“You got dealt some crappy cards. But you're the one who has to decide how to play them.”

“Life isn't fair, so you have to play the best game you can with the cards you're dealt.”

“You don't have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you're holding.”

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you is determinism; the way you play it is free will.”

“They had parted as boys, and now life presented one of them with a fugitive and the other with a dying man. Both wondered whether this was due to the cards they'd been dealt or to the way they had played them.”

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be, I'm sorry to disappoint you.”

“What I wanted to get at is the value difference between pornographic playing-cards when you're a kid, and pornographic playing-cards when you're older. It's that when you're a kid you use the cards as a substitute for a real experience, and when you're older you use real experience as a substitute for the fantasy.”

“Society is like this card game here, cousin. We got dealt our hand before we were even born, and as we grow we have to play as best as we can.”

“You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt with. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding and my dear one, you and I have been granted a mighty generous one.”

“You need somebody to stand up for you. You're the little guy, you just don't realize it yet. The Commonwealth has all the aces, and you don't even know you're playing cards.”