Double Blind Quotes

“Sit. I can't flirt standing up, and you're freakishly tall.”
― Heidi Cullinan, Double Blind

“I can win anytime. Kevin's going to go back to Burbank and tell everybody in his cubicle how he won at the Golden Nugget. Sometimes the pot isn't the money.”
― Heidi Cullinan, Double Blind

“God, they hit you with the stupid stick way, way too hard.”
― Heidi Cullinan, Double Blind

“When life fucks you over, you don’t slow down. You just keep going, keep moving, eyes peeled for the next opportunity, the next dance. Don’t get bogged down in the endings or the parts where you know you’re fucked even before you get there. Bluff, baby. Bluff until they all fold or until you start to believe it yourself. If you fail, get up and bluff again.”
― Heidi Cullinan, Double Blind

“Because the wheel wasn’t about you. The wheel wasn’t about anyone. It was just a damn wheel. It was as Randy said—you had to get the best of it. You had to go and be your own wheel.”
― Heidi Cullinan, Double Blind

“Crabtree's Parable of the Cards:
“We divide the deck into numbered and face cards, and so we divide the types of men. The numbered cards are the underlings, the parasites of the world. When you play a man who is a numbered card, he looks out only for himself with no consciousness that others are in the game with him. If you wish to be kind, you can say these men are the subordinates of the world, but they are parasites all the same. They attach themselves to someone greater, learning if they are young or inexperienced enough, leeching if they are strong or experienced enough to know better but would rather remain weak. They don’t contribute to the world. They only take from it, and if a man remains in this state, he is no better than a sheep. Numbered men are as disposable and interchangeable as the animals they mimic.

The face cards are men who have seen the way the world works, who know the only way to survive is to kill or be killed. These men are the cannibals. They drive and lead the parasites, bluffing them into traps and bleeding them when necessary for their own survival or for that of the parasites they have chosen to protect. Depending on what level of face card they are, they bleed them to serve those they owe allegiance to. This is the way of the world. You may find it harsh or overly simplified. But in the end you will find these are your choices. You may be a face card, or you may be a number. The power to choose is yours.

Aces are unique because they can be both a face card and a numbered card. But no matter what they are, they will always be the lowest of the low or the highest of the high—and because of this, they will always be alone. An ace does not evolve, but rather he constantly explores his dual nature. When he leads, he is acutely aware of his underlings, unable to use them with the casualness that his fellow face cards will do. When he is brought low, he is equally aware of the thin veil separating him from where he is supposed to be, and he can’t forget how he and his fellows in servitude should be treated. An ace is seldom at home unless he is with his own kind, and many fall into despair and find themselves wedged quite firmly in the low side of their nature. There are few aces in the world, and so most aces, no matter who they are with, feel alone. And that, my children, is the Parable of the Cards. Take it to heart, because the secret to life lies within it.”
― Heidi Cullinan, Double Blind

“Ethan felt a tiny ripple of victory, like he’d scored a blow against a tornado.”
― Heidi Cullinan, Double Blind

“It’s a light in the face, California. An aggressive sort of friendliness, something about the corners of the mouth.”
― Heidi Cullinan, Double Blind

“You never get one hundred percent odds, Sam. But your cards are fucking aces.”
― Heidi Cullinan, Double Blind