"Afterwards, he says, they always embrace. The animal digs his sweaty brow into his cheek and they stand in the dark for an hour, like a necking couple. And of all nonsensical things, I keep thinking about the horse - not the boy, the horse - and what he might be trying to do. I keep seeing the huge head, kissing him with its chained mouth nudging through the metal, some desire absolutely irrelevant of filling its belly or propagating its own kind. What desire could this be? Not to stay a horse any longer? Not to remain reined up forever in those particular genetic strings? Is it possible, at moments we can't imagine, a horse can add its sufferings together, the non-stop jerks and jabs that are its daily life, and turn them into grief? What use is grief to a horse? You see, I'm lost. What use, I should be asking, are questions like these to an overworked psychiatrist in a provincial hospital? They're worse than useless - they are, in fact, subversive."

"The thing is, I'm wearing that horse's head myself, all reined up in old language and old assumptions, straining to jump clean hoofed onto a new track of being that only I suspect is there. I can't see it, because my educated, average head is being held at the wrong angle. I can't jump, because the bit forbids it and my own basic force - my horsepower, if you like - is too little. The only thing I know for sure is this: A horse's head is finally unknowable to me. Yet I handle childrens' heads, which I presume to be more complicated, at least in the area of my chief concern. In a way, it has nothing to do with this boy - the doubts have been there for years, piling up steadily in this dreary place - it's the extremity of this case that's made them active. I know extremity is the point. All the same, whatever the reasons, these doubts are not just vaguely worrying, but intolerable."

"Jenny Agutter - Jill Mason"

"Joan Plowright - Dora Strang"

"Colin Blakely - Frank Strang"

"Peter Firth - Alan Strang"

"Richard Burton - Martin Dysart"

"Dora Strang: Alan is himself. Every soul is itself. If you added up everything we ever did to him, from his first day on earth to this, you wouldn't find why he did this terrible thing... because that's him: not just all of our things added up."

"And he said 'Behold, I give you Equus, my only begotten son.'"

"Prince begat Prance. And Prance begat Prankus. And Prankus begat Flankus. And Flankus begat Spankus. And Spankus begat Spunkus the Great, who lived threescore years. And Leckwus begat Neckwus. And Neckwus begat Fleckwus, the King of Spit. And Fleckwus spoke out of his chinkle-chankle..."

"'My uncle dressed for the horse', she says. But what does that mean? Horse isn't dressed, it's naked. It's the most naked thing you ever saw, more than a dog or a cat or anything. Even the brokenest-down old nag has got it's life - to put a bowler hat on top of it... it's filthy. Putting them through their paces, bloody horse shows, how do they dare? No-one understands, no-one. Except cowboys. They do. But they're free, they just swing up and it's nothing but miles of grass. I bet all cowboys are orphans. I bet they are. No-one ever says to cowboys 'receive my meaning' or 'God.' 'All the time God sees you, Alan, God's got eyes everywhere.' No, I'm not doing anymore, I hate this. You can whistle for anymore, I've had it."

"There's no deal to be made with predators. You kill it or it kills you."

"Tom Aldredge - Ozzie"

"Mo Gaffney - Harriet"

"R. D. Call - Arthur"

"Dean Jones - Bill Cole"

"Piper Laurie - Bea Sullivan"

"Penelope Ann Miller - Kate Sullivan"

"Gregory Peck - Andrew Jorgensen"

"Danny DeVito - Lawrence "Larry the Liquidator" Garfield"

"This proud company, which has survived the death of its founder, numerous recessions, one major depression, and two world wars, is in imminent danger of self-destructing - on this day, in the town of its birth. There is the instrument of our destruction. I want you to look at him in all of his glory, Larry 'The Liquidator,' the entrepreneur of post-industrial America, playing God with other people's money. The Robber Barons of old at least left something tangible in their wake - a coal mine, a railroad, banks. This man leaves nothing. He creates nothing. He builds nothing. He runs nothing. And in his wake lies nothing but a blizzard of paper to cover the pain. Oh, if he said, 'I know how to run your business better than you', that would be something worth talking about. But he's not saying that. He's saying, 'I'm gonna kill you because at this particular moment in time, you're worth more dead than alive.' Well, maybe that's true, but it is also true that one day, this industry will turn. One day when the yen is weaker, the dollar is stronger, or, when we finally begin to rebuild our roads, our bridges, the infrastructure of our country, demand will skyrocket. And when those things happen, we will still be here, stronger because of our ordeal, stronger because we have survived. And the price of our stock will make his offer pale by comparison. God save us if we vote to take his paltry few dollars and run. God save this country if that is truly the wave of the future. We will then have become a nation that makes nothing but hamburgers, creates nothing but lawyers, and sells nothing but tax shelters. And if we are at that point in this country, where we kill something because at the moment it's worth more dead than alive - well, take a look around. Look at your neighbor. Look at your neighbor. You won't kill him, will you? No. It's called murder and it's illegal. Well, this too is murder - on a mass scale. Only on Wall Street, they call it 'maximizing share-holder value' and they call it 'legal.' And they substitute dollar bills where a conscience should be. Damn it! A business is worth more than the price of its stock. It's the place where we earn our living, where we meet our friends, dream our dreams. It is, in every sense, the very fabric that binds our society together. So let us now, at this meeting, say to every Garfield in the land, 'Here, we build things. We don't destroy them. Here, we care about more than the price of our stock! Here, we care about people.' Thank you."

"[after Jorgenson's speech] Amen, and amen, and amen. You'll have to forgive me, I'm not familiar with the local custom. Where I come from, you always say 'Amen' after you hear a prayer. Because that's what you just heard - a prayer. Where I come from, that particular prayer is called 'The Prayer for the Dead.' You just heard The Prayer for the Dead, my fellow stockholders, and you didn't say, 'Amen.' This company is dead. I didn't kill it. Don't blame me. It was dead when I got here. It's too late for prayers. For even if the prayers were answered, and a miracle occurred, and the yen did this, and the dollar did that, and the infrastructure did the other thing, we would still be dead! You know why? Fiber optics. New technologies. Obsolescence. We're dead, alright. We're just not broke. And do you know the surest way to go broke? Keep getting an increasing share of a shrinking market. Down the tubes. Slow, but sure.You know, at one time, there must've been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I'll bet the last company around was the one that made the best god-damn buggy whip you ever saw. Now how would you have liked to have been a stockholder in that company? You invested in a business and this business is dead. Let's have the intelligence, let's have the decency to sign the death certificate, collect the insurance, and invest in something with a future! 'Ah, but we can't,' goes the prayer. 'We can't because we have responsibility, a responsibility to our employees, to our community. What will happen to them?' I got two words for that - 'Who cares?' Care about them? Why? They didn't care about you. They sucked you dry. You have no responsibility to them. For the last ten years, this company bled your money. Did this community ever say, 'We know times are tough. We'll lower taxes, reduce water and sewer.' Check it out: You're paying twice what you did ten years ago. And our devoted employees, who have taken no increases for the past three years, are still making twice what they made ten years ago. And our stock - one-sixth of what it was ten years ago. 'Who cares?' I'll tell ya -- Me.I'm not your best friend. I'm your only friend. I don't make anything? I'm makin' you money. And lest we forget, that's the only reason any of you became stockholders in the first place. You wanna make money! You don't care if they manufacture wire and cable, fried chicken, or grow tangerines! You wanna make money! I'm the only friend you've got. I'm makin' you money. Take the money. Invest it somewhere else. Maybe, maybe you'll get lucky and it'll be used productively. And if it is, you'll create new jobs and provide a service for the economy and, God forbid, even make a few bucks for yourselves. And if anybody asks, tell 'em ya gave at the plant. And by the way, it pleases me that I'm called 'Larry the Liquidator.' You know why, fellow stockholders? Because at my funeral, you'll leave with a smile on your face and a few bucks in your pocket. Now that's a funeral worth having!"

"[circling a conference room] TRO? Temporary Restraining Order? Thank you very much. Some crew I've got. Seventeen lawyers on retainer, and you've managed to work it out so that, in a free market, in a so-called free country, I can't buy some some shit-ass stock every other asshole can buy. Congratulations, you're destroying the capitalist system! While everybody else in the world is embracing it, my boys and girls are fucking it up. You know what happens when capitalism gets fucked up? The communists come back! They come out of the bushes, don't kid yourselves, they're waiting in there. But maybe that's not so bad, 'cause you know what happens when the commies take over? The first thing they do is shoot all the lawyers! And if they miss any of you, I'll do it myself. Now, let's see if we can get this small-town judge to change his fucking mind!"

"I love money. I love money more than I love the things it can buy. Does that surprise you? Money, it don't care whether I'm good or not. It don't care whether I snore or not. It don't care which god I pray to. There are only three things in this world with that kind of unconditional acceptance: dogs, doughnuts and money. Only money is better. You know why? Because it don't make you fat and it don't poop all over the living room floor. There's only one thing I like better. Other people's money."

"I don't blame anybody. I brought myself down. I gave them a sword, and they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I'd been in their place, I'd have done the same thing."

"Patty McCormack - Pat Nixon"

"Jim Meskimen - Ray Price"

"Gabriel Jarret - Ken Khachigian"

"Kate Jennings Grant - Diane Sawyer"

"Andy Milder - Frank Gannon"

"Toby Jones - Swifty Lazar"

"Rebecca Hall - Caroline Cushing"

"Oliver Platt - Robert Zelnick"

"Matthew Macfadyen - John Birt"

"Kevin Bacon - Jack Brennan"

"Sam Rockwell - James Reston"

"Michael Sheen - David Frost"

"Frank Langella - Richard Nixon"

"An epic battle for the truth."

"400 million people were waiting for the truth."

"Well, in boxing, you know, there's always that first moment, and you see it in the challenger's face. It's that moment that he feels the impact from the champ's first jab. It's kind of a sickening moment, when he realizes that all those months of pep talks and the hype, the psyching yourself up, had been delusional all along. You could see it in Frost's face. If he didn't know the caliber of the man that he was up against before the interview started, he certainly knew it halfway through the President's first answer."

"The man lost twenty-one thousand Americans and a million Indochinese during his administration. He only escaped jail because of Ford's pardon. Right now, I submit it's impossible to feel anything close to sympathy for Richard Nixon. He devalued the presidency and he left the country that elected him in trauma. The American people need a conviction, pure and simple. The integrity of our political system, of democracy as an idea, entirely depends on it. And, in years to come, if people look back and say that it was in this interview that Richard Nixon exonerated himself, that would be the worst crime of all."

"Whenever I have had my doubts, I remembered the construction worker in Philadelphia because he came up to me and he said "Sir I got only one criticism of that Cambodia thing; if you'd gone in earlier you might've captured the gun that killed my boy three months ago." So you're asking me do I regret going into Cambodia?... No, I don't. You know what, I wish I'd gone in sooner. And harder!"

"You have to set up that he has an anti-democratic personality. There's a reason they call him Tricky Dick."

"You know the first and greatest sin of the deception of television is that it simplifies; it diminishes great, complex ideas, tranches of time; whole careers become reduced to a single snapshot. At first I couldn't understand why Bob Zelnick was quite as euphoric as he was after the interviews, or why John Birt felt moved to strip naked and rush into the ocean to celebrate. But that was before I really understood the reductive power of the close-up, because David had succeeded on that final day, in getting for a fleeting moment what no investigative journalist, no state prosecutor, no judiciary committee or political enemy had managed to get; Richard Nixon's face swollen and ravaged by loneliness, self-loathing and defeat. The rest of the project and its failings would not only be forgotten, they would totally cease to exist."

"I let them down. I let down... my friends. I let down... the country. And worst of all... I let down our system of government, and the dreams of all those young people that ought to get into government, but now they think: "Oh, it's all too corrupt," and the rest. Yeah... I let the American people down. And I'm gonna have to carry that burden with me, for the rest of my life... My political life is over."

"Don't call me boss. … Don't call me boss at all. I don't want to hear any "boss" from you anymore, you understand?"

"Gangsters are everywhere, business, sports, government — at least with Alonzo its all right out front."

"I know that every moment may be my last, so I'm in one big hurry."

"If you were a good doctor, you would find something wrong."