How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from The Sting.
Quote #7
JOHNNY HOOKER: I gotta talk to my partner first. We can't afford to expose our game too much.
Johnny is pretty slick about how he cons Lonnegan. For starters, he convinces Lonnegan that he (Hooker) wants to take down Henry Gondorff with a big con. But second, he makes Lonnegan think that he (Lonnegan) is the actual person in control by letting him in on his apparent con.
Quote #8
LUTHER COLMAN: I gotta! Look, I run some slots down in West Bend for a mob here. I got a little behind on my payoffs so they figure I been holdin' out on 'em.
Once again, the best way to con someone is to let them know right away that you're a criminal. The important part is letting them think they have power over you because they already know you're a criminal. But this is the exact hook that makes them so easy to lie to once they've bought the first lie.
Quote #9
GRANGER: We had a few problems with the Law this morning. The Mayor promised the Jaycees to get tough on the rackets again, so he shut everybody down for a couple hours to make it look good.
The opening scene of this movie does a good job of telling us that we're going to be dealing with criminals for the next two hours or so. It's just going to be a matter of which criminals we like more than others. Plus we're also told in this scene that the police and the mayor more or less know that a lot of crime is going on, but they just make a gesture now and then and pretty much allow the stuff to keep happening.