Quotes from Jeffrey Ford

To our benefit, death isn't affected by an economic failure, and it never takes a holiday. In addition, a bereaved rich man is easier to con than a poor one in the same condition. A poor man, straightaway, understands death to be inevitable, but it takes a rich man some time to see that the end can't be circumvented with the application of enough collateral.

No one gives a shit if you write a book or not.

He was a good con man, but not a great con man. He wasn't ruthless enough. He had all the tricks, all the techniques, the facility for it. That part if you'll excuse the expression, was in his blood. But he never really had the heart for it.

Romance," said Antony. "A con so crazy that by the time the bullet's in the chamber, you don't know if you've taken someone or you've been taken.

As Schell had taught me, "a con starts when there is something you want and you are blocked from attaining it by certain obstacles. The good con artist elicits the assistance of those who mean to stand in the way of one's attainment by appealing to their vanity, pride, jealousy, ignorance, or fear. One must first throw into a pile the expected rules of engagement, morality, society, and thought, set them on fire, and then proceed. Think big, have confidence.

Simplicity and subtlety make for the best con. A distraction should lead the mark's attention upward, either toward the sky or to some better vision of himself. Color signals danger. Try to appear to have as many eyes as possible.

I'd like to ask you a question, if I may." "What?" "All these poems you've written and hidden—so many poems. Why?" While she thought, morning broke and the birds sang in the garden. "Because I could not stop.

May God be everywhere you are about to look and absent where you already have.

Illegal' takes on a whole new meaning when you're loaded like Barnes. The rich have a separate rule book. To them if it makes money, it can't be wrong.

Americans so dearly love to be fooled. —Charles Baudelaire

In that moment, I realized how dangerous it was to keep company with the characters from books. They lived books lives of fierce deeds and deep yearning.

It's every man for himself," he said, and went back to reading. After my mother had died and he'd been laid off from his machinist job over in Milton, he'd retreated into near silence and the print reality of other worlds. Connection was tough for him and only getting tougher as he aged. Maggie asked me once if the reason I wanted to become a writer was to somehow make contact with him.

Hanging out with you is like an extra job.

This was a new type of Klan. They were still race haters, but they sold themselves to the populace on the platform of law and order. Imagine. There weren't enough colored people out there on the island for them to get that worked up about, so they kind of transferred their energy into hating the Catholics, the Jews, the immigrants. They were down on what they considered the dissolution of the white race by all of the foreigners coming into this country.

I thought of a line from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, "As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean.

Parents: so essential, yet sometimes like something you've stepped in and cannot get off your shoe. What else is there but to love them?

As we followed him down a hall to a back bedroom, he told us that he owned the house. "Unfortunately, it's not haunted," he said.