“Reading without suspicion is more dangerous than blogging without authority.”

“I’ll keep this part short, because no one truly gives a shit about this kind of stuff, and I’m sure you don’t, either. They want to read about someone with more tragic failings than themselves surviving hell to get the girl in the very end. Anything to make their dull existences tolerable, their literary doses coming four minutes at a time on the crapper one-point-seven times per day. By my calculations, that puts you about one week into this story, far too removed emotionally to possibly understand my actions.”

“You can't copyright a title, but if anyone tries to steal "Rabbi Sanjeev and the Periwinkle Valise of Intrigue," I'll sue the motherfucking Burberry off their back faster than you can say "Neo-Hassidic espionage.”

“You remind Cruise that I was the one who begged him to run screaming from that script,” Graham shouts into a speakerphone on his desk in an office just like every office in movies with studio executive scenes. Where a window fills the entire rear wall on a floor so high you could see your house from it if it weren’t obscured by its own weather system. The kind that silhouettes the man in power with a Christ-like halo of sunlight meant to intimidate guests into squinting in what could be mistaken for awe. He waves me inside to sit in a chair that’s at least one strategic foot lower than his own.”

“If you save your best song for the encore, you won't get one.”

“The definition of success constantly evolves for the truly ambitious.”

“He who laughs last should not go out to movie theaters.”