How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from The Sting.
Quote #1
HENRY GONDORFF: Nice con, Hickey. I thought you were Feds myself when you first came in.
In the final scene, Henry can't help but admire how good a job Hickey has done of impersonating an FBI officer. This is probably the point at which most of us are all like, "Woah, I didn't see that coming."
Quote #2
GREER: He lost it to a coupla' con artists on his way outta the spot.
Greer is pretty matter-of-fact when he says that his man Mottolla has lost a ton of mob money after leaving a bookie's joint. It's almost as if he takes it for granted that the world of the 1930s is filled with all kinds of conmen. Which makes sense, really, since it's the middle of the Great Depression and people are looking for all kinds of ways to get money.
Quote #3
MOTTOLA: I just made the world's easiest five grand.
Mottola thinks he's pretty smart after taking five thousand off of poor old Luther. What he doesn't realize, though, is that he's the one who's just been conned. And when you look back over this whole movie, you realize that this is the genius of most cons—making the other person think that they've actually conned you.
Quote #4
LUTHER COLMAN: You're a conman, and you blew it like a pimp. I didn't teach ya to be no pimp.
Luther is disappointed with Johnny for blowing his most recent con money on a single game of roulette. In Luther's mind, Johnny is totally wasting all of his cleverness as a grifter by being a terrible gambler.
Quote #5
LUTHER COLMAN: It's nothin' compared to what you could be makin' on the Big Con. You're wastin' your time workin' street marks.
As a seasoned conman, Luther knows talent when he sees it. And for him, Johnny is one of the best he's ever seen. That's why he thinks it's sad that Johnny is wasting so much of his talent on tiny scores. He thinks Johnny should put his energy into one giant con that can set him up for the rest of his life.
Quote #6
HENRY GONDORFF: Aw, I conned a Senator from Florida on a stocks deal. A real lop-ear. He thought he was gonna take over General Electric. Some Chantoozie woke him up, though, and he put the Feds on me.
Henry shows us that even the smartest conmen can get caught if someone betrays them. Conning involves a lot of cleverness, but it also involves a ton of trust in your fellow con artists. And if one of them sells you out, there's not much you can do.
Quote #7
JOHNNY HOOKER: Gondorff, you gonna teach me the Big Con or not?
Johnny Hooker quickly gets frustrated when Henry is evasive about his questions. All Johnny wants to do is avenge the death of his friend Luther, but Henry is a careful and intelligent man who has no interest in rushing into something without thinking it over.
Quote #8
HENRY GONDORFF: You gotta keep Lonnegan's con, even after you spent his money. And no matter how much you take from his, he'll get more.
Henry is smart enough to know that he'll spend the rest of his life on the run if Lonnegan ever finds out he conned him out of half a million dollars. That's why the biggest part of his con is making sure that Lonnegan never actually realizes he was conned. And that's going to take a whole lot of clever thinking.
Quote #9
HENRY GONDORFF: But most of all let us know. If they got a hit on you, we gotta fold up the con. You're too exposed. You got that?
Henry knows from experience that having an unreliable friend can undo even the cleverest of grifting plots. That's why he presses Johnny so hard about being honest and admitting when he needs help.
Quote #10
DOYLE LONNEGAN: What am I supposed to do? Call him for cheating better than me?
This has to be one of the best lines in the movie, since it perfectly captures the kind of cleverness that Henry Gondorff possesses as a grifter. He's so good that he can basically cheat right in front of Lonnegan's face and there's nothing Lonnegan can do about it without admitting he's a cheater too.