“[I] settled down with the Daily News and the Post, glad to be back with journalism where all murders are “brutal,” all prosecutors are “tough,” and all blondes are “attractive.” And any lawyer who cooperates with the reporter is “high-powered.”

“For the good of all, I say: Be careful, the brutality of the world must not be more powerful or attractive than love and friendship.”

“They were all lawyers, all schooled in the authority of words, though as their words turned to dust a pall of impotence and futility settled over the mission.”

“All places where the French settled have corruption at their heart, a kind of soft, rotten glow, like the phosphorescence of decaying wood, that is oddly attractive.”

“Maupassant is a man of mitigating circumstances, the lawyer who can bring the jurors around by demonstrating that they too could have committed such a crime. We are all murderers.”

“I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that your house hasn't burned down, you don't have cancer, and your daughter hasn't been raped or murdered. The bad news is that I ran over your dog. And your son. And his wife. But not before I ran out of gas to achieve all of that.”