"We are once again asked - nay, commanded - to consider a proposed thirteenth amendment which, if passed, shall set at immediate liberty four million coloreds while manacling the limbs of the white race in America. If it is passed - but it shall not pass!"

"But all that was not enough for this dictator, who now seeks to insinuate his miscegenist pollution into the Constitution itself!"

"[to Abraham Lincoln] You think I'm ignorant of what you're up to because you haven't discussed this scheme with me as you ought to have done? When have I ever been so easily bamboozled? I believe you when you insist that amending the Constitution and abolishing slavery will end this war. And since you're sending my son into the war, woe to you if you fail to pass the amendment."

"[to Abraham Lincoln] No one's loved as much as you, no one's ever been loved so much, by the people. You might do anything now. Don't, don't waste that power on an amendment bill that's sure of defeat."

"The greatest measure of the 19th century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America."

"I want the amendment to pass, so that the Constitution's first and only mention of slavery is its absolute prohibition. For this amendment, for which I have worked all my life and for which countless colored men and women have fought and died and now hundreds of thousands of soldiers... No, sir, no, it seems there's very nearly nothing I won't say."

"How can I hold that all men are created equal, when here before me stands, stinking, the moral carcass of the gentleman from Ohio, proof that some men are inferior, endowed by their Maker with dim wits, impermeable to reason, with cold, pallid slime in their veins instead of hot red blood! You are more reptile than man, George! So low and flat, that the foot of man is incapable of crushing you!"

"Lincoln the inveterate dawdler, Lincoln the Southerner, Lincoln the capitulating compromiser, our adversary, and leader of the Godforsaken Republican Party - our party - Abraham Lincoln has asked for our help in accomplishing the death of slavery in America. Retain, even in opposition, your capacity for astonishment."

"Nothing surprises you, Asa, therefore nothing about you is surprising. Perhaps that is why your constituents did not re-elect you to the coming term?"

"Trust? Oh. I'm sorry, I was under the misapprehension your chosen profession was politics. I never trusted the President, never trusted anyone, but hasn't he surprised you?"

"In times like this, I'm best alone."

"Do you think we choose the times into which we are born? Or do we fit the times we are born into?"

"[pounds his hand on a table as his cabinet squabbles] I can't listen to this anymore. I can't accomplish a goddamn thing of any human meaning or worth until we cure ourselves of slavery and end this pestilential war, and whether any of you or anyone else knows it, I know I need this! This amendment is that cure! We're stepped out upon the world stage now, now, with the fate of human dignity in our hands. Blood's been spilled to afford us this moment! Now! Now! Now! And you grouse so and heckle and dodge about like pettifogging Tammany Hall hucksters!"

"Euclid's first common notion is this: "Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other." That's a rule of mathematical reasoning. It's true because it works; has done and will always will do. In his book, Euclid says this is "self-evident." You see, there it is, even in that two-thousand year old book of mechanical law: it is a self-evident truth of things which are equal to the same thing, are equal to each other. We begin with equality. That's the origin, isn't it? That balance—that's fairness, that's justice."

"It was right after the Revolution, right after peace had been concluded. And Ethan Allen went to London to help our new country conduct its business with the king. The English sneered at how rough we are and rude and simple-minded and on like that, everywhere he went. Til one day he was invited to the townhouse of a great English lord. Dinner was served, beverages imbibed, time passed as happens and Mr. Allen found he needed the privy. He was grateful to be directed thence. Relieved, you might say. Mr. Allen discovered on entering the water closet that the only decoration therein was a portrait of George Washington. Ethan Allen done what he came to do and returned to the drawing room. His host and the others were disappointed when he didn't mention Washington's portrait. And finally his lordship couldn't resist and asked Mr. Allen had he noticed it - the picture of Washington - he had. Well what did he think of its placement? Did it seem appropriately located to Mr. Allen? And Mr. Allen said it did. The host was astounded. [mocking British accent] "Appropriate? George Washington's likeness in a water closet?" "Yes," said Mr. Allen, "where it will do good service. The whole world knows nothing will make an Englishman shit quicker than the sight of George Washington." I love that story."

"[to Cabinet members] As the preacher said; "I could write shorter sermons, but once I start I get too lazy to stop.""

"I heard tell once of a Jeff City lawyer who had a parrot that'd wake him each morning crying out, "Today is the day the world shall end, as scripture has foretold." And one day the lawyer shot him for the sake of peace and quiet, I presume. Thus fulfilling, for the bird at least, his prophecy!"

"The part assigned to me is to raise the flag, which, if there be no fault in the machinery, I will do, and when up, it'll be for the people to keep it up. That's my speech."

"Addison Powell - Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz"

"Dick O'Neill - Colonel Whitney"

"Allan Miller - Colonel LeGrande A. Diller"

"Robert Mandan - Representative Martin"

"Sandy Kenyon - Lieutenant General Jonathan M. Wainwright"

"Russell Johnson - Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King"

"Art Fleming - William Averell Harriman"

"Marj Dusay - Mrs. Jean MacArthur"

"Nicolas Coster - Colonel Sidney Huff"

"Ward Costello - General of the Army George C. Marshall"

"Ivan Bonar - Lieutenant General Richard K. Sutherland"

"Dan O'Herlihy - President Franklin D. Roosevelt"

"Ed Flanders - President Harry S. Truman"

"Gregory Peck - General of the Army General Douglas MacArthur"

"Soldier: He's the greatest General since Sergeant York!"

"Look at him, he's not in uniform, he's in costume."

"[to Congress] But, once war has been forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war, there can be no substitute for victory. For history teaches us with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and increasingly greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only alternative. 'Why?' 'Why,' my soldiers asked of me, 'surrender military advantages to an enemy in the field?' I could not answer. The magnificence of the courage and fortitude of the Korean people defies description. They have chosen to risk death rather than slavery. Their last words to me were: 'Don't scuttle the Pacific.' I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished. But I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that 'old soldiers never die, they just fade away.' Like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye."

"[addressing West Point cadets] Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, and what you will be. They are your rallying points. They give you a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, an appetite for adventure over love of ease. In this way, they will teach you to be an officer and a gentleman. From your ranks come the great captains who will hold the nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: 'Duty, Honor, Country.' This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our minds ring the ominous words of Plato: 'Only the dead have seen the end of war.' ....The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished in tone and tint. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears, and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But, in the evening of my memory, always I return to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: 'Duty, Honor, Country.' Today marks my final roll call with you. I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of The Corps, and The Corps, and The Corps. I bid you farewell."

"The days of the frontal attack are over. Only a mediocre commander would use it. Your good commanders do not turn in heavy losses."

"[reflecting on stopping the flow of Chinese forces across the Yalu] I requested permission to bomb the Yangtze bridges to keep the Chinese out of Korea. They said, "You might bomb the southern half of the bridges only." In my 50 years of military service, I have never learned how to bomb HALF a bridge!"

"[while trying to play the bass lines to "Pretty Vacant"] And we don't fucking care!"

"Y'know, I was so bored once that I fucked a dog."

"Tony London - Steve Jones"

"Perry Benson - Paul Cook"

"Courtney Love - Gretchen"

"Xander Berkeley - Bowery Snax, drug dealer"

"Andrew Schofield - Johnny Rotten"

"Debby Bishop - Phoebe"

"David Hayman - Malcolm McLaren"

"Chloe Webb - Nancy Spungen"

"Gary Oldman - Sid Vicious"