I thought it would be valuable to record the events—even if they did not take place. - John le Carré

What else has a journalist to do these days, after all, but report life's miseries?

It was the other music that he was hearing: the feeling that, while she was telling him one story, he was listening to a different one, and so was she.

In recent years, Union Bank of California, American Express Bank International, BankAtlantic and Wachovia have all been caught moving huge sums of drug money, but no one went to jail. The banks just admitted to criminal conduct and paid the government a cut of their profits.