"You don't understand how I feel! I'm standing there with my pants down and my crotch hung out for the world to see and three guys are sticking it to me, a bunch of other guys are yelling and clapping and you're standing there telling me that that's the best you can do. Well, if that's the best you could do, then your best sucks! Now, I don't know what you got for selling me out, but I sure as shit hope it was worth it!"

"What the hell are you talking about? You saw me at the hospital, what you think I asked for that? Is that what you think? If that's what you think then you get the fuck out of my house!"

"Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Paulsen has told you that the testimony of Sarah Tobias is nothing. Sarah Tobias was raped, but that is nothing. She was cut and bruised and terrorized but that is nothing. All of it happened in front of a howling crowd and that is nothing. Well, it may be nothing to Mr. Paulsen, but it is not nothing to Sarah Tobias and I don't believe it is nothing to you. Next, Mr. Paulsen tried to convince you that Kenneth Joyce was the only one in that room who knew that Sarah Tobias was being raped - the only one! Now you watched Kenneth Joyce, how did he strike you? Did he seem especially sensitive, especially observant? Did he seem so remarkable that you said to yourselves, 'Of course! This man would notice things other people wouldn't.' Do you believe that Kenneth Joyce saw something in that room that those three men didn't see? In all the time that Sarah was pinned down on that Pinball machine that other people didn't know? Kenneth Joyce confessed to you that he watched a rape and did nothing. He told you that everyone in that bar behaved badly - and he was right. But no matter how immoral it may be, it is not the crime of criminal solicitation to walk away from a rape. It is not the crime of criminal solicitation to silently watch a rape. But it is the crime of criminal solicitation to induce or entreat or encourage or persuade another person to commit a rape. 'Hold her down! Stick it to her! Make her moan!' These three men did worse than nothing. They cheered, and they clapped, and they rooted the others on. They made sure that Sarah Tobias was raped, and raped, and raped. Now you tell me, is that nothing?"

"[to Laura] I know how you feel. You don't believe me, but I do know. I'm going to tell you something that I learned when I was your age. I'd prepared a case and old man White said to me, "How did you do?" And, uh, I said, "Did my best." And he said, "You're not paid to do your best. You're paid to win." And that's what pays for this office... pays for the pro bono work that we do for the poor... pays for the type of law that you want to practice... pays for my whiskey... pays for your clothes... pays for the leisure we have to sit back and discuss philosophy as we're doing tonight. We're paid to win the case. You finished your marriage. You wanted to come back and practice the law. You wanted to come back to the world. Welcome back."

"Roxanne Hart - Sally Doneghy"

"Julie Bovasso - Maureen Rooney"

"Edward Binns - Bishop Brophy"

"Lindsay Crouse - Kaitlin Costello"

"Milo O'Shea - Judge Hoyle"

"James Mason - Ed Concannon"

"Jack Warden - Mickey Morrissey"

"Charlotte Rampling - Laura Fischer"

"Paul Newman - Frank Galvin"

"So Pat says, he says, "They got this new bar... and you go inside and for half a buck you get a beer, a free lunch and they take you in the back room - they get you laid... Mike says, "Now wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Do you mean to say there's a new bar and you go inside and for a half a buck they give you a beer, a free lunch and they take you in the back room and they get you laid?" Pat says, "That's right." "Have you ever been in the bar?" And he says, "No, but me sister has.""

"Kaitlin Costello: [testifying why she kept a copy of the admittance form] After the operation, when that poor girl she went into a coma, Dr. Towler called me in. He told me that he'd had five difficult deliveries in a row and he was tired... and he never looked at the admittance form. And he told me to change the form. He told me to change the '1' to a '9'... or else... or else he said, he said he'd fire me. He said I'd never work again. Who were these men? Who were these men? I wanted to be a nurse!"

"Kevin Doneghy: You guys... you guys are all the same! The doctors at the hospital, you... it's always what I'm going to do for you. And then you screw up, and it's, "Ah, we did the best that we could, I'm dreadfully sorry." And people like us live with your mistakes the rest of our lives."

"Maureen Rooney: You know you guys are all the same. You don't care who gets hurt. You're a bunch of whores. You'd do anything for a dollar. You got no loyalty... No nothing... You're a bunch of whores."

"[to Judge Hoyle] You couldn't hack it as a lawyer. You were a bag man for the boys downtown and you still are, I know about you."

"[to Frank] This case should never have come to trial. But you know better. You're mister independent. You want to be independent? Be independent now. I have no sympathy for you."

"You know, so much of the time we're just lost. We say, "Please, God, tell us what is right; tell us what is true." And there is no justice: the rich win, the poor are powerless. We become tired of hearing people lie. And after a time, we become dead... a little dead. We think of ourselves as victims... and we become victims. We become... we become weak. We doubt ourselves, we doubt our beliefs. We doubt our institutions. And we doubt the law. But today you are the law. You ARE the law. Not some book... not the lawyers... not the, a marble statue... or the trappings of the court. See those are just symbols of our desire to be just. They are... they are, in fact, a prayer: a fervent and a frightened prayer. In my religion, they say, "Act as if ye had faith... and faith will be given to you." IF... if we are to have faith in justice, we need only to believe in ourselves. And ACT with justice. See, I believe there is justice in our hearts."

"Every lawyer, at least once in every case, feels himself crossing a line that he doesn't really mean to cross... it just happens... And if you cross it enough times it disappears forever. And then you're nothin' but another lawyer joke. Just another shark in the dirty water."

"My dad hated lawyers. You might think I became one just to piss him off, but you'd be wrong. Did piss him off so much though that when he heard he fell off a ladder and didn't know who to sue first."

"Sworn in by a fool and vouched for by a scoundrel. I'm a lawyer at last."

"I knew exactly what was going on here. Just like when Daddy was in the bedroom crying and Mommy was sitting in the kitchen, face all bloody, saying that Daddy was sorry."

"What's the difference between a lawyer and a hooker? A hooker'll stop screwing you when you're dead."

"How do you know when a lawyer is lying? His lips are moving."

"There's gotta be a hundred years of law experience sitting at this very table. My staff has flunked the bar exam six times."

"You know what a Rainmaker is, kid? The bucks are gonna be falling from the sky."

"There's nothing more thrilling than nailing an insurance company."

"Matt Damon - Rudy Baylor"

"Danny DeVito - Deck Shifflet"

"Jon Voight - Leo F. Drummond"

"Claire Danes - Kelly Riker"

"Mary Kay Place - Dot Black"

"Dean Stockwell - Judge Harvey Hale"

"Virginia Madsen - Jackie Lemancyzk"

"Mickey Rourke - J. Lyman "Bruiser" Stone"

"Roy Scheider - Wilfred Keeley"

"Red West - Buddy Black"

"Johnny Whitworth - Donny Ray Black"

"Andrew Shue - Cliff Riker"

"Teresa Wright - "Miss Birdie" Birdsong (final film role)"

"Danny Glover - Judge Tyrone Kipler"

"I may not know much of law Mr. Felder, but I know what's right and what's wrong. And I know what you're asking is wrong."

"Pauline Moore - Ann Rutledge"

"Ward Bond - John Palmer Cass"

"Eddie Quillan - Adam Clay"