January 2nd, 2014

Catch Me If You Can

Frank W. Abagnale

“A Man’s alter ego is nothing more than his favorite image of himself.”

Pg. 1

“I walked on, still enmeshed in the net of their glamour, and suddenly I was seized with an idea so daring in scope, so dazzling in design, that I whelmed myself.

What if I were a pilot? Not an actual pilot, of course. I had no heart for the grueling years of study, training, flight schooling, work and other mundane toils that fit a man for a jet liner’s cockpit. But what if I had the uniform and the trappings of an airline pilot? Why, I thought, I could walk into any hotel, bank or business in the country and cash a check. Airline pilots are men to be admired and respected. Men to be trusted. Men of means. And you don’t expect an airline pilot to be a local resident. Or a check swindler.”

Pg. 27

“I was pioneering a scam that was so implausible, so seemingly impossible and so brass-balled blatant that it worked.”

Pg. 63

“The transaction also verified a suspicion I had long entertained: it’s not how good a check looks but how good the person behind the check looks that influences tellers and cashiers.”

“Once I embarked on counterfeiting checks, I realized I had reached a point of no return. I had chosen paperhanging as a profession, my means of surviving, and having chosen a nefarious occupation, I set out to perfect my working skills.”

Pg. 128

“The look in his eyes told me the young banker recognized my grooming as another indication of wealth and power.

“Good morning,” I said Briskly . . .”

Pg. 148

“I was fully aware that I was on a mad carrousel ride, a merry-go-round whirling ungoverned from which I seemed unable to dismount, but I sure as hell didn’t want cops to stop the whirligig.”

Pg. 162

“I was, understandably, nervous and apprehensive at the outset of my scheme, but I plunged ahead recklessly.”

Pg. 203

“He walked into James’s office and said (as I later learned) exactly what I’d conditioned him so say.”

Pg. 213

“I think that I actually would have gone mad and died a lunatic in Perpignan prison had it not been for my vivid imagination.”

Pg. 232

“In my fantasies, I was anyone I wanted to be, much as I’d been during the five years before my arrest, although I added and amplified my Perpignan impersonations.”

Pg. 234

“Although the cleverness and intelligence he had exhibited in the course of his criminal career were undisputed, he had been more bold than deceptive, more overt than discreet.”

Pg. 280

                                                                                                                                                                     January 6th, 2014