“One tree isn’t more important than the entire forest, Joe. You taught me that. Remember? Political pruning. (Syd)Yeah, but every forest is always destroyed one tree at a time. You take care of those individual trees because each one that falls brings you closer to deforestation. You only prune what’s rotten. You don’t cut down a good tree for no reason. (Joe)”

“Who would have ever thought that the best way to save lives was to take one? But then that was what Joe had preached to her from the first day on her job. He even had a name for it. Political pruning. In order to make the tree grow, the dead, diseased, and contaminated limbs had to be removed. If they didn’t fall off on their own, then you had to get the chain saw out and cut them loose. At first she’d been naïve enough to think that she could never be so jaded. But time and missions had finally succeeded in bringing her around to Joe’s way of thinking. (Syd)”

“You’re such a crybaby. (Tee)Let me almost shoot off one of your testicles and see how you cope. (Joe)You shouldn’t have moved, Joe. It was your fault. (Tee)Yeah, everything’s my fault. (Joe)Good, then we agree. (Tee)”

“Love is like encountering a forest and having to chop down every tree but one. Oh, and you have to chop down each tree by hugging it until it falls.
”

“Has anyone ever won an argument with you? (Syd)Just Tee, and I was drunk and wounded at the time. (Joe)”

“Think Snake Plissken. You know…Escape From New York? You do this job, and if you don’t fuck it up, we let you live. (Joe)Yeah, I’ve seen that movie. At the end they try to kill him anyway. (Steele)Good, then you’re already acquainted with our methods. Saves me a lot of training time and you a low of surprises. (Joe)”

“You woke up on the wrong side of the oak tree, didn’t you? (Acheron)”