its opening line, quoted often in obituaries of the author.
I went around in my teens and early 20s thinking that life was a con trick. I had managed to grow up believing in all sorts of romantic ideas about hard work and justice and truth, and it seemed the real world was much more complicated and shaded than I wanted to believe.
If you look at any successful professional - a salesperson, a marketer, a real estate agent, a trader - they all have the same qualities as the con man. The only difference is that one side uses their talents in the right direction and the con man is taking the easy way out.
I do eat what I want. I love meat - I'm Cuban: I grew up eating meat, platanos, and arroz con pollo. I don't believe in starving yourself, but sometimes I do cleanses and diets to prepare for a role. I choose a lot of greens, proteins, and fats, and I like to be really active.
'Con Air' was kind of a turning point for me, in my mind. I never shot anybody in that movie - I never did anything bad - because there were so many bad guys in that movie. I said, 'The hell with this, I'm just gonna be a lovable guy.' I'm like Steve McQueen in 'The Great Escape.'
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.
From infancy, I had been accustomed to hear pro and con discussions of slavery and the American Civil War. Although the British government finally decided not to recognise the Confederacy, public opinion in England was sharply divided on the questions both of slavery and of secession.
For the people who are offended about the fact that we have a bunch of criminals and criminal enablers and buffoons and scheisters and con men and frauds and real estate frauds running our country and our government, they like to hear that they're not the only ones that feel that way.
Integration is the biggest con job ever pulled on any group of people, any nationality in the world. It was a plot by white liberals to gain black political power for themselves and their wild ideas, and for a few black bourgeoisie who were paid to exercise leverage as black spokesmen.
I grew up thinking anything was possible simply because of seeing women in power - like, you know, running the country. Which is a thought that continues to give Americans indigestion... Direction is about having a vision, but the practice of being a director is a con game - a confidence game.
What links Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Andrej Babis, Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Marine Le Pen is one simple character trait: hypocrisy. These politicians aren't tribunes of the people, they are hucksters. They aren't bitter enemies of the Western system; they are con artists who seek to profit from it.
Extreme narcissists exaggerate their achievements and talents, and so Trump has spent his life building up a false image of himself - not just for others, but for himself, to protect his deeply fragile ego. He lies endlessly, not just in the way sociopaths do, which is to con others, but also to delude himself.
GDP has been a con perpetrated upon the poor of the world: a measure of economic activity and not of actual wealth. What it masks is the way in which we transform their natural capital into our consumption through international rules that regard the ecosystem services upon which they rely as mere externalities.
In the 80s, mum used to make a beautiful beef in red wine sauce, which I thought very exotic. And an incredible chilli con carne, with baked beans so it wasn't too spicy for us. Later, when I asked for the recipes, she said: 'I don't know - they were Colman's or Schwartz's packet mixes.' It completely ruined it for me.
You know you get a tube of toothpaste... such a bloody con. You squeeze and squeeze and nothing more comes out? Well, take a pair of scissors and cut it about an inch and a half from the bottom and it's absolutely packed with stuff! I do that, then cut off the top bit, so I can stick that back on and it doesn't dry out!
I don't eat Puerto Rican food in L.A. because it's just too much, too addicting, but I know how to cook, so I can easily make it. I just choose not to because you never stop! I think my favorite would be pollo guisado con arroz blanco y habichuelas. I love tostones, I love maduros! I can eat rice and beans all day long!
There are pros and cons of experience. A con is that you can't look at the business with a fresh pair of eyes and as objectively as if you were a new CEO. Fire yourself on a Friday night and come in on Monday morning as if a search firm put you there as a turn-around leader. Can you be objective and make the bold change?
I just typed up three, four paragraphs of an idea and dropped it in a box at the Chicago Comic Con in the summer of 2000, I guess, or 2001 - I forget. I just dropped it on a stack of a giant pile of dozens of other entries. Months later, I was thrilled to get a call from a Marvel editor while I was working my crappy day-job.
We live in a quick-fix society where we need instant gratification for everything. Too fat? Get lipo-sucked. Stringy hair? Glue on extensions. Wrinkles and lines? Head to the beauty shop for a pot of the latest miracle skin stuff. It's all a beautiful £1 billion con foisted upon insecure women by canny cosmetic conglomerates.
One of the most gratifying, rewarding things is when people come up, and they tell you how the show influenced their lives in a very positive way. When I do these things like Comic Con, I get people who are lawyers, judges, plumbers, carpenters, and entire families, and it's mostly for 'Batman.' But now, amazingly, it's also for 'Family Guy.'
