gambling

He was in conflict with himself. There was no enjoyment in the thought that he had escaped a great danger, and in the midst of his uneasy reflections he had a sudden breathless conviction that she made him feel old because he loved her. Then he felt a hatred of himself, gathering into one mighty heap all the fierce and bitter hatred he had cherished for others and pouring it out on himself.

Trusting fate is like gambling on an unknown outcome with unknown consequences.

I wonder what inspires gamblers. Is it the adventure or the love of laziness?

So much of the theatrical can leave you with a yearning for the real. The real is suddenly and starkly there right at the city__ edge and extends for thousands of square miles of desert and mountain and canyon with which human beings can do almost nothing profitable other than to leave it be and just look at it.

But I came to see that Las Vegas is not a freak but is, instead, deeply integrated with the rest of the country, and the world beyond. It is symptom, mirror, metaphor.

I am a woman of very few layers, and most of them are selfish and mean. My parents tried to make me a good girl, but I just wasn__ having it.

One way, he thought, the whole thing of ring fighting was hurting somebody else, deliberately, and particularly when it was not necessary. Two men who have nothing against each other get in a ring and try to hurt each other, to provide vicarious fear for people with less guts than themselves. And to cover it up they called it sports and gambled on it. He had never looked at that way before, and if there was any single thing he could not endure it was to be a dupe.

All the magicians have 52 mutual friends.

I can never gain something without losing everything I had before.

Life in society is when everyone is there and no one is present. Life in society is when everyone obeys what no one wants. Writing is a way of escaping this impoverishment, a variation on solitude like love or gambling _ a principle of insubordination, a virtue of childhood.

You cannot afford to gamble your youth only for fun.

The Strip was still lit by a million neon lights, though the crowds on the sidewalk had greatly decreased by this hour. Still, Bosch was awed by the spectacle of light. In every imaginable color and configuration, it was a megawatt funnel of enticement to greed that burned twenty-four hours a day. Bosch felt the same attraction that all the other grinders felt tug at them. Las Vegas was like one of the hookers on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Even happily married men at least glanced their way, if only for a second, just to get an idea what was out there, maybe give them something to think about. Las Vegas was like that. There was a visceral attraction here. The bold promise of money and sex. But the first was a broken promise, a mirage, and the second was fraught with danger, expense, physical and mental risk. It was where the real gambling took place in this town.

There is a lure in power. It can get into a man's blood just as gambling and lust for money have been known to do.

Conventional wisdom nor scientific, mathematical prove of randomness in life could do nothing to deter human's curiosity for the unknown, however small the chance of a positive outcome maybe.

A magician may step out without a purse, but he should never step out without a pack of playing cards.

For a professional magician, a stack of playing cards is as good as a stack of money.

Performing magic in the live show thrills me. Just get me a deck of cards and some attentive audience, and I have made my day and theirs too

After all, as Franco would dictate, everyone was going to lose their money at some point. You may as well do so half drunk and at the mercy of a pretty smile.