- Randi Wallace: You know, your book changed my life. I read the first chapter and I switched majors.
- Aunt Elsa: I hope it's got a couple of juicy murders in it. A bit of steamy sex wouldn't hurt, either.
- [reading the title of Ian's manuscript]
- Julian Matheson: Let's see. "Fright and Fraud: Ethnobiocentric Morphogenesis of the Mephisto Fallacy." I doubt it.
- [to Ian]
- Julian Matheson: Catchy title.
- Dad Matheson: I'm sure it's a cracking good read.
- Dr. Ian Matheson: Academics don't want a cracking good read, Dad. They want dull, stuffy, pompous books.
- Aunt Elsa: And you're just the man to give it to them.
- [discussing Ian's new book]
- Randi Wallace: Well, I think it sounds fascinating.
- Dr. Ian Matheson: Well, I thank you all for your interest. Randi, you can have the privilege of being the first person to read it... and probably the last.
- [reading the newspaper's account of a grisly murder]
- Aunt Elsa: "The booksellers watch horrified as the man, dressed as a sea captain, impaled the publisher with a harpoon."
- Julian Matheson: "Then the drooling psychopathic lunatic jumped out the window and plunged screaming to his death below."
- Dr. Ian Matheson: Oh my God.
- Julian Matheson: Lose your appetite?
- Dr. Ian Matheson: Lost my publisher.
- Miss Radisson: I know I'll be a good editor. I thrive under pressure, I'm great with people and I'm steeped in the classics. I've read every word Jackie Collins has ever written.
- Randi Wallace: Oh.
- Dr. Ian Matheson: One of the greats.
- Randi Wallace: Try and understand her.
- Dr. Ian Matheson: I understand her perfectly. She's an axe murderer.
- Randi Wallace: You're not being very constructive.
- Dr. Ian Matheson: Shall I advise her on her backhand?
- Randi Wallace: Hahaha! I told you the delivery company would believe I was his wife. I told you they'd patch me on to him.
- Dr. Ian Matheson: What if he wasn't married? What if he wasn't in the mood?
- Randi Wallace: Come on. What man would deny the urgent plea of a hot-blooded female to meet at a classy hotel and make mad, passionate love?
- [Ian stares at Randi aghast]
- Randi Wallace: Okay, maybe one.
- Randi Wallace: You never got to know the real me. Imagine - no more secret life. I won't be a savage beast! You won't have to hide me in the cellar, put me in chains, find me in the morning hungry, sweaty, naked...
- Dr. Ian Matheson: You share the taste of the common reader. Maybe you can help me.
- Aunt Elsa: I'll try.
- Dr. Ian Matheson: How would Stephen King say this? "As the interstitial matrices of good and evil tend towards the unity of the ur-Mephistopheles, they transcend the nature of the Faust legend."
- Aunt Elsa: Hmm. Let me think. How about, "Blood dripped from her naked body and spread across the throat; her once lovely features hideously deformed by the rictus of death."
- Dr. Ian Matheson: It's useless.