- Diane Thomson: You know something, Stan? You're not a bad-looking man. You dress reasonably well. And you don't smell. And I bet with the right partner, you're even a fairly good lover.
- Stanley Owens: So?
- Diane Thomson: So, next time there's a rattlesnake around, why don't you mate with it?
- Diane Thomson: You're trying to figure me out, aren't you? Or maybe you already have. What do you read?
- Anthony Blake: I'm not in the appraisal business.
- Max Pomeroy: Tony's more than a magician--he's a fighter. Hates injustice, as we all should. But as most people react to it, Tony acts. Stems, I think, from a bit of hell he went through once in a South American prison. Phony charge. He escaped, but the experience left him with a deep feeling for people in trouble. He's been involved with them ever since. This time it happens to be me.
- Manning Hargrove: I understand Tony is the great since Houdini.
- Max Pomeroy: Perhaps since, before, and including.
- Max Pomeroy: Tony, I accept it when you do this sort of thing for other people. I'm not sure I like it when you do it for me--putting yourself in obvious danger.
- Anthony Blake: I'm not in danger, Max. They didn't try to kill me. They tried to kill you.
- Dennis Pomeroy: Every good newspaper man makes enemies. It's just that sometimes I think my father works at it.
- Stanley Owens: You'd have been a better gambler if you'd stayed sober.
- Diane Thomson: I started to drink when I started to lose.
- Stanley Owens: You've been a loser all your life. You just started to become aware of it, that's all.
- Diane Thomson: I'm a compulsive gambler. And a borderline alcoholic. And, if you were to choose a word, desperate.
- Diane Thomson: You're not a cop?
- Anthony Blake: No, no.
- Diane Thomson: Because if I ever brought a cop...
- Diane Thomson: I'm not a cop. Please, have a little faith.
- Diane Thomson: In what?
- Anthony Blake: In me.