I admire John Sayles a lot. Sayles not only writes and directs movies, he edits them (which, as Tony Zhou points out, is a very small bunch of people who include Kurosawa). Sayles made Matewan, and Lone Star, among others.

And in 1990-91 he made his one foray into TV: Shannon’s Deal. For a show with only one season, it has a very extensive Quotes page on IMDb. With these elegant lines:

[Jack Shannon tries to talk Wilmer Slade out of taking his entire payment]

Jack Shannon: Then you should understand that a payment of this size is going to make Mr. Testa very upset. 

Wilmer Slade: Why do I sense an oncoming assault on logic?

“An oncoming assault on logic.” That’s beautiful. That might be lexicon of the future, that.

What a damned shame it’s not promising I’ll ever see it. Will any of the streaming platforms ever pick it up? And it hasn’t been made a DVD.