Quotes About Misdirection

The eye is diverted from the real business, it is caught by the spectacular action that means nothing--nothing at all.

The man obviously wanted to tell him something - and as obviously had lost the art of simple narration. Words had become to him a means of obscuring facts - not of revealing them. He was an adept in the art of the useful phrase - that is to say the phrase that falls soothingly on the ear and is quite empty of meaning.

The Democrats have concocted this whole phony 'war on women' narrative simply to mask their dreadful record on the economy and jobs.

Pictures are so good at giving people information that they're not looking for.

If you do sleight of hand without trying to cheat someone, that's what magic is.

The Nihilistic Troll might pretend to be acting in the service of some cause or leader, but don't be fooled. The cause and their supposedly strong convictions are simply a way to justify and provide cover for their abusive behavior.

Always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy if possible.

The element of surprise - where you think you know where a joke is going, and then you're wrong. Those are my favorite kind of jokes.

It may sound surprising, but a joke and a crime novel work in very much the same way. The comedian/writer leads their audience along the garden path. The audience know what's coming, or at least they think they do until they get hit from a direction they were not expecting.

And evil is most adept at seeing what it wants to see. That's its weakness. It doesn't anticipate the possibility of failure.

What did you see?' he asked then. Nothing,' I told him. 'Because nothing is what you wanted me to see, though the man on the table might disagree.

Superstition is not, as has been defined, an excess of religious feeling, but a misdirection of it, an exhausting of it on vanities of man's devising.

Everything direct is positive, everything indirect is negative.

I love to use these phrases - 'with the greatest respect', 'in all modest', 'I humbly submit' - which in fact always imply the complete opposite.

An expert is a man who tells you a simple thing in a confused way in such a fashion as to make you think the confusion is your own fault.

It was a city built on promise, on compromise, on inspiration and empty rhetoric both, on history poorly remembered and easily bent, and once in a while, on good people with the best of intentions who battled against the distrust, misdirection, and deceit that was politics as usual. (Referring to Washington, D.C.)

Another thing to watch. The Brotherhood name organisations in a way that leads people to believe their aim is the opposite of what they are really there to do. For instance, if you want to run drugs without being suspected, do it through an anti-drug agency. If you want to destroy land and kill wildlife, do it through a wildlife protection agency. If you want to run a Satanic ring, do it through the Christian Church.

Misdirection. False signals. Spreading confusion. This is the Tao of deception.

Going in the wrong direction but making really good time

Magicians disappear all the time, but as soon as a regular person does it, everyone is all scared. "Tom's gone!" "Is he a magician?" "No." "Then let's print up some flyers!"

But nowhere in the file had anyone said, "Oh, and by the way, he runs like a gazelle with an espresso addiction." At least not in the parts I'd skimmed.

All of which does not alter the fact that Pnin was on the wrong train.

I've been doing the hotel accounting long enough to know that two and two equals whatever you want it to be. It's simply a matter of perception and misdirection.

It is possible to lead astray an entire generation, to strike it blind, to drive it insane, to direct it towards a false goal. Napoleon proved this.