“In the end, the Tribune lost touch with the world it was supposed to reach; it mattered passionately, but almost exclusively, to those who worked for it.”
“Paperbacks blink in and out of print like fireflies. They also, as older collectors have ruefully discovered, fade and fall apart even more rapidly than their owners.”
“The image of the reporter as a nicotine-stained Quixote, slugging back Scotch while skewering city hall with an expose ripped out of a typewriter on the crack of deadline, persists despite munificent evidence to the contrary.”
“It even looks exactly like a real book, with pages and print and dust jacket and everything. This disguise is extremely clever, considering the contents: the longest lounge act never performed in the history of the Catskills.”
“He offers the never-never land of convenient cliches. a world where statesmen say, "We've not heard the end of this," where people turn "scarlet with anger," where the price of gold goes "sky-high" and where the unsuspecting outsider "little knew what fate had in store for him."”
