“Now don’t go thinking nice things about me. You’ll only be disappointed.”

“I’m a cold-hearted bastard. I’m insular, I’m jaded, a workaholic, I’m ruthless and I’m self-serving. I don’t do forever, I rarely even do “I’ll call you tomorrow”. And just because I’m here now it does not mean if you ask me to stay I will.”

“If I’m right,’ she said, ‘and you have all sorts of juicy information in that dossier of yours, you’ll know that I am an abnormally forgiving person, even of those who have used me and hurt me more than one person deserves to be hurt. But right this second, I am looking forward to the day you rot in hell.”

“Trust was now a four-letter word.”

“You're playing hookey for her? You met her, what, five minutes ago? And now she's what? Your girlfriend? Did you give her your varsity jacket?”

“Yeah, he’s just a huge flirt. He flirted with me, every female reporter within eyeshot, some of the men, and a pot plant on the way into his office. It’s pathological.”

“His own parents, the estimable Gilchrists, a couple who had taken the 'till death' part of their own wedding vows so seriously he wouldn't be surprised if they one day throttled one another, had naturally wangled the next best seat in the house: row two, on the aisle.”