Bluffing Quotes

It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.

Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

hermes has threatened me with slow mail. lousy Internet service and a horrible stock market if i publish this story. I hope he is just bluffing.

His wife. Gods above. He was over five hundred years old - and this... this girl, young woman, she-devil, whatever she was, had just bluffed and lied her way into a job. A sword-thrower indeed.

We're [parents]) always bluffing, pretending we know best, when most of the time we're just praying we won't screw up too badly.

The hardest tumble a man can take is to fall over his own bluff.

It is my belief that people who speak of high school with a sugary fondness are bluffing away early-onset Alzheimer's.

Rule number one of the wizarding business. Never let them see you sweat. People expect us to know things. It can be a big advantage. Don’t screw it up by looking like you’re as confused as everyone else. Bad for the image.

Don’t assume I’m bluffing Nan. Because this time you’ve fucked with something I care about. This affects me, so listen and shut the hell up

It is sound judgment to put on a bold face and play your hand for a hundred times what it is worth; forty-nine times out of fifty nobody dares to call it, and you roll in the chips.

Rule 1 for Mortals: Love the Lord your God (with every bit of you). Rule 2 for Mortals: Love your neighbor as yourself. Tip 1 for Mortals: Ask God to call your bluffs.

Auri starts snorting when she giggles too hard. I learn that Kal has a deep, booming laugh you can feel in your chest. I learn that Scarlett cannot be bluffed, no matter how hard you try.

[Annabeth]I might have a plan. It’ll be your turn to keep Serapis distracted.’ Sadie frowned. ‘Did I mention I’m out of magic?’ ‘That’s okay,’ Annabeth said. ‘How are you at bluffing, lying and trash-talking?’ Sadie raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ve been told those are my most attractive qualities.’ ‘Excellent,’ Annabeth said. ‘Then it’s time I taught you some Greek.

You don't need to be so fierce and bluffing.. if you already know that I can't be intimidated.

Were you bluffing about getting out?" Gabriel grabbed the door handle. When he was standing in the grit and rubble of the shoulder, feeling the rain trail down his collar, he hesitated before closing the door. "You know I don't even have a phone." "Would now be a bad time for a joke about smoke signals?" "Fuck you.

Lea stood upon a fallen log ahead of us, staring ahead. Mouse walked up to her. Gggrrrr rawf arrrgggrrrrarrrr," I said. Mouse gave me an impatient glance, and somehow--I don't know if it was something in his body language or what--I became aware that he was telling me to sit down and shut up or he'd come over and make me. I sat down. Something in me really didn't like that idea, but when I looked around, I saw that everyone else had done it too, and that made me feel better. Mouse said, again in what sounded like perfectly clear English, "Funny. Now restore them." Lea turned to look at the big dog and said, "Do you dare to give me commands, hound?" Not your hound," Mouse said. I didn't know how he was doing it. His mouth wasn't moving or anything. "Restore them before I rip your ass off. Literally rip it off." The Leanansidhe tilted her head back and let out a low laugh. "You are far from your sources of power here, my dear demon." I live with a wizard. I cheat." He took a step toward her and his lips peeled up from his fangs in unmistakable hostility. "You want to restore them? Or do I kill you and get them back that way?" Lea narrowed her eyes. Then she said, "You're bluffing." One of the big dog's huge, clawed paws dug at the ground, as if bracing him for a leap, and his growl seemed to . . . I looked down and checked. It didn't seem to shake the ground. The ground was actually shaking for several feet in every direction of the dog. Motes of blue light began to fall from his jaws, thickly enough that it looked quite a bit like he was foaming at the mouth. "Try me." The Leanansidhe shook her head slowly. Then she said, "How did Dresden ever win you?" He didn't," Mouse said. "I won him.

You think I should use magick like mine to open a tomb?" Mari asked in a scoffing tone. Mistress of bluffing, working it here. "That'd be like calling you in to lift a feather.

The way he saw it, poker and life had a lot in common. You played the cards you were dealt, figured the odds, took the gamble or not. And when your cards were shit, you bluffed if the pot was worth it, and if you had balls.

Lorraina, you had to have known that I was bluffing when I acted like I was over you. I have your initials tattooed on my arm. I have your face tattooed in my brain. I have your soul tattooed in my heart.

We are all specialised forms of survivor. We lack what we fundamentally need and forge ahead regardless, hurriedly hiding our wounds, disguising our ineptitude, bluffing our way through our weaknesses.

We can't and don't know what others are thinking. We can't and don't know what motivations people have for doing the things they do. Ever. Not entirely. This was my terrifying youthful epiphany. We just never really know anyone. I don't. Neither do you. It's amazing that relationships can form and last under the constraints of never fully knowing. Never knowing for sure what the other person is thinking, never knowing for sure who the other person is. We can't do whatever we want. There are ways we have to act. There are things we have to say. But we can think whatever we want. Anyone can think anything. Thoughts are the only reality. It's true, I'm sure of it now. Thoughts are never faked or bluffed. This simple realization has stayed with me. It has bothered me for years and years. It still does.

Those who can really do what they promise don't first pause to promise what they can do.

You were bluffing, then. She was never in danger.” Kaz shrugged, unwilling to give her an answer. Inej was always trying to wring little bits of decency from him. “When everyone knows you’re a monster, you needn’t waste time doing every monstrous thing.

You bluffed him? A Porphyrian double ton of fire and brimstone, fangs like swords, claws like … like swords! And you just … bluffed him?

I wonder if I could have done the same—bluffed and brazened my way through this whole nightmare without telling Jake the truth. Then I look at my sister, chuckling with the guy behind the coffee counter in a way she never did with Charlie, and remember how careful and contained I always had to be around Jake. If I was going to the party tonight I’d have to wear something he picked out, stay as late as he wanted, and not talk to anyone who might make him mad. I miss him still. I do. But I don’t miss that.

Nobody gives way to anybody. Everyone just angles, points, dives directly toward his destination, pretending it is an all-or-nothing gamble. People glare at one another and fight for maneuvering space. All parties are equally determined to get the right-of-way--insist on it. They swerve away at the last possible moment, giving scant inches to spare. The victor goes forwards, no time for a victory grin, already engaging in another contest of will. Saigon traffic is Vietnamese life, a continuous charade of posturing, bluffing, fast moves, tenacity and surrenders.

When you're too close to people, when you spend too much time with them and love them too dearly, sometimes you can't see them. Unless Daniel was bluffing, he had made one last mistake, the same one he had been making all along. He was seeing the other four not as they were but as they should have been, could have been in some softer-edged and warmer world.

If you pretend that you know what you are doing, a large group of people will blindly follow you

I've done my part, played my hand, even thrown in my cards when I had to. I've bet what I didn't have and bluffed until I had it. Link once said: Ridley Duchannes is always playing a game. I never told him, but he was right.

Alice?” She spun toward the door, her skirts whirling softly. “Yes?” she forced out. “Do you know what I am holding in my hand?” “No.” “Care to guess?” “A pitchfork?” she asked in a stilted attempt at levity, hoping to invoke his earlier, playful mood. “No, my dear,” he answered drily. “A key to your room.” “What?”she breathed, aghast. “I should hate to have to use it.” “You have a key to this room?” “Mm-hmm.” She took a step toward the door, panic rising up in her throat. “You’re bluffing!” “Do you wish me to prove it?

I would set this entire realm ablaze to keep you safe, and if you think I’m bluffing, you haven’t been paying attention.

Since he was much weaker than his enemy, he could afford to display no weakness at all.

All supposed exterior signs of danger that a bull gives, such as pawing the ground, threatening with his horns, or bellowing are forms of bluffing. They are warnings given in order that combat may be avoided if possible. The truly brave bull gives no warning before he charges except the fixing of his eye on the enemy, the raising of the crest of muscle in his neck, the twitching of an ear, and, as he charges, the lifting of his tail.

Think about it. Why does one eat a snack? Why is a snack necessary? The answer—and we’ve done a million studies on this—is because our lives are filled with tedium and drudgery and endless toil and we need a tiny blip of pleasure to repel the gathering darkness. Thus, we give ourselves a treat. “But here’s the thing,” Periwinkle continues, his eyes all aglow, “even the things we do to break the routine become routine. Even the things we do to escape the sadness of our lives have themselves become sad. What this ad acknowledges is that you’ve been eating all these snacks and yet you are not happy, and you’ve been watching all these shows and yet you still feel lonely, and you’ve been seeing all this news and yet the world makes no sense, and you’ve been playing all these games and yet the melancholy sinks deeper and deeper into you. How do you escape?” “You buy a new chip.” “You buy a missile-shaped chip! That’s the answer. What this ad does is admit something you already deeply suspect and existentially fear: that consumerism is a failure and you will never find any meaning there no matter how much money you spend. So the great challenge for people like me is to convince people like you that the problem is not systemic. It’s not that snacks leave you feeling empty, it’s that you haven’t found the right snack yet. It’s not that TV turns out to be a poor substitute for human connection, it’s that you haven’t found the right show yet. It’s not that politics are hopelessly bankrupt, it’s that you haven’t found the right politician yet. And this ad just comes right out and says it. I swear to god it’s like playing poker against someone who’s showing his cards and yet still bluffing by force of personality.

Dally raised the gun, and I thought: You blasted fool. They don’t know you’re only bluffing. And even as the policemen’s guns spit fire into the night I knew that was what Dally wanted. He was jerked half around by the impact of the bullets, then slowly crumpled with a look of grim triumph on his face. He was dead before he hit the ground. But I knew that was what he wanted, even as the lot echoed with the cracks of shots, even as I begged silently—Please, not him . . . not him and Johnny both—I knew he would be dead, because Dally Winston wanted to be dead and he always got what he wanted.

Prince Humperdinck: First things first, to the death. Westley: No. To the pain. Prince Humperdinck: I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase. Westley: I'll explain and I'll use small words so that you'll be sure to understand, you warthog faced buffoon. Prince Humperdinck: That may be the first time in my life a man has dared insult me. Westley: It won't be the last. To the pain means the first thing you will lose will be your feet below the ankles. Then your hands at the wrists. Next your nose. Prince Humperdinck: And then my tongue I suppose, I killed you too quickly the last time. A mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight. Westley: I wasn't finished. The next thing you will lose will be your left eye followed by your right. Prince Humperdinck: And then my ears, I understand let's get on with it. Westley: WRONG. Your ears you keep and I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, "Dear God! What is that thing," will echo in your perfect ears. That is what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever. Prince Humperdinck: I think you're bluffing. Westley: It's possible, Pig, I might be bluffing. It's conceivable, you miserable, vomitous mass, that I'm only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. But, then again... perhaps I have the strength after all. [slowly rises and points sword directly at the prince] Westley: DROP... YOUR... SWORD!

He agreed that I should buy another dictionary or, better yet, a phrase book with standard Spanish expressions. He also suggested that it would be a good idea if I learned to stammer, because people would get bored listening to me and would finish the sentence for me; this way my accent wouldn't be noticed.

One doctor in Chicago said I was bluffing, but what he really meant was that I was a twin six and he had never seen one before.

It is my belief that people who speak of high school with a sugary fondness are bluffing away early-onset Alzeheimer's.

I could never see his face, didn't know his name but I remembered how he smelled, what every touch of his hands felt like all over my body, how his lips tasted... whoa! Nympho alert!!

On both sides they imagined that ‘bluffing’ would suffice to achieve success. None of the players thought that it would be necessary to go all the way. The tragic poker game had begun.50

How am I friends with them? Oh yeah, just smooshed together through life, and ended up sticking together. I guess I am stuck with them. Usually I would be happy about that. Right now, meh.

But we can think whatever we want. Anyone can think anything. Thoughts are the only reality. It’s true. I’m sure of it now. Thoughts are never faked or bluffed. This simple realization has stayed with me. It has bothered me for years and years. It still does.

RULES OF LYING: 1. Figure out your lie before you open your mouth. 2. Play on your opponent's sympathies and weaknesses 3. Dance around the lie with distracting truth. They're far more convincing. 4. Picture the lie in your head as if it were the truth. They want to see how it's coming up. 5. Never forget which is the lie and which is the truth. 6. If you say something that brings you trouble, pretend that was actually the lie. Lie and say you were joking before, and aren't you funny? It's a quick escape from a sticky situation. It's the liars trapdoor. 7. Avoid it if at all possible. 8. Keep up your poker face. Never have a "tell" or a physical gesture that will give yourself away and let your opponent know your bluffing.

It was always going to be you,” I told Jameson. He needed to hear it. I needed to say it, even though always painted over so much. In response, Jameson gave me another crooked smile. “It’s times like this, Heiress, that I wish I’d fallen in love with a girl who wasn’t quite so good at bluffing.

There’s just one problem, Van Eck. You’ll need Kuwei Yul-Bo to do it.” “And how will you take him from me? You are outgunned and surrounded.” “I don’t need to take him from you. You never had him. That’s not Kuwei Yul-Bo.” “A sorry bluff at best.” “I’m not big on bluffing, am I, Inej?” “Not as a rule.” Van Eck’s lip curled. “And why is that?” “Because he’d rather cheat,” said the boy who was not Kuwei Yul-Bo in perfect, unaccented Kerch.

Taccone smiled. “And you’ve come here alone,” he said, but it was really a question. “Now, I could say yes, and have you think I’m lying.” She took a step forward, ran her hand across the baby-soft leather of a wingback chair. “Or I could say no, and have you think I’m bluffing. So maybe I’ll just say . . . no comment.

The two men maintain firm eye contact. A poker game, both of them bluffing. Or pretending to.

I might be bluffing, you miserable, vomitous mass!" Bran yelled. Oh, for heaven's sake. Really? He's quotin' The Princess Bride?

corrupt interloper bluffing her way through her life.

You can't bluff your way past everyone." "You mean about filleting that guy?" Sera returned. "Who said I was bluffing?

Early the next morning, I drove him to the airport, kissed him good-bye, told him I wasn’t wearing any panties, and then kissed him once more while he tried to push me back into the car to see if I was bluffing. I was not. Kissing him a final time, I told him I loved him and I’d see him in two weeks. No one ever tells you to remember these moments. To photograph them in your mind, develop them into memories, to have them easily accessible and on instant recall when you’d need them later. To try and replay and re-create the last time you see someone.

She was, after all, a mathematician and astrophysicist by training and a television presenter by experience, and what science she had forgotten over the years she was more than capable of making up by bluffing.

hierarchies are lies. Because no one needs the alpha. He gets to the top by puffing and bluffing until we all believe he belongs there. When your power is built on ignorance, you don’t want people talking to each other.

Her violet-rimmed-grey eyes began to plead when she realized she had my full attention. "I want to see some lights, food, men! Let's get crazy enough to get arrested, but be so cute that they won't want to arrest us! These boobs don't look like this without HELP and effort, chicky! Do you know how long it took me to get ready? Let's DO something, and have fun while we are here, Lexi! Don't waste all of my primping time! Puh-leaseeeeee??

Tom looked at St. Vincent. “I assume the editor at the Chronicle refused to divulge the writer’s identity?” St. Vincent looked rueful. “Categorically. I’ll have to find a way to pry it out of him without bringing the entire British press to his defense.” “Yes,” Tom mused, tapping his lower lip with a fingertip, “they tend to be so touchy about protecting their sources.” “Trenear,” Lord Ripon said through gritted teeth, “will you kindly throw him out?” “I’ll see myself out,” Tom said casually. He turned as if to leave, and paused as if something had just occurred to him. “Although … as your friend, Trenear, I find it disappointing that you haven’t asked about my day. It makes me feel as if you don’t care.” Before Devon could respond, Pandora jumped in. “I will,” she volunteered eagerly. “How was your day, Mr. Severin?” Tom sent her a brief grin. “Busy. After six tedious hours of business negotiations, I paid a call to the chief editor of the London Chronicle.” St. Vincent lifted his brows. “After I’d already met with him?” Trying to look repentant, Tom replied, “I know you said not to. But I had a bit of leverage you didn’t.” “Oh?” “I told him the paper’s owner would dismiss him and toss him out on the pavement if he didn’t name the anonymous writer.” St. Vincent stared at him quizzically. “You bluffed?” “No, that is what the business negotiations were about. I’m the new owner. And while the chief editor happens to be a staunch advocate for freedom of the press, he’s also a staunch supporter of not losing his job.” “You just bought the London Chronicle,” Devon said slowly, to make certain he hadn’t misheard. “Today.” “No one could do that in less than a day,” Ripon sneered. Winterborne smiled slightly. “He could,” he said, with a nod toward Tom. “I did,” Tom confirmed, picking idly at a bit of lint on his cuff. “All it took was a preliminary purchase agreement and some earnest money.

The transparency and intelligibility of a country with a free market economy can reassure its neighbors that it is not going on a war footing, which can defuse a Hobbesian trap and cramp a leader’s freedom to engage in risky bluffing and brinkmanship.

What, then, should you do? With an excellent hand, you should bet: You lose nothing if your opponent folds, while giving yourself a good chance of winning a big pot if he calls. But with a middling hand, you shouldn't bet: If he has a bad hand, he'll fold, and you'll win the ante, which is what you'd have won anyway by checking; but if he has a good hand, he'll call and win. It's heads he wins, tails you don't. You should check instead, and hope your middling hand wins the ante. What about with a terrible hand? Should you check or bet? The answer is surprising. Checking would be unwise, because the hands will be compared and you will lose. It actually makes more sense to bet with these bad hands, because the only way he might drop out is if you make a bet. Perversely, you are better off betting with awful cards than with mediocre ones, the quintessential (and rational) bluff. There's a second reason for you to bet with terrible cards rather than middling ones: Your opponent will have to call a little more often. Because he knows that your bets are sometimes very weak, he can't afford to fold too easily. That means that when you bet with a good hand, you are more likely to be called, and to win when you are. Because you are bluffing with bad cards, your good hands make more money.

Therefore the Sophists, with courageous sauciness, pronounce the reassuring words, "Don't be bluffed!" and diffuse the rationalistic doctrine, "Use your understanding, your wit, your mind, against everything; it is by having a good and well-drilled understanding that one gets through the world best, provides for himself the best lot, the pleasantest life." Thus they recognize in mind man's true weapon against the world. This is why they lay such stress on dialectic skill, command of language, the art of disputation, etc. They announce that mind is to be used against everything; but they are still far removed from the holiness of the Spirit, for to them it is a means, aweapon, as trickery and defiance serve children for the same purpose; their mind is the unbribable understanding.

But try as Phoebe might to blend with her peers, it felt like bluffing, mouthing the words to a song she'd never been taught, always a beat late. At best, she fooled them. But the chance to distinguish herself, impress them in the smallest way, was lost. At her vast public high school Phoebe had felt reduced to a pidgin version of herself, as during "conversations" in French class - Where is the cat? Have you seen the cat? Look! Pierre gives the cat a bath - such was her level of fluency while discussing bongs or bands or how fucked-up someone was at a party.

The moment you think you can get in the ring with the heavyweight champion of the world and bluff your way through the fight is about the same time you see your bloody teeth on the canvas and wonder how they got there. Remember the five P's - 'Prior preparation prevents poor performance!

At the time of the Frank Sheeran job interview by long-distance phone call, Jimmy Hoffa was coming off a period full of accomplishment and notoriety. In the mid- to late fifties Jimmy Hoffa had bulldogged and bluffed his way through the McClellan Committee hearings. He had become president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. And he had survived several criminal indictments. More significantly for his future and that of his rank and file, in 1955 Jimmy Hoffa had created a pension fund whereby management made regular contributions toward the retirement of their Teamsters employees. Before the creation of the Central States Pension Fund, many truckers merely had their Social Security to fall back on when they retired.

I feel a little bit like Alice in Wonderland, in the Disney video that Sasha likes to watch on her weekends with me, and everyone is in on the Unbirthday routine but me. Last time we'd watched it, I realized that being a parent wasn't all that different. We're always bluffing, pretending we know best, when most of the time we're just praying we wont screw up too badly

Yes, she might have managed to lift the portcullis—with concentration, an unprecedented bout of luck, and the absence of a hangover. Oh, and if she were in mortal danger. Unfortunately, her power was adrenaline-based, making it as infinite as it was uncontrollable. “You think I use magick like mine to open a tomb?” Mari asked in a scoffing tone. Mistress of bluffing, working it here.

And in the cool evenings after his mother had gone to bed, he learned to play a friendly game of cards, bluffing without blinking, and besting his father so many times that Henry said he was glad he hadn't taught the boy to wager so well. Those were happy times for John Henry, with his father's time and attention, the sun on his skin, the wind in his face, and a wild new world to explore.

Get away from the door." she whispered. "Both of you get out of here NOW." "Miss," said Alf. "We don't mean no..." "You don't know what you're getting into." she said. "You must leave here this instant." Alf, his face worried said to Peter. "Maybe we should..." "No," sad Peter, furious. "We've come this far, and we're going to go in there, and she can't stop us." "Yes I can." said Molly, her voice dead calm. Peter and Alf both looked at her. "I can scream." she said. "You wouldn't." Peter said. "Yes I would." "You don't dare." said Peter. "You're not supposed to be here, either. You'd be in as much trouble as us." "I could say I heard a noise," she said. "I heard something fall." she pointed to the padlcok. "I came to investigate, and when I saw you I screamed." "All right miss. said Alf. "No need for that." he put a hand on Peter's shoulder. "Come on lad." "No," said Peter, shrugging off the hand, glaring at Molly. "You go if you want. She doesn't scare me." "I'm going to count," said Molly. "If you're not gone when I get to ten, I WILL scream." "You're bluffing." said Peter." said Peter. "One." said Molly. On the floor Leatherface stirred, rolling over, resumed snoring. "Little friend." whispered Alf, his tone urgent now. "I'm going." "Go then." said Peter. "Two." "Please little friend." "NO." "Three" "All right, then." said Alf, shaking his head. "Good luck, then." "Four" Alf was up the ladder and gone. "Five" "Why are you doing this?" hissed Peter. "Six. Because I have to." Her face was grim. "But why?" "Seven. I can't tell you." "Tell me WHAT? Why can't you tell me anyway? How do you know if you don't try?" "Nine. Because I... Because it... it's so..." Molly's voice broke. Peter saw she was crying. "Molly, please, whatever it is, JUST TELL ME.. Maybe...maybe I can help you." For several seconds, Molly looked at him, a look of lonely desperation, tears brimming in her luminescent green eyes. Then she made a decision- Peter saw it happen- and her expression was grim again. She's going to say ten, thought Peter. She's going to scream. Molly opened her mouth. "All right, then." she said. "I'll tell you.

she thinks, “No, no. I choose me first. I need to enforce my boundaries. Even though I prefer not to lose him, this behavior is unacceptable. I’ll assertively state my needs. If he then makes that same mistake again, he’s out!”   Ignore him and withdraw whenever he does something you don’t like. If, however, he does something truly disrespectful, you should always state it and show you are ready to walk away, without bluffing…even after thirty-five years of marriage.   The

To choose the world is to choose to do the work I am capable of doing, in collaboration with my brother and sister, to make the world better, more free, more just, more livable, more human. And it has now become transparently obvious that mere automatic “rejection of the world” and “contempt for the world” is in fact not a choice but an evasion of choice. The person who pretends that he can turn his back on Auschwitz or Viet Nam and act as if they were not there, is simply bluffing.

The questions a Liar’s Poker player asks himself are, up to a point, the same questions a bond trader asks himself. Is this a smart risk? Do I feel lucky? How cunning is my opponent? Does he have any idea what he’s doing, and if not, how do I exploit his ignorance? If he bids high, is he bluffing, or does he actually hold a strong hand? Is he trying to induce me to make a foolish bid, or does he actually have four of a kind himself? Each player seeks weakness, predictability and pattern in the others and seeks to avoid it in himself.

Rolf Ekeus came round to my apartment one day and showed me the name of the Iraqi diplomat who had visited the little West African country of Niger: a statelet famous only for its production of yellowcake uranium. The name was Wissam Zahawi. He was the brother of my louche gay part-Kurdish friend, the by-now late Mazen. He was also, or had been at the time of his trip to Niger, Saddam Hussein's ambassador to the Vatican. I expressed incomprehension. What was an envoy to the Holy See doing in Niger? Obviously he was not taking a vacation. Rolf then explained two things to me. The first was that Wissam Zahawi had, when Rolf was at the United Nations, been one of Saddam Hussein's chief envoys for discussions on nuclear matters (this at a time when the Iraqis had functioning reactors). The second was that, during the period of sanctions that followed the Kuwait war, no Western European country had full diplomatic relations with Baghdad. TheVatican was the sole exception, so it was sent a very senior Iraqi envoy to act as a listening post. And this man, a specialist in nuclear matters, had made a discreet side trip to Niger. This was to suggest exactly what most right-thinking people were convinced was not the case: namely that British intelligence was on to something when it said that Saddam had not ceased seeking nuclear materials in Africa. I published a few columns on this, drawing at one point an angry email from Ambassador Zahawi that very satisfyingly blustered and bluffed on what he'd really been up to. I also received—this is what sometimes makes journalism worthwhile—a letter from a BBC correspondent named Gordon Correa who had been writing a book about A.Q. Khan. This was the Pakistani proprietor of the nuclear black market that had supplied fissile material to Libya, North Korea, very probably to Syria, and was open for business with any member of the 'rogue states' club. (Saddam's people, we already knew for sure, had been meeting North Korean missile salesmen in Damascus until just before the invasion, when Kim Jong Il's mercenary bargainers took fright and went home.) It turned out, said the highly interested Mr. Correa, that his man Khan had also been in Niger, and at about the same time that Zahawi had. The likelihood of the senior Iraqi diplomat in Europe and the senior Pakistani nuclear black-marketeer both choosing an off-season holiday in chic little uranium-rich Niger… well, you have to admit that it makes an affecting picture. But you must be ready to credit something as ridiculous as that if your touching belief is that Saddam Hussein was already 'contained,' and that Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair were acting on panic reports, fabricated in turn by self-interested provocateurs.

Grazer and Cohn - two outsiders with learning disabilities-played a trick. They bluffed their way into professions that would have been closed to them. The man in the cab assumed that no one would be so audacious as to say he knew how to trade options if he didn't. And it never occurred to the people Brian Grazer called that when he said he was Brian Grazer from Warner Brothers, what he meant was that he was Brian Grazer who pushed the mail cart around at Warner Brothers. What they did is not "right," just as it is not "right" to send children against police dogs. But we need to remember that our definition of what right is, often as not, simply the way that people in positions of privilege close the door on those on the outside. David has nothing to lose, and because he has nothing to lose, he has the freedom to thumb his nose at the rules set by others. That's how people with brains a little bit different from the rest of ours get jobs as options traders and Hollywood producers-and a small band of protesters armed with nothing but their wits have a chance against the likes of Bull Connor

Every nation can be summed up by a single book or play, or by a particular author. America is perhaps perfectly encapsulated by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is a book about luxury, enchantment, glamour, magic spells, aspiration, a vulgar Wonderland, insecurity, pretentiousness, bluffing, soullessness, fakes, phonies, emptiness, desperation, regrets, and impossible dreams. “Her voice is full of money,” says the narrator about the beguiling muse Daisy Buchanan. Could this not serve as the epitaph for the American Dream itself as it is finally laid to rest?

For whatever reason, Missy is the only Robertson wife who doesn’t like beards. Willie’s wife, Korie; Jep’s wife, Jessica; and Alan’s wife, Lisa, all love my brothers’ beards, and I’m pretty sure my mom, Kay, couldn’t imagine Phil without a beard because he has worn one for so long. But Missy is consistent in her distaste for facial hair. I hoped that one day my beard would, ahem, grow on her, but it hasn’t. Missy once tried to get me to shave by threatening not to shave her legs or under her arms. It actually worked once, but the next time I decided to call her bluff, and, well, she was bluffing.

I should force you. You have no legal right to refuse me to your bed." Suddenly Evie's heart stopped, and she felt herself blanch. But she would not shrink from him. Something inside demanded that she stand up to him in equal. "Go on, then," she challenged coolly. "Force me." She saw the flicker of surprise in his eyes. His throat worked, but he remained silent. And then... she understood. "You can't," she said in wonder. "You would never have raped Lillian. You were only bluffing. You could never force a woman." A faint smile rose to her lips. "She was never in a moment's danger, was she? You're not nearly the villain you pretend to be.

He thinks: "I have no self-confidence. I always feel everybody else is more competent, more attractive, more gifted than I am. Even the things I've managed to accomplish don't count, because I can't really credit myself with them. I may have been bluffing, or it may have been just a lucky break. I certainly can't be sure that I could do it again. And if people really knew me, they'd have no use for me anyway. But if I found someone who loved me as I am and to whom I was of prime importance, I would be somebody." No wonder, then, that love has all the lure of a mirage. No wonder that it should be clutched at in preference to the laborious process of changing from within.

Madame Vastra and the others made their return to Paternoster Row by a circumspect route. Strax in particular was keen to intercept any individual he suspected might be following and forcibly remove a variety of their limbs and appendages. But Jenny prevailed upon him that most of the people he singled out were merely walking past. Given the lateness of the hour there were, thankfully, not many. ‘What about him?’ Strax said, pointing to a figure shambling slowly along on the opposite pavement. ‘That old lady is selling lucky heather, and she’s heading in a different direction so she’s unlikely to be following us.’ ‘She could be bluffing. And who is this Lucky Heather anyway?’ ‘It’s heather – it’s a plant not a person. It’s supposed to be lucky.’ ‘Not if I catch her, it won’t be.’ ‘Strax,’ Vastra said simply. ‘No.

Liars” was one of our favorite pastimes. Played with the serial numbers of dollar bills, the game developed some of the same intellectual rigors as handicapping horses. If you said four fives and there were only two fives on your dollar bill, then there had better be two more on the bill your opponent was holding. If there weren’t, and you were called upon to produce the four fives you’d claimed the existence of, you lost your bill. The idea was to trick your opponent into making a claim he’d have to support entirely on his own. If you could convince him that your bill contained, say, threes, and it was in reality devoid of threes, you could challenge him later if he claimed to have an inordinate number of them. It was a wicked little game that placed a premium on confident bluffing, misdirection and rapid analysis of probability.

Preparations for war, which the most false of all proverbs recommends as a way of ensuring peace, in fact create the belief in each of the adversaries that the other wants to break off relations, a belief which brings about that very breakdown, and then, once it has taken place, the further belief on each side that it was the other side who wanted it. Even if the threat was not sincere, its success encourages its repetition. But the exact limits of successful bluffing are difficult to determine; if one party goes too far, the other, which up to that point had been retreating, begins to advance; the first, unable to change its methods, accustomed now to the idea that the best way to avoid a breakdown is to seem not to fear it (as I had done this evening with Albertine), and, in its pride, preferring defeat to surrender, continues its threats up to the point where neither party can any longer retreat.

Ahoy!” a seaman called out. “The English frigate Polaris, ten days out from Antigua, bound for Portsmouth.” “Ahoy, yerself!” It was O’Shea’s rough brogue. She’d never heard sweeter music. “This be the clipper Sophia, of no particular country at the moment. Seven days out from Tortola, bound for…well, bound for here. Captain requests permission to board.” Gray. It had to be Gray. The officers of the Polaris exchanged wary looks. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake.” Sophia pushed forward to the ship’s rail and cupped her hands around her mouth, calling, “Permission to board granted!” A cheer rose up from the other ship’s deck. “It’s her, all right!” a voice called. Stubb’s, Sophia thought. Oh, but she hardly cared who was on the other deck. She cared only for the strong figure swinging across the watery divide as the two ships came abreast. Turning back toward the center of the ship, she pushed her way through the sweaty throng of sailors, desperate to get to him. Her foot caught on a rope, and she tripped- But it didn’t matter. Gray was there to catch her. And he was still wearing those sea-weathered, fire-scarred boots. No doubt for sentimental reasons. “Steady there,” he murmured, catching her by the elbows. She looked up to meet his beautiful blue-green eyes. “I have you.” “Oh, Gray.” She launched herself into his arms, clinging to his neck as he laughed and spun her around. “You’re here.” “I’m here.” And he was. Every strong, solid, handsome inch of him. Sophia buried her face in his throat, breathing in his scent. Lord, how she’d missed him. She pulled away, bracing her hands on his shoulders to study his face. “I can’t believe you came after me.” “I can’t believe you actually left.” He lowered her to the deck, and her hands slid to his arms. “I thought you were bluffing with that bit. I’d have never allowed you to go.

Why are we camped so far from the others?” she asked, striving to keep her voice calm. A fire had leapt to life some distance away, and she could hear the faint sound of the others talking. “Your Aye-mee must not see,” he replied in a clipped monotone. “See what?” she asked shakily. “The games we will play,” he said softly. He glanced up from the stake he was pounding. Loretta took one look at the murderous gleam in his eye and bolted. Before she had taken more than a few steps, he was upon her. Seizing her wrist, he dragged her to the fur. Then, so quickly she wasn’t sure how, he flipped her onto her back and followed her down, anchoring her flailing limbs with his weight while he secured her arms. Just as quickly, he bound her feet. Loretta stared up at him, trying to assure herself that he was only bluffing. She had run away; now he meant to teach her a lesson. Once he felt vindicated, he would be the same sweet, gentle Hunter he had always been.

Pointsman is the only one here maintaining his calm. He appears unruffled and strong. His lab coats have even begun lately to take on a Savile Row serenity, suppressed waist, flaring vents, finer material, rather rakishly notched lapels. In this parched and fallow time, he gushes affluence. After the baying has quieted down at last, he speaks, soothing: “There’s no danger.” “No danger?” screams Aaron Throwster, and the lot of them are off again muttering and growling. “Slothrop’s knocked out Dodson-Truck and the girl in one day!” “The whole thing’s falling apart, Pointsman!” “Since Sir Stephen came back, Fitzmaurice House has dropped out of our scheme, and there’ve been embarrassing inquires down from Duncan Sandys—“ “That’s the P.M.’s son-in-law, Pointsman, not good, not good!” “We’ve already begun to run into a deficit—“ “Funding,” IF you can keep your head, “is available, and will be coming in before long… certainly before we run into any serious trouble. Sir Stephen, far from being ‘knocked out,’ is quite happily at work at Fitzmaurice House, and is At Home there should any of you wish to confirm. Miss Borgesius is still active in the program, and Mr. Duncan Sandys is having all his questions answered. But best of all, we are budgeted well into fiscal ’46 before anything like a deficit begins to rear its head.” “Your Interested Parties again?” sez Rollo Groast. “Ah, I noticed Clive Mossmoon from Imperial Chemicals closeted with you day before yesterday,” Edwin Treacle mentions now. “Clive Mossmoon and I took an organic chemistry course or two together back at Manchester. Is ICI one of our, ah, sponsors, Pointsman?” “No,” smoothly, “Mossmoon, actually, is working out of Malet Street these days. I’m afraid we were up to nothing more sinister than a bit of routine coordination over the Schwarzkommando business.” “The hell you were. I happen to know Clive’s at ICI, managing some sort of polymer research.” They stare at each other. One is lying, or bluffing, or both are, or all of the above. But whatever it is Pointsman has a slight advantage. By facing squarely the extinction of his program, he has gained a great of bit of Wisdom: that if there is a life force operating in Nature, still there is nothing so analogous in a bureaucracy. Nothing so mystical. It all comes down, as it must, to the desires of men. Oh, and women too of course, bless their empty little heads. But survival depends on having strong enough desires—on knowing the System better than the other chap, and how to use it. It’s work, that’s all it is, and there’s no room for any extrahuman anxieties—they only weaken, effeminize the will: a man either indulges them, or fights to win, und so weiter. “I do wish ICI would finance part of this,” Pointsman smiles. “Lame, lame,” mutters the younger Dr. Groast. “What’s it matter?” cries Aaron Throwster. “If the old man gets moody at the wrong time this whole show can prang.” “Brigadier Pudding will not go back on any of his commitments,” Pointsman very steady, calm, “we have made arrangements with him. The details aren’t important.” They never are, in these meetings of his.

ninja shook his head. “You think you’ve defeated Team Scorpion? You fool…” I stood there quietly. “My rescue team is coming for me.” “Oh? Well, I’ll let the mayor know that we’ll be needing more jail cells soon for the rest of your friends.”  “Heh…” Red looked around the room, then he said, “You guards better be nice to me… because when I get rescued, I just might spare your lives.” “Save your threats, Red. They’re nothing but empty words in here,” I said. “Oh, you’ll see… soon.” I was getting annoyed with talking to the ninja, so I left. “I’ll be seeing you soon!” he yelled as I exited. I left the prison with an icky feeling. All of Red’s big talk got to me. I didn’t know if he was serious or if he was just bluffing. After all, ninjas are masters of deception. Still, I wanted to be safe, so I went to go look for Devlin. I found my friend talking to Bob. They were just chilling and eating. “Hey, can I talk to you?” I asked. “Yeah, what’s up?” asked Devlin. “I just returned from a visit to the prison.” “Oh, no… what happened?” I explained to Devlin the situation. “See! That’s exactly why you shouldn’t go talking to the prisoners. Now he has you all paranoid.

Suddenly he spotted Gran deep in conversation with Kitty’s closest friend, and relief coursed through him. Gran would squelch the tale at once. And once she tried to quash the gossip, he would win-because he could then threaten to send notice to the papers of his betrothal if she didn’t back down. She’d have no choice but to give up on her scheme. Except…she wasn’t acting as if she meant to squelch it. She was talking to the other woman with great animation. And when she met his gaze from across the room, beaming from ear to ear, he realized in a flash that he’d misunderstood everything. Everything. She hadn’t been bluffing him. All the rot about trying to buy Maria off, the disapproving looks and snide remarks…all along, Gran had been goading him toward what she wanted. God preserve him. With a sickening sense of inevitability, he saw her go to the duchess’s side and whisper a few words, then saw the duchess rise and tap her glass to indicate she had an announcement to make. With a triumphant smile, Gran announced the engagement of her grandson, the Marquess of Stoneville, to Miss Maria Butterfield of Dartmouth, Massachusetts. All eyes turned to him, and the whispers began anew. He couldn’t believe it. How could he have been so blind? He’d lost the battle, maybe even the war.

I couldn’t wait to follow through. I couldn’t wait to end this. “Your revenge?” Matthias laughed. “You’re revenge? What could you possibly do that would make any difference to me?” I looked up at Kane and he looked down at me. I smiled at him sweetly and he smiled back. I leaned in and he mirrored me. I tilted my face up to kiss him and he gladly reciprocated. Then I pulled back and swiveled my gaze to Matthias. “I will take your family away. Just like you took mine. I will pluck them from you one by one and make them suffer until they beg for death. Or, I will simply rescue them and give them a better life than you ever could.” Matthias barked out a louder laugh. “That’s sweet. It sounds like you’ve put thought into all that, but you can’t. It’s just not possible. “Sure it is,” I told him. “I’ve already gotten two of your children. Tyler isn’t here.” I gestured at Tyler. “Tyler will never be here. Unless you count that. Which being a self-respecting person, I wouldn’t. But who knows about you. And Miller isn’t here either. Miller is worse than Tyler. Look! You got Tyler to come to breakfast, but I seem to have forgotten Miller’s excuse. Could you remind me?” He stayed quiet. Which was a miracle in itself. So I continued, “I’m waiting for the right opportunity for Linley. I’ve been waiting for it for a while now. I’ve been watching her and watching her and just waiting. I cannot wait until I get her alone. I cannot wait until it’s just the two of us. It will be so fun. It’s what helps get me through these long days. Just thoughts of Linley. Just thoughts of what I will do to her and how slowly I will make those last painful moments last. And Kane? I could take him in a second. I could rip him out of your hands so fast you would blink and he would be gone. He might deny that if you ask him. But I know better. I hear everything else he says. I feel everything else he means. Kane is mine. You’re a smart man, Matthias, so don’t think for a second he isn’t. Right?” I turned to Kane. He leaned down again and kissed me. Point proved. I relaxed into Kane and let my threats soothe my soul and settle over the man I wanted to watch burn in hell. His reply was an arrogant smirk and hard eyes. “Little girl, you just asked for trouble, I’m-” “Do it,” I hissed. “Do whatever it is you want to do and see if I’m bluffing. Try me! Hurt someone I love. Hurt me. Take something away from me and see how painfully and how permanently I take something away from you.” I stood up and pushed aggressively away from the table. I stared him down the entire time. Kane let me go without even an attempt to restrain me. I was beyond that. I was beyond all of this. I was leaving. Today. Because without a doubt I would follow through with every single one of my threats. I stomped from the warehouse. I could feel Kane behind me, but he still didn’t try to slow me down. And I knew he wouldn’t. He really was mine. Matthias, Hendrix, nobody could take him from me. And he would do whatever I wanted as long as he thought we could survive. I hoped both of us could survive what I was about to ask him to do.

That such a surprisingly powerful philosophical method was taken seriously can be only partially explained by the backwardness of German natural science in those days. For the truth is, I think, that it was not at first taken really seriously by serious men (such as Schopenhauer, or J. F. Fries), not at any rate by those scientists who, like Democritus2, ‘would rather find a single causal law than be the king of Persia’. Hegel’s fame was made by those who prefer a quick initiation into the deeper secrets of this world to the laborious technicalities of a science which, after all, may only disappoint them by its lack of power to unveil all mysteries. For they soon found out that nothing could be applied with such ease to any problem whatsoever, and at the same time with such impressive (though only apparent) difficulty, and with such quick and sure but imposing success, nothing could be used as cheaply and with so little scientific training and knowledge, and nothing would give such a spectacular scientific air, as did Hegelian dialectics, the mystery method that replaced ‘barren formal logic’. Hegel’s success was the beginning of the ‘age of dishonesty’ (as Schopenhauer3 described the period of German Idealism) and of the ‘age of irresponsibility’ (as K. Heiden characterizes the age of modern totalitarianism); first of intellectual, and later, as one of its consequences, of moral irresponsibility; of a new age controlled by the magic of high-sounding words, and by the power of jargon. In order to discourage the reader beforehand from taking Hegel’s bombastic and mystifying cant too seriously, I shall quote some of the amazing details which he discovered about sound, and especially about the relations between sound and heat. I have tried hard to translate this gibberish from Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature4 as faithfully as possible; he writes: ‘§302. Sound is the change in the specific condition of segregation of the material parts, and in the negation of this condition;—merely an abstract or an ideal ideality, as it were, of that specification. But this change, accordingly, is itself immediately the negation of the material specific subsistence; which is, therefore, real ideality of specific gravity and cohesion, i.e.—heat. The heating up of sounding bodies, just as of beaten or rubbed ones, is the appearance of heat, originating conceptually together with sound.’ There are some who still believe in Hegel’s sincerity, or who still doubt whether his secret might not be profundity, fullness of thought, rather than emptiness. I should like them to read carefully the last sentence—the only intelligible one—of this quotation, because in this sentence, Hegel gives himself away. For clearly it means nothing but: ‘The heating up of sounding bodies … is heat … together with sound.’ The question arises whether Hegel deceived himself, hypnotized by his own inspiring jargon, or whether he boldly set out to deceive and bewitch others. I am satisfied that the latter was the case, especially in view of what Hegel wrote in one of his letters. In this letter, dated a few years before the publication of his Philosophy of Nature, Hegel referred to another Philosophy of Nature, written by his former friend Schelling: ‘I have had too much to do … with mathematics … differential calculus, chemistry’, Hegel boasts in this letter (but this is just bluff), ‘to let myself be taken in by the humbug of the Philosophy of Nature, by this philosophizing without knowledge of fact … and by the treatment of mere fancies, even imbecile fancies, as ideas.’ This is a very fair characterization of Schelling’s method, that is to say, of that audacious way of bluffing which Hegel himself copied, or rather aggravated, as soon as he realized that, if it reached its proper audience, it meant success.

the French fries were fantastic, they weren’t enough, not even close, to forget about the man she couldn’t have. The problem was she didn’t have any room in her life for him, and if she let him linger any more in her heart, she’d surely lose the game tonight. Tonight was for winning. CHAPTER TWO The venture capitalist with the laughing tell was back, and he spent most of the game staring at Julia. But Hunter must have gotten a tip to strike that laugh from his repertoire because the first time he chuckled Julia went all in, and lost a cool grand. He’d really had three kings. No bluffing. He’d likely snagged himself a poker tutor, some former pro player who now trained eager wannabe card sharks in the ways of the game, or a grizzled old veteran needing to earn a dime or two after he’d retired. She’d seen it before among the hotshots. A pivot here, a change-up there–all

This age (Kali-yuga) is the age of bluffing and quarrel. Actually there is no possibility of attaining yoga perfection by such paltry proposals. The Vedic literature, for emphasis, clearly states three times that in this Age of Kali – kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nāsty eva – there is no other alternative, no other alternative, no other alternative than harer nāma, chanting the holy name of the Lord.

At literary gatherings he made a practice of slipping away from “the gaunt and great, the famed for conversation” (as he called them in a poem) to find the least important person in the room. A letter-writer in the Times of London last year recalled one such incident: Sixty years ago my English teacher brought me to London from my provincial grammar school for a literary conference. Understandably, she abandoned me for her friends when we arrived, and I was left to flounder. I was gauche and inept and had no idea what to do with myself. Auden must have sensed this because he approached me and said, “Everyone here is just as nervous as you are, but they are bluffing, and you must learn to bluff too.

The sky had started off bluffing, convoys of dark clouds scurrying across like sheep to market. But by afternoon a perfect blue canopy stretched from horizon to horizon.

But they’re bluffing. I defy even the bravest adult to spend the night in a place like Furnace in the pitch black without thinking that every noise is something right behind you with dagger teeth and eyes of silver and blood on its breath; that every whisper of air that runs over your skin is the rush of a descending blade; that every flicker of movement is a tendril of darkness wrapping itself around your throat and coiling in the pit of your belly, where it feasts on your soul.

something that was so culturally understood even in Jesus’ day that no one would even question it. When two people in ancient times in Mesopotamia (what we now call the “Middle East”) would make an irrevocable covenant with each other, they would cut some animals down the middle and then say, “May he who breaks this Covenant have done to him what was done to these animals” as they walked together between the pieces.  And they meant it.  Nobody was bluffing, this was a matter of generational honor and a man would rather die than fail to live up to the terms of a Covenant ratified in blood.  In Jeremiah 34, we see a reference to this type of Covenant

She let him guide her toward the foyer, but her attention was on the threat Jace Bledsoe posed to Striker. She didn't think he'd been bluffing about calling the police and filing charges. The burly man with the crew cut was waiting for them at the front door. Striker snarled when the man handed him the .45.H & K. Never taking his eyes from the man, Striker quickly and adeptly released the clip. "Where the hell are the shells?" "In a safe place." The man opened the door.

Telekinetic Poker Players Telekinetic poker players have a tell when they're bluffing: they always raise you.

Everywhere except the poker table, bluffing fails. In

I’m like a poker player, bluffing with whatever cards equal a really shitty hand. I should mention that I have no fucking idea how to play poker. “You

On the contrary, privacy was now more central than ever to the Soviet leader’s strategy. His extravagant bluffing about the size of his nuclear arsenal had to work, because without the impression of a meaningful stockpile, there could be no meaningful disarmament.

Telekinetic Poker Players You can tell telekinetic poker-players are bluffing ~ they raise you.

We are all specialized forms of survivor, Peter reminded himself. We lack what we fundamentally need and forge ahead regardless, hurriedly hiding our wounds, disguising our ineptitude, bluffing our way through our weaknesses.

There is a saying in poker, that if you are never caught in a bluff, you are not bluffing enough.

He was bluffing.