Absence of Malice

"You had a leak?! You call what's goin' on around here a leak? Boy, the last time there was a leak like this, Noah built hisself a boat."

"Now we'll talk all day if you want to. But, come sundown, there's gonna be two things true that ain't true now. One is that the United States Department of Justice is goin' to know what in the good Christ - excuse me, Angie - is goin' on around here. And the other's I'm gonna have somebody's ass in my briefcase."

"[to Megan] I think I know where we're headed here. Before we get there, I want to say something to you. You know and I know that we can't tell you what to print or what not to. We hope the press will act responsibly, but when you don't, there ain't a lot we can do about it. We can't have people go around leaking stuff for their own reasons. It ain't legal. And worse than that, by God it ain't right."

"I don't want to go to jail. But this has got to stop someplace. A lot of damage has been done. I'm responsible for a lot of it. I know that. I don't know. I keep thinking there must be some rules to tell me what I'm supposed to do now. But... maybe not. The person who told me about the Quinn investigation was not leaking it. They did not intend for it to be printed. I did that on my own. I'm scared to death of going to jail, but if I tell you, then you'll have to do something about it and someone else will be hurt. It's really very simple. I can hurt someone or not hurt someone. No rules. Just... me. I can't tell you."

"Suppose you picked up this morning's newspaper and your life was a front page headline... And everything they said was accurate... But none of it was true?"

"The D.A., Feds and the police set her up to write the story that explodes his world. Now he's going to write the book on getting even."

"In America, can a man be guilty until proven innocent?"

"Paul Newman - Michael Gallagher"

"Sally Field - Megan Carter"

"Bob Balaban - Elliott Rosen"

"Melinda Dillon - Teresa"

"Luther Adler - Malderone"

"Barry Primus - Waddell"

"Josef Sommer - McAdam"

"Wilford Brimley - Assistant U.S. Attorney General James A. Wells"

"Don Hood - Quinn"