- Verna: What happens to you when the Ushers are gone? Which is imminent, by the way. You've enjoyed a sense of immunity throughout your life, but it isn't yours. It's theirs. Just reflected.
- Arthur Pym: Let me guess. You can do something about that.
- Verna: I can. Like I said to one of my clients, when I'm done you can stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and it won't cost you a thing.
- Arthur Pym: Is his tab coming due any time soon? Even I've got my limits.
- Verna: Fortunato Pharma will be dissolved in a bankruptcy settlement. The family trust will turn over 4.5 billion, including federal settlement fees paid in installments over nine years.
- Arthur Pym: It's a pretty sweet deal.
- Verna: It's a fucking Christmas present. It's a slap on the wrist that comes with a blowjob.
- Arthur Pym: And you can make this happen?
- Verna: Oh no. This will happen without me. Humanity will shit that bed themselves. Corporate justice in this world is a punchline.
- Arthur Pym: Then... what are you offering?
- Verna: There's a file. Camille L'Espanaye was very good at what she did. She had a file on everyone. Even you. Barely scratches the surface, but the surface alone will get you 20 to life. It gets found, or it doesn't. So you can either ride the phoenix out of Fortunato's ashes, or you can watch it fly away from a federal prison cell. This I can do.
- Arthur Pym: What are you asking in return?
- Verna: What do you have, Arthur, in this life you've built for yourself? What assets have you acquired? I'm not interested in money, property, or stock options. True assets. What have you got? No spouse. No children. No familial connections. At least, none that you care about. But everyone loves something. And in that love, there's collateral.
- Arthur Pym: No. I have no collateral. Collateral is leverage. And I won't be leveraged. No man or woman has leveraged me in seventy years of life. And I'm not going to cede that ground, not this close to the end. So, thank you for your consideration and for your generous offer. But I think I'll play out my hand, if it's all the same time to you.
- Verna: Fair enough. Thank you. This has been a pleasure.
- Roderick Usher: I guess we've finally come to it. Haven't we? World without pain. That was the whole point. Nobody can stomach a little discomfort. It hurts. It hurts and they cry and cry, and I took it away! I reached in and I snuffed out those flames in their backs, in their joints, in their heads, in their hands. I waved my wand, wasn't enough. Was never enough. They just kept wanting more. More and more.
- Verna: Oh, honey. Don't kid a kidder. Did you drive here like that? When was the last time you drove your own car? And tonight you do it barefoot. Good for you. You know, I've worked with a lot of truly influential people over the years, but when it comes to sheer body count, you're in my top five. Take a look. Those are your bodies. They'd each be alive today if it weren't for you. New one every five minutes. Just in the States, but... open it up to the world. Why did you come here tonight? On your way home. Your real home. Was it to say goodbye? One last look at your great tower. Your pyramid. That's your true monument, Roderick. Out there. It's a wonder of the world. And it's eternal. That's your legacy.
- Annabel Lee: When people asked how you took them, how you convinced them away from me. "He's rich," I'd say. "He's rich." And you don't understand what that word means. They were young. They only knew appetite, and "Here," you said, "come with me. Gorge yourselves." How could I compete with that? You didn't feed them though, did you? You starved them. Less and less of them came back each time until one day they were empty. They were syphoned. You started filling them up with... What did you fill them up with, Roderick? What did you have to fill them with? Because you weren't rich, were you? I thought you were a rich man all this time, but I... I see you now. I look at you and I see... you. The poverty of you.
- Roderick Usher: I promised my confession. And here it is. I knew. Deep down. In the witching hour. I knew. I knew I would climb to the top of the tower on a pile of corpses. And we told them... it was about soothing the world's pain. That's the biggest lie we told. You can't eliminate pain. There's no such thing as a painkiller. And imagine if we'd put that on the bottle. I bet I still could have sold it.
- Madeline Usher: Please, treasure. What the fuck does that even mean? Gold's just a... transition metal element, nothing special. Money's not even gold anymore, it's just ones and zeros. It's a lie agreed upon. We built a life. A privileged fucking life, out of nothing but dirt and trauma, empty pockets and broken hearts. We did that. And say what you will, it was fucking substantial.
- Madeline Usher: These people. They want an entire meal for $5 in five minutes then complain when it's made of shit and plastic. McDonald's would serve nothing but kale salad all day and all night long if that's what people fucking ate. It's available, no one buys it. We will get around to funding AIDS research, and diabetes, and heart disease, just as soon as we figure out how to keep our geriatric dicks harder for a few more minutes. What's the market share on wimpy dicks, Roderick? 60-70% of the healthcare industry. The Pentagon spent $83 million on Viagra last year. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court, the fucking Supreme Court does its part, tears the autonomy, rips the liberty away from women, shreds not just their choice but their future, their potential. We turn men into cum fountains and women into factories, cranking out, what, an impoverished workforce, there for the labor and to spend what little they make consuming. Hmm. And what do we teach them to want? Houses they can't afford. Cars that poison the air. Single-serve plastics, clothes made by starving children in third world countries, and they want it so bad that they're begging for it, they're screaming for it, they're insisting upon it. And we're the problem? These fucking monsters, these fucking consumers, these fucking mouths. They point at you and me like we're the problem. They fucking invented us.
- Verna: 84,000 people just last year. Just in the U.S. And that's just a guess. It's impossible to know the real numbers. 941,878 since 1985. Again, just the U.S. Again, just a guess. But we know better, don't we? Millions, Roderick. Millions. And that's just the deaths. Who knows how many more are addicted. Ruined. Your tally is... fucking impressive, Roderick Usher
- Roderick Usher: What else do you want? What else did you want?
- C. Auguste Dupin: Justice.
- Roderick Usher: What does that look like?
- C. Auguste Dupin: For what you've done? I don't know. Suppose I'll know it when I see it.
- Roderick Usher: I hope you do... see it.
- Roderick Usher: [offering a drink] You sure I can't tempt you?
- C. Auguste Dupin: No.
- Roderick Usher: Wish I'd said that.
- Verna: So what would you do to make your dreams come true? People talk a good game, but money where your mouth is. What would you be willing to do? For example, what if I told you right now that you could achieve all the success you ever imagined? All the money. All the power. A lifetime of luxury. Comfort. What would you do? What would you give?
- Verna: You feel it. Both of you. In the air. We're sitting outside of time and space. This is the moment luck meets opportunity.
- Verna: What's more loving? Forty years, 50 years of a gilded life? Or 70, 80 years of anxiety, tribulation, and heartache?
- Verna: One of my favorite things about human beings. Starvation, poverty, disease, you could fix all that, just with money. And you don't. I mean, if you took just a little bit of time off the vanity voyages, pleasure cruising, billionaire space race, hell, you stopped making movies and TV for one year and you spent that money on what you really need, you could solve it all. With some to spare.
- Roderick Usher: I honored her.
- C. Auguste Dupin: Right. And after you "honored" her... are you sure she was dead?
- Roderick Usher: You know, maybe not.