The con is a kind of jiu-jitsu that turns the sucker's own greed into its principal weapon. The greedier you are the more likely you are to be conned, and for the greater a sum. Since people regularly dispose of their intelligence in their rush to be swindled, and then turn right around and do it again, humans must want to be duped. Institutionalized wishful thinking - the stock market, religion, advertising - is after all a cornerstone of our system.
Call yourself "Colonel" and declare that your fortune was left to you by Dutch burghers from the seventeenth century. Now you're a solid citizen, the… - Luc Sante
Call yourself "Colonel" and declare that your fortune was left to you by Dutch burghers from the seventeenth century. Now you're a solid citizen, the…
- Luc Sante
I always give money to a sidewalk con if the story is a good one, even if I don't believe a word of it. Art deserves to get paid. - Luc Sante
I always give money to a sidewalk con if the story is a good one, even if I don't believe a word of it. Art deserves to get paid.
New York, which is founded on forward motion and thus loath to acknowledge its dead, merely causes them to walk, endlessly unsatisfied and unburied, … - Luc Sante
New York, which is founded on forward motion and thus loath to acknowledge its dead, merely causes them to walk, endlessly unsatisfied and unburied, …
I've always assumed it to be an absolute requirement for being a writer: to find all emotions and the sources of all behaviors somewhere within yours… - Luc Sante
I've always assumed it to be an absolute requirement for being a writer: to find all emotions and the sources of all behaviors somewhere within yours…
The con is a kind of jiu-jitsu that turns the sucker's own greed into its principal weapon. The greedier you are the more likely you are to be conned… - Luc Sante
The con is a kind of jiu-jitsu that turns the sucker's own greed into its principal weapon. The greedier you are the more likely you are to be conned…
Unlike a bow and arrow, a camera by its nature ensures that some kind of target will always be hit, if not necessarily the intended target nor in the… - Luc Sante
Unlike a bow and arrow, a camera by its nature ensures that some kind of target will always be hit, if not necessarily the intended target nor in the…
Like a four-sided porch I'm open to all winds. - Luc Sante
Like a four-sided porch I'm open to all winds.
Redheaded Peckerwood, which unerringly walks the fine line between fiction and nonfiction, is a disturbingly beautiful narrative about unfathomable v… - Luc Sante
Redheaded Peckerwood, which unerringly walks the fine line between fiction and nonfiction, is a disturbingly beautiful narrative about unfathomable v…
Self-reinvention is an essential trope of the American project, closely linked to another such trope: going on the lam. Both are regularly featured i… - Luc Sante
Self-reinvention is an essential trope of the American project, closely linked to another such trope: going on the lam. Both are regularly featured i…
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