- Cleve: [as he menaces Roberta Gillian with a knife] Am I sympathetic? Will they like me? Please don't lie to me! Is it an important book?
- Dennis Meechum: Who fucked it up?
- Roberta Gillian: Nobody fucked it up, Mr. Meechum. Just don't expect Hollywood to bail you out.
- Cleve: You loved her more than you could ever love anyone else in your life.
- Dennis Meechum: Just don't talk about her, all right?
- Cleve: Hey, Dennis. I understand. Shes the clean part of your life, I'm the dirty part. The criminal. But you and I know things other people don't, don't we, Dennis? Hmm? How it feels to kill a man, for instance. Cop. Killer. Two sides of the same coin. Hmm? We share a mutual bond, you and I.
- Dennis Meechum: No!
- Cleve: Yes!
- Dennis Meechum: No. We don't have anything in common. I have nothing in common with you.
- Cleve: We'll see. We'll see.
- Roberta Gillian: [re the manuscript] I'm dying to see the rest. You like him, don't you? Cleve, I mean.
- Dennis Meechum: Yeah.
- Roberta Gillian: And you're going to arrest him?
- Dennis Meechum: Yeah.
- Dennis Meechum: [gun held in Cleve's face] Fuck Madlock and fuck the book and fuck you! Where is my kid?