- Roderick Usher: Cognac?
- C. Auguste Dupin: No, thank you. Listen, I'm sorry... for your loss. Your... your losses, rather...
- Roderick Usher: Henri IV Dudognon Heritage Cognac Grande Champagne. Most expensive in the world. This bottle was four million Euros at auction. Produced since 1776. Aged in barrels for more than a hundred years. And the bottle itself dipped in 18 karat yellow gold, inlaid with 4,100 high-quality diamonds. You know, a single pour... it probably cost twice your annual salary. Have a glass. See what a few years of your worth tastes like.
- C. Auguste Dupin: This is Assistant U.S. Attorney C. A. Dupin, sitting with Roderick Usher. November 20, 2023. Mr. Usher has waived his right to have an attorney present.
- Roderick Usher: And Mr. Dupin has waived a glass of Henri IV, so which of us is crazier?
- C. Auguste Dupin: Just warming it up.
- Roderick Usher: This is indeed Roderick Usher. We're in my childhood home. Yeah, this is where I grew up. Kept it all these years. The whole neighborhood... actually. So I could watch the paint peel. The weeds grow. And smell the rot if I needed a pick-me-up.
- C. Auguste Dupin: And what exactly are you confessing to? You mentioned Title 18, Section 371. That's defrauding the U.S. government...
- Roderick Usher: All of it.
- C. Auguste Dupin: All of it?
- Roderick Usher: The whole thing. You brought, what, 73 charges? All of them, everything, all yours, right now. And I'll throw in a... a bonus. I'll tell you how my children died.
- C. Auguste Dupin: I know how they died, Roderick. Everybody knows.
- Roderick Usher: Believe me, Mr. Dupin, when I tell you, you don't know a thing.
- Verna: You know what a resolution is? It's a deal you make with the future. The future's coming fast.
- Roderick Usher: Thank Heaven! The crisis, the danger, was past, and the lingering illness was over at last. And the fever called "living" was conquered at last. Come, let the burial rite be read, the funeral song be sung, an anthem for the queenliest dead that ever d*ed so young.
- Roderick Usher: If pain and suffering were the kisses of Jesus, then he kissed the living fuck out of my mother in the years that followed.
- Roderick Usher: They will love you because I love you, and the only thing stronger than love is how scared they are of getting cut out of the will.
- Lenore: But if someone really broke the law, shouldn't they be punished?
- Morella Usher: Lenore, that is a brave and thoughtful thing to say.
- [sotto voce]
- Morella Usher: Especially if you want to get written out of the will.
- Camille L'Espanaye: We're gonna find out who's talking to the Feds. Then I'll freeze their fucking head and give it to my father on a platinum plate. See if Cartier will make a platinum plate.
- Roderick Usher: You know my favorite holiday? New Year's Eve. You know why? Resolutions. People take that word for granted, they don't realize just how heavy a word it is. Resolution. Resolve. Means being unwavering, determined, a firm commitment to do something, or... not to do something. And most people go their whole, wasted, stupid lives without one minute of true resolution. Not me though.
- William Longfellow: Children are never too tender to be whipped. Like tough beefsteaks, the more you beat them, the more tender they become.
- C. Auguste Dupin: The House of Usher has weathered every storm, sling and arrow and stands higher, stronger and darker today than ever before.
- Madeline Usher: And if anyone, anyone comes after us, we will exhaust our arsenal until the threat's neutralized.
- Frederick Usher: By neutralized, do you mean sued into oblivion, taken out of the Board, out of the will, on the streets...
- Madeline Usher: Neutralized. Like dead.
- C. Auguste Dupin: You know, I read somewhere about high-powered negotiation tactics. How some truly brilliant business people will plant these moments into high-stakes conversations. Force a reaction, no matter how trivial. Talk softly to make an adversary lean in. Make them repeat themselves. Throw your eyeline behind them. Make them... turn around. Just something to assert a little control. I'm not going to turn around, Roderick.