The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1)

by Scott Lynch

If reassurances could dull pain, nobody would ever go to the trouble of pressing grapes.”

there’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated,”

The more in control the mark thinks they are, the more easily they respond to real control.

It was strange, how readily authority could be conjured with nothing but a bit of strutting jackassery.