Oldest Tricks in the Book

Oldest trick in the book, gentlemen.  You take your weakest grunt, you pair him with your strongest, then you give ’em mutual goals to motivate ’em.
—Ben Weaver, Brothers in Arms (2001)

Brad used the oldest trick in the book ... He put a handkerchief over the phone when he spoke to you.
—Ann Matthews Martin, Missing Since Monday (1994)

Misdirection, babe.  Made her appear innocent.  Oldest trick in the book.
—Alice Kimberly, The Ghost and Mrs. McClure (2004)

Once again, it was the oldest trick in the book.  Get everyone looking in one direction, while you plan something in the other.
—Mack Maloney, Superhawks (2004)

It’s the oldest trick in the book.  She’s just trying to make me jealous.
—Chris Wooding, Crashing (1998)

Strategically placed mirrors and reflective surfaces are one of the oldest tricks in the book- and for good reason: They work . . .
—Leslie Plummer Clagett, The New City Home (2003)

Mirrored structures obviously create the illusion of more space.  It’s the oldest trick in the book.
—Karen Haber, Exploring the Matrix (2003)

“Oh, he probably just crammed a mouse in there to fool us,” said George.  “It’s the oldest trick in the book.”
—Dav Pilkey, Captain Underpants and the Attach of the Talking Toilets (1999)

“[T]here were four witnesses who saw Vok, or Cole, do it.”
    “Mass hypnosis!” thundered Befz.  “The oldest trick in the book!  I have three hundred forty-eight cases in my records, of which probably the most illuminating was the Great Hollywood Bowl Pickpocket Scam.”
—Jack Adrian, “ The Absolute and Utter Impossibility of the Facts in the Case of the Vanishing of Henning Vok,” The Mammoth Book of Comic Crime (2002)

The oldest trick in the world is to make it look easy.  To make it look natural.
—Ruel A. Mayo, “Speaking of Patricia Evangelista” (2005)

It’s the oldest trick in the book.  You create the illusion of terror, then you get credit for stamping it out; you get funds, you get power.
—Jonathan Franzen, The Twenty-Seventh City (2001)

[T]he oldest trick of all—the lure of sex.
—Peter Hounam, The Woman from Massad (2000)

Love, then, [is] the oldest trick in the book.
—Anna Katsavos, “Using the Fantastic to Disrupt the Domestic,” Trajectories of the Fantastic (1997)

Father, I have sinned.  I have been stupid and blind and fooled by the oldest trick in the book.  Love.
—Annie Solomon, Dead Ringer (2003)

“Look! Look! Look!”  It was
the oldest trick in the book.
—Rudy Rucker, Frek and the Elixir (2005)

First I will make myself less visible.  That is one of the oldest tricks in the book, as they say.  You’ve read about it in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, no doubt.
—Cindy Trumbore, The Genie in the Book (2004)

                    I’ve had a rough night

with the power cut, hours of pounding in a bowl of mountain
thunder, eyeballing this medieval town illuminated by the oldest

trick in the book, god’s theatrics like a drunk lit from within
coursing a way home across the pitched sky

—Jane Miller, “Coupling,” August Zero (1993)

[He] booked a destination beyond where he intends to get off.  Oldest trick in the book.
—Jay MacLarty, Bagman (2004)

A little powdered fern, a little iris root—it’s the oldest trick in the book.  Girls have been ridding themselves of the fruit of illegal love with that since time began.  By Allah, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mother Eve herself brought those plants with her from Eden, they’re so useful, so divine.
—Ann Chamberlin, Reign of the Favored Women (1998)

It is . . . one might say, the oldest trick in the book.  The priests define a certain behavior as a sin, a symptom of some moral disease, and they provide the cure, of course.  For a price.
—Lawrence McGuire, The Great American Wagon Road (2001)

[A] quick cleansing of the mind.  Begone, ye negative distractions.  . . .  The old instant catharsis.  Oldest trick in the book.
—Inman Majors, Wonderdog (2004)

This technique is pointing in the opposite direction is cited in Wikipedia as one of the oldest tricks in the book (2006).

Imagine the jerk in his or her underwear.  I know, it’s the oldest trick in the book, but it must work for some people or, I assume, it wouldn’t be in the book at all.
—Barbara Pachter, The Jerk with the Cell Phone (2004)