Quotes About Manipulation

He's the kind of liar who totally forgets what he told you the last time, but he believes every single lie with such conviction that sometimes he can convince you of it.

Cardan grins at me as though we've been great friends all our lives. I forgot how charming he can be--and how dangerous that is.

It's shocking," he says, as though he's giving me some great compliment. "I know humans can lie, but to watch you do it is incredible. Do it again.

She looks honestly upset, but then, I've learned that I can't read her. The problem with a really excellent liar is that you have to just assume they're always lying.

The more powerful you become, the more others will find ways to master you. They'll do it through those you love and those you hate. They will find the bit and the bridle that fits your mouth and will make you yield.

I kissed him on the mouth, and then I threatened to kiss him some more if he didn't do exactly what I wanted.

I recall that your hands were on her, but her eyes were on me,' Cardan returns.

Every day that I don't beg Cardan for forgiveness over a feud he started is a day I win. He can humiliate me, but every time he does and I don't back down, he makes himself less powerful. After all, he's throwing everything he's got at someone as weak as I am and it's not working. He's going to take himself down.

I can walk into someone's house, kiss their wife, sit down at their table, and eat their dinner. I can lift a passport at an airport, and in twenty minutes it will seem like it's mine. I can be a blackbird staring in the window. I can be a cat creeping along a ledge. I can go anywhere I want and do the worst things I can imagine, with nothing to ever connect me to those crimes. Today I look like me, but tomorrow I could look like you. I could be you.

But what if I actually am becoming besotted with him? Cardan is more knowledgeable than I am at love. He could use that against me, just as I asked him to use it against Nicasia. Perhaps he found a way to turn the tables after all. Kill him, a part of me says, a part I remember from the night I took him captive. Kill him before he makes you love him.

You're awful." He said it as though he was delighted. "And the worst part is that you believe otherwise.

Lie until even you believe it - that's the real secret of lying

She suddenly understood why she had let him kiss her in the diner, why she had wanted him at all. She wanted to control him. He was every arrogant boyfriend that had treated her mother badly. He was every boy that told her she was too freaky, who had laughed at her, or just wanted her to shut up and make out. He was a thousand times less real than Roiben.

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.

You will need me to sweet-talk the door.

This, the language of deception, we both understand. We were born to it, along with the curses.

Sometimes lying is a real pleasure.

The most important thing for any con artist is never to think like a mark. Marks think they can get something for nothing. Marks think they can get what they don't deserve and could never deserve. Marks are stupid and pathetic and sad. Marks think they're going to go home one night and have the girl they've loved since they were a kid suddenly love them back. Marks forget that whenever something's too good to be true, that's because it's a con.

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.

Don't." She looks directly into my eyes. After a month of being forced to avoid her, I feel stripped bare by her gaze. "You can be as much of a charming bastard as you want, but you're never going to bullshit your way into my heart again.

If you keep it," Daneca says, "he'll have his claws in you." Everyone has their claws in me. Everyone.

She can't help it. She loves the con. I tell myself I'm not like her, but I have to admit I love it too.

But i am going to take out her stitches, and I dont think youd want to watch that.¨ ¨Oh I dont know,¨ I say. ¨Maybe he´d like to hear me scream.¨ ¨I would,¨ Cardan says, standing. ¨And perhaps one day I will.¨ On his way out, his hand goes to my hair. A light touch, barely there, and then gone. Page 166

People like Aaron act all nice until suddenly they explode and banish some annoying geezer into the void.