"Feel that? That's the balance of power shifting. Yesterday I called Jim five times, and I hung up six times. Possibly seven. These are the sorts of things I couldn't do back when he worked here. Because he was at the next desk, so he would have made the connection. But now, with Jim in Stamford, it's anybody's ball game. I intend it to be my ball game."
"The office dynamic is different, definitely. It's always different…after anyone leaves. Oscar left not too long ago, and that's…that's been a little different. Um, but…but I think that…. It's not like he got fired, so there's none of that…that feeling of, you know…it's like, 'Wow, I'm sorry to see you go, but I'm glad I'm not you.' Jim, I mean. Not Oscar. Although…Oscar didn't get fired either. Anyway, Jim wasn't fired, he was…he was promoted. So he…he had an opportunity…and he took it. And…I'm happy for him. Because those sorts of opportunities don't come around all that often. And he deserves to be…promoted."
"I can only imagine what Michael said to Pam…. Yeah…actually, I'm doing my best not to imagine. Not that it matters. I mean, she made her decision. It's kind of one of the hazards of a small office, I guess, having everyone know your business, and there are…were generally two people in the Scranton branch who seemed to find things out. One was Pam. She was the receptionist, she could see things people didn't know she saw because they could sometimes forget she was even there. And the other was Michael. He mostly just stumbled over things. I don't know, maybe there were more people in the Scranton branch who were figuring things out, and I only knew Michael and Pam knew things because…well, anything Michael knew, the office knew. That's how he liked it. And Pam…Pam was always…she was…yeah….
"I'm sorry, I don't remember where I was going with that."
"It's percolating. Up in her head. I can tell by the way she looks at me. She's thinking about what I said, absolutely. Some may say that I was insensitive. The way I put it. Well, I'm gonna be honest with you—the truth hurts. Truth hurts, and there's no way of getting around that. Except maybe with lies. But the way I see it, no lie is going to bring Jim back to Scranton, which is, I think, what everybody wants."
"All I can say is, he had better answer his own phone tomorrow. Do I look like the receptionist? No, I didn't think so, either. I did not get my degree—from Cornell, no less—to answer calls from Big Tuna's angry ex-girlfriends. I'm assuming it was an ex-girlfriend who was calling all afternoon and hanging up on him, because that would explain why she sounded so apologetic when I talked to her. If I were him, I'd just say, 'Listen, babe, I don't know how you got this number, but it's over.' I'd tell him to tell her that, except I already told him he's not getting any of his phone messages from me, and backing down now would set a bad precedent."