The Wrath of Con Quotes

“Good threat,” the woman chuckled. “Here’s mine: you’ve got about twenty minutes to hightail it over to Venetian before your brother becomes a memory wrote in pink mist. Toodles.”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con

“Here you found a homeless guy wearing a decade’s patina of grime and sweat, in for trying to beat up a dumpster (and losing); a street performer coated from head to toe in metallic spray paint, caught trying to fondle a nine-year old; two Elvis impersonators of the pudgy era, apprehended in the midst of a fistfight over who was the real deal (tidbit: one of them was); and a gaggle of drunks in a holding cell, all in varying stages of undress—one of whom wore only a traffic pylon on his head.”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con

“If you’re looking for good Mexican food in Vegas, you go to the Arts District. Jonesing for stupidly overpriced jeans or a rhine- stone T-shirt? The Fashion Show Mall has you covered. How about some quiet contemplation over that lost trust fund? Lake Mead’s your man. Maybe getting stabbed, shot, or beaten to death is your thing, so head on up to North Vegas. But, if you’re looking for a snapshot of city history, a reasonably affordable libation, and the rare sensation of getting squeezed through a kaleidoscope’s poop chute, then you can’t beat Fremont.”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con

“You’re loading the deck. You’re wasted. And I’m ninety-percent sure you’re Irish—tell me, why would I trust you?”
Quinn thought about it. The man had a point—well, several. “Because you like my accent?”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con

“As she told them, Brie was relieved to see them both as con-
fused by the story as she was—but less relieved by which parts they focused on:
“Freak cougar accident,” Kev said with a grin.
Paul tried to put it together. “Well, was it his wife or some- thing? It happens.”
“No, I mean it was a literal cougar. I tried to leave with the cash, but this dick caught me and arrested me.”
“I’m sorry. Cougars? Dicks? Are you sure you’re being literal?”
“I mean a literal cougar and a detective. Yeesh, you guys have complete gutter-mind. Anyway, I’m headed out again tonight. We’ll have the whole thing cleared up by morning.”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con

“The Flamingo Casino is a slice of Vegas legacy. It’s kind of where it all started. With a reputation steeped in infamy, it’s the place tourists go hoping to spot some vestige of the mafia in the glitzy city. And time after time, they go in, poke around, and come out saying: “Well that’s totally not what I expected—hey look, naked bronze chicks!”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con

“I’m only doing one more,” Ruby said, scrolling through her phone. “Nobody likes a day-drunk hussie.”
“Hey, give yourself some credit. You’ll be a really cute day- drunk hussie.”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con

“No matter who you asked, the answer was always the same: Ferret was an irredeemable bag of cat shit.”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con

“She waited. She waited so excruciatingly long that she could physically feel the time pass; a binding in her chest, her breath shallow and raspy. Silence seemed to stuff itself in her ears like cotton balls.”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con

“She overslept, was rude to her barista at Starbucks, and had an inexplicable craving for Baskin Robbins. She moped. She pouted. And even though she’d hexed a man to fawn over her, repeatedly going, “Hey, you look familiar, can I buy you a drink?” with no recollection of the ten previous times he’d done it, she found no pleasure in the hijinks. She was in a funk. It bothered her.”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con

“Well, pumpkin, if you’d stop hiring boozehounds with a hard-on for Marlowe, someone might get the job done.”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con

“There is a weird kind of anonymity a roller coaster provides: It’s populated, but everyone’s too preoccupied with whirling around the roof of a casino to eavesdrop. It runs a fixed amount of time, has minimal surveillance for lack of a way to descramble the audio, and it’s conveniently out of earshot for certain writer- types who might scribble down the plan.”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con

“Look, the point is, tiny fire-breathing dinosaur, stacked up against a doofus not-so-ninja turtle and an overgrown iguana with a flower on his back—practical shit aside, he’s clearly the ace choice.”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con

“A little-known fact: Next to nothing is impossible. Actually, nothing itself is impossible. Nothing is the absence of all things. But that absence is, itself, a thing, and—well, the logic’s so screwy you could uncork a wine bottle with it.
The point is, most of the stuff people say is impossible is not at all impossible. Starting a car that’s already started, that’s im- possible. Traveling to where you are is impossible. Sleeping through Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” is impossible (and so is listening to it).
And that’s the list. Taking a neon-blue dump? Well... You’d think, but really it’s just improbable.
To sum up a wildly unmanageable concept: most things we call impossible are actually just things that require more effort than we’re willing to give. And even when it comes to impossible, it’s really only the Rick Astley that nobody will try if they’re given a few slices of pizza.”
― Daniel Younger, The Wrath of Con