My whole profession was simply refusing to let them get away with it.

Michael’s accusation, that I twisted numbers to make innocent people look guilty, was not even original; it was the reflexive cry of nearly every person I ever exposed, and I had learned long ago not to take it personally.

But it revealed something about how he thought, and therefore about how the whole scheme had been built.

Michael genuinely believed, I think, that reality was a matter of presentation, that the truth was simply whichever story was told most convincingly.

It is the worldview of a certain kind of person, and it is seductive, and within limits it even works; a great deal of ordinary life does run on persuasion and spin.