Tanya Thompson > Quotes

“Prisons are full of sociopaths and psychopaths, but when questioned, the imprisoned sociopath will honestly admit that they will commit any number of crimes to help a friend.

A friend will help you move; a true friend will help you move a body.

A friend will bail you out of jail; a true friend will be sitting beside you.

Who wouldn’t want to have a true friend? But they sound a lot like a sociopath.”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: A Con Artist's Masquerade

“The absolute truth is a wicked sort of rush. It's far more amusing than any lie. Both have the potential to empower and to hurt, but the truth is emotionally superior. Few people could fault you for it, not when you got ethics on your side. The truth is morally unassailable.

But is has no pity. It is merciless.”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: A Con Artist's Masquerade

“Few know it, but the Devil rewards insurrection. After all, rebellion is the original sin, and he did conceive it.”
― Tanya Thompson

“From what I've witness, honesty didn't really make anyone happy. The truth was a punch to the gut, and while you were falling, a knee to the face, then you could lie on the floor and bleed for a spell.”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: A Con Artist's Masquerade

“Some men are terrified by the dark nature of the Moon, but not the Devil. The Devil is afraid of nothing he can fuck. And there’s very little the Devil won’t stick his dick in. He’ll bugger the Priest, orgy with Art, and rape the shit out of Justice. The whole of the Universe is the only hole he won’t try to fill.”
― Tanya Thompson, Red Russia

“Both Bratva and thieves in law would like to call themselves nihilists and anarchists because they don’t support the established government, but they govern nonetheless, and you can’t be an anarchist unless you follow its rule. Crime and anarchy are no more synonymous than nihilism and existentialism, or fatalism and determinism; so many isms there was bound to be a schism.”
― Tanya Thompson, Red Russia

“From what I’d witnessed, honesty didn’t really make anyone happy. The truth was a punch to the gut, and while you were falling, a knee to the face, then you could lie on the floor and bleed for a spell.”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: A Con Artist's Masquerade

“There’s Ambien-in-alcohol weird and then there’s Ambien-mistaken-for-cocaine weird.”
― Tanya Thompson, Red Russia

“Do you know the difference between neurotics and psychotics?” He answered before I could speak, “Neurotics build castles in the sky; psychotics move into them.” And”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade

“Do you know the difference between neurotics and psychotics?”

“Neurotics build castles in the sky; psychotics move into them.”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: A Con Artist's Masquerade

“There are scores of people who have never recovered, or been recovered, from an FSB interrogation.

They’re a hard organization to describe because nothing like the FSB exists in the USA. To get even remotely close, you’d have to ask the CIA to birth a seven-headed hydra with the faces of the FBI, DEA, NSA, Immigration, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, and the Navy Seals with a hangover and a grudge.”
― Tanya Thompson, Red Russia

“There’s no English equivalent for silovik. It doesn’t translate succinctly because to create something as Machiavellian as a silovik requires both the KGB and the GRU, and then a shift from communism to capitalism followed by a gear-grinding reverse into despotism.”
― Tanya Thompson, Red Russia

“this morning I go to pay for breakfast and there, right there at the Kroger check-out, staring me in the face is a national magazine with your picture on the cover. Counterfeit Countess, it said. In great big, bold type: Counterfeit! Countess! Counterfeit,” he reiterated, “a word interchangeable with forgery and often associated with arrest.” Ah, yes. Patrice had called from Austin and warned me she had sold the story to Woman’s World magazine. “Last sentence?” Mittwede asked. “You know what it is?’ “No, I’ve not seen it.” “Tanya says, ‘I’m going to grow up and be a con artist.’” It had struck me as pretty funny when I said it, but Mittwede had better delivery. I think it was the hysteria. He was saying, “I remember that story. That was like a year and a half ago. You didn’t tell me you were that girl, the Dallas Countess. I already knew the story but I read it again, and I know all the cops have read it again, too. And now your picture is with Passport Services and at the check-out counter. You think federal agents don’t buy groceries? You’re fucking crazy. We’re going to be arrested.” “You maybe need to take a Valium.” “I threw them all in the fire!”   ~~~~~~”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade

“I was an inexperienced fifteen-year-old sociopath who had never had any depth of emotion.”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade

“A friend will help you move; a true friend will help you move a body. A friend will bail you out of jail; a true friend will be sitting beside you. Who”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade

“Even though this was going to be the biggest act I had ever put on, I intended to play it as I always had—pure improvisation, all on impulse, with little more known than I would be playing the part of a countess.”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade

“When corporate executives get really excited, they leverage their learnings against comprehension to revolutionize English.”
― Tanya Thompson, Red Russia

“As long as I held the angel mask firmly over my demonic smile, no one doubted my honesty. I”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade

“With the amount of diazepam in me, I should have been content to lie back and let events unfold as they may, and my curiosity did for a moment consider it, but then a punch of panic reminded me that people far saner than I were murdered for less in more conspicuous locations.”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: A Con Artist's Masquerade

“In my case, intelligence was a disease that had led to a psychotic episode.”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade

“In Russia, unwarranted smiles mark a person as either a hustler or an imbecile.”
― Tanya Thompson, Red Russia

“The truth was a punch to the gut, and while you were falling, a knee to the face, then you could lie on the floor and bleed for a spell. Ed”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade

“Sure, a man’s home is his castle, but if he shares it with a woman, he knows his rule is limited.”
― Tanya Thompson, Red Russia

“He was praying for my soul. And he had a great many concerns. I stared at the carpet wondering when it was going to end, telling myself I needed to figure out this religion thing before I went any further, promising I would never make light of it again in front of someone who could put me on my knees.   ~~~~~~”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade

“The birth of a legend is the death of a hero. Every man wishes to die a hero. A hero’s death is glorious!”
― Tanya Thompson, Red Russia

“merriment, making certain they understood it was a game where”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade

“The classic caricature of a Russian knocking back shot after shot of vodka is not a misrepresentation.”
― Tanya Thompson, Red Russia

“The absolute truth is a wicked sort of rush. It’s far more amusing than any lie. Both have the potential to empower and to hurt, but the truth is emotionally superior. Few people could fault you for it, not when you’ve got ethics on your side. The truth is morally unassailable. But”
― Tanya Thompson, Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade

“When you nationalize the expenditures but privatize the revenue, everything is profit.”
― Tanya Thompson, Red Russia

“You know why farmer always kills fox? Fox can never take just enough. You ever see chicken house after fox comes? Chicken house is nothing but feathers and shit. Feathers and shit everywhere. Fox sees opportunity and loses mind. Fox cannot stop killing. Fox will spend all night burying bodies. More than fox can ever eat. Why? Because fox always goes too far.”
― Tanya Thompson, Red Russia