Quotes from Frank Abagnale

I have to be honest with you: When the FBI let me out of prison early to advise the agency on preventing fraud, I wasn't a changed person. I wasn't rehabilitated. But when I started working with the FBI, one of the most ethical groups of men and women in the world, I couldn't help but have some of that character rub off on me.

If I had been brilliant or a genius, I wouldn't have needed to break the law just to survive.

There is no technology today that cannot be defeated by social engineering.

It's about taking the time to research and think things out. Honest people and criminals do the same thing; just the direction, good or bad, is different.

If I check into a hotel, a lot of times, they know who I am.

I speak at a lot of universities, and people are always worried about Facebook, and when I explain how to use it properly, they immediately go back and make those changes.

If you took a child in London and took their iPhone and took them somewhere else in the country, they'd probably not be able to find their way back. That's a shame.

By the time I had reached the age of 16, in the 10th grade, my parents, after 22 years of marriage, one day decided to get a divorce.

You cannot rely on the police, you cannot rely on the government, you cannot rely on the bank to protect you.

I owe a debt to my country 800 times greater than I could ever repay.

When people ask me about being portrayed onscreen by Leonardo DiCaprio, I always say, 'I love it - no matter how old I get, people are going to think that's what I look like.

As the lawyer, I found most of it was a matter of research, which I was great at - that's what I did to death - and then basically persuading people that you're right, and they're wrong... I found that the easiest of all the professions to impersonate.

People have found very significant and simple ways to cheat their employer and get money out of their employers, and many companies lack good internal controls.

I didn't like taking money from individuals.

The Internet can be used to hurt many people.

The police can't protect consumers. People need to be more aware and educated about identity theft. You need to be a little bit wiser, a little bit smarter and there's nothing wrong with being skeptical. We live in a time when if you make it easy for someone to steal from you, someone will.

Why do the Yankees always win? The other team can't stop looking at the pinstripes.

Almost any fault, sin or crime is considered more leniently if there's a touch of class involved.

I think I was so successful, not because I was brilliant, but because I was so young. I had no fear of consequences.

It's quite flattering to have Leonardo DiCaprio play you in the movie. He's a great-looking young man.

I didn't sit outside the bank and plan. I just went in and ad libbed because I was so young. But I was smart enough to know I would absolutely get caught.

You have to think a little smarter, be proactive, not reactive.

I don't use a debit card. The safest thing is a credit card because you're using the bank's money. If someone accesses your information, they are stealing the bank's money, not yours.

What I did in my youth is hundreds of times easier today. Technology breeds crime.