"It's like this. A dead plaintiff is rarely worth more than a living severely-maimed plaintiff. However, if it's a long, slow, agonizing death as opposed to a quick drowning or car wreck, the value can rize considerably. A dead adult in his 20s is generally worth less than one who is middle aged. A dead woman less than a dead man. A single adult less than one who's married. Black less than white. Poor less than rich. The perfect victim is a white male professional, 40 years old, at the height of his earning power, struck down at his prime. And the most imperfect: well, in the calculus of personal injury law, a dead child is worth the least of all."

"The odd's of a plaintiff's lawyer winning in civil court are two to one against. Think about that for a second. Your odds of surviving a game of Russian roulette are better than winning a case at trial. 12 times better. So, why does anyone do that? They don't. They settle. Out of the 780,000, only 12,000 or 11/2% ever reach a verdict. The whole idea of lawsuits is to settle, to compel the other side to settle. And you do that by spending more money than you should, which forces them to spend more money than they should, and whoever comes to their senses first loses. Trials are a corruption of the entire process and only fools who have something to prove end up ensnared in them. Now when I say prove, I don't mean about the case, I mean about themselves."

"I can appreciate the theatrical value of several dead kids. I mean, like that. Obviously, that's good. That is all this case has going for it. That's not enough. Get rid of it."

"[to law students] Now, the single greatest liability a lawyer can have is pride. Pride... Pride has lost more cases than lousy evidence, idiot witnesses and a hanging judge all put together. There is absolutely no place in a courtroom for pride."

"[to secretary] Every credit card application we send in, we get two more in the mail. Here's one from some bank I've never heard of, in North Dakota. Fill it out. Fill them all in. It's the last great pyramid scheme in America."

"John Travolta - Jan Schlichtmann"

"Robert Duvall - Jerome Facher"

"Tony Shalhoub - Kevin Conway"

"William H. Macy - James Gordon"

"Bruce Norris - William Cheeseman"

"John Lithgow - Judge Walter J. Skinner"

"Kathleen Quinlan - Anne Anderson"

"Peter Jacobson - Neil Jacobs"

"Mary Mara - Kathy Boyer"

"James Gandolfini - Al Love"

"Stephen Fry -Pinder"

"Howie Carr - Radio Talk Show Host"

"Kathy Bates - Bankruptcy Judge (uncredited)"

"Stop saying "Leopold" like that, tenderly. It sounds funny. You can't do it with a name like Leopold."

"Don Beddoe - Police Chief"

"Tom Tyler - Clyde Bracken"

"Leonid Kinskey - Jan Pulaski"

"Rex Ingram - Tilney"

"Emma Dunn - Mrs. Shelley"

"Charles Dingle - Andrew Holmes"

"Glenda Farrell - Regina Bush"

"Edgar Buchanan - Sam Yates"

"Ronald Colman - Professor Michael Lightcap"

"Jean Arthur - Miss Nora Shelley"

"Cary Grant - Leopold Dilg - Joseph"

"He's the only honest man I've come across in this town in 20 years. Naturally, they want to hang him."

"Nothing deranges a woman's mind more than marriage."

"Alright, Joseph, you conduct the law your way on random sentimentality and you will have violence and disorder."

"Miss Shelly, judging from the past 12 hours, how quiet do you think it could be in this house, with you in it?"

"Look at me, a dream of twenty years come true. More happiness than any man deserves, that chair. But now there's something Else, Nora: My friends. I want to see them as happy as I am. Nothing less will do. And Leopold, what a fine fellow - and I've been thinking, Nora, that if someone were to take his hand and say "Leopold, my wreckless friend, here's love and companionship, forever." Well, some day that man would... You see what I mean, Nora?"

"This is your law and your finest possession - it makes you free men in a free country. Why have you come here to destroy it? If you know what's good for you, take those weapons home and burn them! And then think... think of this country and of the law that makes it what it is. Think of a world crying for this very law! And maybe you'll understand why you ought to guard it. Why the law has got to be the personal concern of every citizen. To uphold it for your neighbor as well as yourself. Violence against it is one mistake. Another mistake is for any man to look upon the law as just a set of principles. And just so much language printed on fine, heavy paper. Something he recites and then leans back and takes it for granted that justice is automatically being done. Both kinds of men are equally wrong! The law must be engraved in our hearts and practiced every minute to the letter and spirit. It can't even exist unless we're willing to go down into the dust and blood and fight a battle every day of our lives to preserve it. For our neighbor as well as ourself."

"Listen, I can't hang around here even if I wanted to. Lightcap's ordered me out 50 times since last night. I'm here now only by the grace of being in his pajamas. One minute I'm out of these and I'm out on my ear!"

"I don't approve of, but I like people who think in terms of ideal conditions. They're the dreamers, poets, tragic figures in this world, but interesting."

"Well, it's a form of self-expression. Some people write books. Some people write music. I make speeches on street corners."

"What is the law? It's a gun pointed at somebody's head. All depends upon which end of the gun you stand, whether the law is just or not."

"Listen to me... there are things that happened on both sides. My husband was a military man, had been all his life. He was entitled to a soldier's death; he asked for that. I tried to get that for him, just that and he would die with some honor. I went from official to official. I begged for that, I begged for that, that he should be permitted the dignity of a firing squad. You know what happened. He was hanged with the others, and after that, I knew what it was to hate. I never left the house. I never left the room. I drank. I hated with every fiber of my being, I hated every American I'd ever known. But one can't live with hate. I know that. We have to forget. We have to go on living."

"Karl Swenson - Dr. Heinrich Geuter"

"John Wengraf - His Honour Herr Justizrat. Dr. Karl Wieck"