"[lecturing her baby dolls after making Joan mad] You were very, very bad to wake Mommie up like that. VERY naughty. I told you, Mommie has to be beautiful today. This afternoon, she has to see MISTER MAYER. Today is so important. You are thoughtless and selfish. You must learn to think about other people. You are bad, bad spoiled children."

"[about Christina's refusal to eat her meat] WHY must EVERYTHING be a CONTEST?!"

"[yelling at her children for making noise when she is trying to take a nap] Christina, Christopher! DAMMIT!!!"

"You're a lousy substitute for someone who really cares."

"TINA! Bring me the axe!"

"[addressing the men in the Pepsi boardroom] DON'T FUCK WITH ME FELLAS! This ain't my first time at the rodeo. You forget the press that I delivered to Pepsi was MY POWER. I can use it any way I want. It's a sword... that cuts both ways."

"[addressing the fans camped out in front of her house on Oscar night] I would rather be here with you than anywhere else in the world. You, all of you here and everywhere, gave me this award tonight. And I accept it from you and only you. I love all of you. Now please forgive me, good night."

"NO... WIRE... HANGERS! What's wire hangers doing in this closet when I told you NO WIRE HANGERS, EVER?! I work and work 'til I'm half-dead, and I hear people say, "She's getting old." And what do I get? A daughter... who cares as much about the beautiful dresses I give her... as she cares about me! WHAT'S WIRE HANGERS DOING IN THIS CLOSET?! ANSWER ME! I buy you beautiful dresses, and you treat them like they were some dishrag! You do! $300 dress on a wire hanger? We'll see how many you've got, if they're hidden somewhere! We'll see! We'll see! Get out of that bed. All of this is coming out! Out...out...out...out!!! You got any more? We're gonna see how many wire hangers you've got in your closet! [throws items out of Christina's closet onto the floor despite Christina's protests, and soon discovers a second dress on a wire hanger] A wi... wire hanger! WHY?! WHY?!!!! Christina, get out of that bed. Get out of that bed! You live in the most beautiful house in Brentwood... [begins beating Christina with the hanger; Christina tells her to stop hurting her as she shrieks and bawls in pain] ...and you don't care if your clothes get stretched out from wire hangers?! And your room looks like some $2-a-week furnished room in some two-bit back street town in Oklahoma! Get up! Clean up this mess!"

"You pay me to go get guys like Wigand, to draw him out. To get him to trust us, to get him to go on television. I do. I deliver him. He sits. He talks. He violates his own confidentiality agreement. And he's only the key witness in the biggest public health reform issue, maybe the biggest, most-expensive corporate-malfeasance case in U.S. history. And Jeffrey Wigand, who's out on a limb, does he go on television and tell the truth? Yes. Is it newsworthy? Yes. Are we gonna air it? Of course not. Why? Because he's not telling the truth? No. Because he is telling the truth. That's why we're not going to air it. And the more truth he tells, the worse it gets!"

"You'd better take a good look, because I'm getting two things: pissed off and curious."

"Stephen Tobolowsky - Eric Kluster"

"Christopher Plummer - Mike Wallace"

"Philip Baker Hall - Don Hewitt"

"Russell Crowe - Jeffrey Wigand"

"Al Pacino - Lowell Bergman"

"Two men driven to tell the truth... whatever the cost."

"Warning: Exposing the Truth May Be Hazardous"

"Fame has a fifteen minute half-life. Infamy lasts a little longer."

""Mike"? Try "Mr. Wallace." We work in the same corporation, doesn't mean we work in the same profession. What are you gonna do now? You gonna finesse me? Lawyer me some more? I've been in this profession fifty fucking years. You and the people you work for are destroying the most-respected, the highest-rated, the most-profitable show on this network!"

"Do me a favor, will you - spare me, for God's sake, get in the real world, what do you think? I'm going to resign in protest? To force it on the air? The answer's "no." I don't plan to spend the end of my days wandering in the wilderness of National Public Radio. That decision I've already made."

"Will you tell him that when I conduct an interview, I sit anywhere I damn please!"

"I never left a source hang out to dry, ever! Abandoned! Not 'till right fucking now. When I came on this job I came with my word intact. I'm gonna leave with my word intact. Fuck the rules of the game!"

"I'm Lowell Bergmann, I'm from 60 Minutes. You know, you take the "60 Minutes" out of that sentence, nobody returns your phone call."

"What do I tell the next source when the next tough story comes along, huh? 'Hang in with us, you'll be ok maybe'? What got broken here doesn't go back together."

"It's the wanting that keeps us alive."

"Do you know what my daughter's nurse told her today? In a girl's voice lies temptation - a known fact. Eloquence in a woman means promiscuity. Promiscuity of the mind leads to promiscuity of the body. She doesn't believe it yet, but she will. She'll grow up just like her mother. Marry, raise children and honor her family. Spend her youth in needlepoint and rue the day she was born a girl. And when she dies, she'll wonder why she obeyed all the rules of God and Country for no biblical hell could ever be worse than a state of perpetual inconsequence."

"Desire begins in the mind. Cleopatra, Theodocia, she could seduce a man at twenty paces, without revealing an inch of flesh."

"If I didn't know you better I'd think you have the feigned indifference of a man in love. Go on son. Tell the truth and shame the devil."

"Captain Green: [Witnessing Malcolm's control over a mob] That's too much power for one man to have."

"Leonard L. Thomas - Leon Davis"

"Giancarlo Esposito - Thomas Hayer"

"Wendell Pierce - Ben Thomas"

"Jean-Claude La Marre - Benjamin 2X"

"Ernest Lee Thomas - Sidney"

"Steve White - Brother Johnson"

"James McDaniel - Brother Earl"

"Tommy Hollis - Earl Little"

"Lonette McKee - Louise Little"

"Kate Vernon - Sophia"

"Theresa Randle - Laura"

"Roger Guenveur Smith - Rudy"

"Spike Lee - Shorty"

"Delroy Lindo - West Indian Archie"

"Al Freeman, Jr. - Elijah Muhammad"