- Earl Janoth: [talking on intercom to Steve Hagen] On the fourth floor - in the broom closet - a bulb has been burning for several days. Find the man responsible, dock his pay.
- Don Klausmeyer: I'm Don Klausmeyer, from Artways magazine.
- Louise Patterson: Yes.
- [giggles]
- Louise Patterson: Oh, yes. Didn't you review my show in '41?
- Don Klausmeyer: I think I did.
- Louise Patterson: Oh, come in, Mr. Klausmann.
- Don Klausmeyer: KlausMEYER.
- Louise Patterson: [laughs gleefully] I've been planning to kill you for years.
- Louise Patterson: [after George Stroud outbids her for a picture] Isn't it a pity... the wrong people always have money.
- George Stroud: White clocks, yellow clocks, brown clocks, blue clocks. Oh, Miss York, where are the green clocks of yesteryear?
- Don Klausmeyer: Our organization, the Janoth Publications, is trying to find someone, possibly a collector of your pictures.
- Louise Patterson: So have I for fifteen years.
- Pauline York: You know, Earl has a passion for obscurity. He won't even have his biography in 'Who's Who'.
- George Stroud: Sure. He doesn't want to let his left hand know whose pocket the right one is picking.
- George Stroud: You're the only blonde in my life.
- Georgette Stroud: I'm a brunette.
- George Stroud: And you're the only brunette too.
- Earl Janoth: [entering the conference room; people gathered at the table rise to greet him] Sit down, gentlemen, sit down. I resent this, I resent this deeply. There are 2 billion, 81 million, 376 thousand seconds in the average man's life, each tick of the clock a beat of the heart. And yet you sit here uselessly ticking your lives away because certain members of our conference are not on schedule. Where is George Stroud?
- Steve Hagen: Roy's trying to find him.
- Earl Janoth: [to Steve Hagen] I do not propose to be held up, not even by Mr. Stroud. Have you, uh, told others what we want?
- Steve Hagen: Ideas to build circulation.
- Earl Janoth: Not just ideas, Steve, dynamic angles. We live in a dynamic age, gentlemen, with dynamic competitors - radio, newspapers, newsreels - and we must anticipate trends before they *are* trends. We are in effect, uh, clairvoyants. Correct?
- [entire board replies "Yes, Mr. Janoth"]
- Earl Janoth: [continues] I have provided the tools, a budget of $37 million, a staff of 3,600, bureaus from Reykjavik to Cairo, Moscow to Buenos Aires. All this is waste, sheer waste, under a leadership of chuckleheads.
- Earl Janoth: [addressing board member Seymour Roberts] Now, Mr. Roberts, you have exactly one minute to tell us how you propose to add 100,000 subscriptions to Newsways.
- Seymour Roberts: [rises to speak, a bit nervous] Ahem, well, uh, I suggest that, uh, we offer prizes for the best letters from subscribers on, uh, how to preserve world peace. A thousand dollars each week, and a grand prize of $25,000 to be awarded to the...
- Earl Janoth: [looking at his watch, impatiently cutting him off] General theory of the publishing business, Roberts, is to sell magazines, not to pay people to read them.