Joan AllenQuotes

Philip Edwards: Perhaps you find in books what I try to find in people.

Elena Hood: That sounds vaguely like an insult.

Philip Edwards: Sometimes the shepherd needs the comfort of the sheep.

Elena Hood: I'm going to try hard not to understand the implications of that.

President Jackson Evans: [outside the White House, walking away from the party] Well can I tell you I'm just bustin to know what really happened?

Laine Hanson: You mean, this would just be between Laine and the President?

President Jackson Evans: I'll go one better. This will be between Laine and Jackson.

Laine Hanson: Come on, Kermit. If we do that, we are no better than he is.

Kermit Newman: We are no better than he is!

Shelly Runyon: [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy; [Abraham Lincoln|Lincoln] Greatness is the orphan of urgency, Laine. Greatness only emerges when we need it most... in time of war or calamity. I can't ask somebody to be a ] or a ]. They were men created by their times. What I... What I can ask for... is the promise of greatness. And that, Madam Senator... you don't have.

Laine Hanson: Well, then... I just wouldn't be using sex as leverage... if I were you, Sheldon. Because, you know, there's one thing you don't want. It's a woman with her finger on the button who isn't getting laid.

Laine Hanson: It seems to me that all you can claim about me — claim — is that I had sex.

Shelly Runyon: Deviant sex.

Laine Hanson: Oh, deviant? Who says it was deviant?

Shelly Runyon: I do. What I say the American people will believe. And do you know why? Because I will have a very big microphone in front of me.

Shelly Runyon: So, how are Will and the boy?

Laine Hanson: Let's forego the small talk today Shelly, I'm not in the mood.

Shelly Runyon: Let the big talk begin.

Laine Hanson: [closing remarks at Congressional confirmation hearing] Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen of the committee. Remarkably enough, it seems that I have some explaining to do. So, let me be absolutely clear. I stand for a woman's right to choose. I stand for the elimination of the death penalty. I stand for a strong and growing armed forces because we must stomp out genocide on this planet, and I believe that that is a cause worth dying for. I stand for seeing every gun taken out of every home, period. I stand for making the selling of cigarettes to our youth a federal offense. I stand for term limits and campaign reform. And, Mr. Chairman, I stand for the separation of church and state, and the reason that I stand for that is the same reason that I believe our forefathers did. It is not there to protect religion from the grasp of government, but to protect our government from the grasp of religious fanaticism. I may be an atheist, but that does not mean I do not go to church. I do go to church. The church I go to is the one that emancipated the slaves, that gave women the right to vote, that gave us every freedom that we hold dear. My church is this very chapel of Democracy that we sit in together, and I do not need God to tell me what are my moral absolutes. I need my heart, my brain, and this church.

Laine Hanson: Principles only mean something if you stick by them when they're inconvenient.

Pamela Landy: If there's something you're not telling me I want it now before I send that girl out there, do you understand?

Pamela Landy: This game? You just lost it.

Pamela Landy: C'mon, guys, we ran this guy's life with total control for all those years; we should be a step ahead of him! You wanna go home? Find Jason Bourne.

Pamela Landy: I'm getting on a plane to Berlin in 45 minutes, which means you're gonna call me back in 30. And when I ask you where we stand, I had better be impressed.

Pamela Landy: [to Noah Vosen] You better get yourself a good lawyer.

Pamela Landy: The guy you're after is a CIA operative with a clearance above Top Secret, he's committing treason by talking to Ross. You really think that, while doing that, he's gonna use a cell phone that he knows we can track?

Pamela Landy: Listen, people - do you have any idea who you're dealing with? This is Jason Bourne. You are nine hours behind the toughest target you have ever tracked. Now I want everyone to sit down, strap in, and turn on all you've got. (No one moves.) That would mean now!

David's Mom: [[life] When your father was here, I used to think, "This was it." This is the way it was always going to be. I had the right house. I had the right car. I had the right ].

David: There is no right house. There is no right car.

David's Mom: [[God] ], my face must be a mess.

David: It looks great.

David's Mom: Honey, it's really sweet of you, but I'm sure it does not look "great.

David: Sure it does. Come here.

David's Mom: I'm 40 years old. I mean, it's not supposed to be like this.

David: It's not supposed to be anything. Hold still.

David's Mom: How'd you get so smart all of a sudden?

David: [pause; [good; [day] I had a ] ].

George Parker: [[Present|now] So what's going to happen ]?

Betty Parker: I don't know. Do you know what's going to happen now?

George Parker: [laughing; scene pans from George's face to Betty's, and then back to where George just was — to reveal Bill Johnson] No ...I don't!

Bill Johnson: I guess I don't either.

Jack: Grandma?

Nancy: Yes?

Jack: I need the scissors.

Nancy: What for?

Jack: For cutting my hair.

Nancy: Do you really want to do that?

Jack: I want to send it to Ma.

Nancy: How come?

Jack: She needs my strong more than me, so I want to send it to her, or you could take it to her?

Nancy: I could help you, if you'd like?

Jack: Yes please.

Jack: Do you think this will work? Can my strong be her strong, too?

Nancy: Oh. Of course it can. We all help each other stay strong. No one is strong alone. You know, you and your mom, you help each other through, don't you?

Jack: Yep.

Ma: He needs to play with something real. I'm worried about him being on the phone.

Nancy: He's doing fine.

Ma: Well, I don't give him my phone, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't give him yours.

Nancy: Okay, I won't.

Ma: [pause] Great. I just want him to connect with something.

Nancy: Joy. Joy, he's really doing fine.

Ma: I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm supposed to be happy.

Nancy: You just need to rest, okay?

Ma: No, I don't. I don't need to rest!

Nancy: That's... That's what the doctor...

Ma: [Interrupts] That is not what the doctor said. You don't know what he said, because it was a confidential conversation, and you don't know what he said!

Nancy: All right, all right, all right! You're impossible to talk to right now.

Ma: Well, sorry.

Nancy: No. No, you're not sorry!

Ma: Yeah, I'm not sorry! You have no idea what's going on in my head.

Nancy: Yeah. Well, try me! I have asked you.

Ma: And then what? Then, every time you look at me, that's all that you see?

Nancy: When I look at you, Joy, I will see my daughter.

Ma: You don't need me. You've been doing just fine without me.

Nancy: Oh. How can you say that, huh? Do you honestly think that you were the only one whose life was destroyed?

Ma: Actually, that's exactly what I think.

Nancy: Yeah? Well how would you feel if somebody took Jack away from you?

Ma: Oh, shut up!

Nancy: Look at him! You should be thinking about him!

Ma: Oh, don't you tell me how to look after my son. I'm sorry that I'm not nice anymore, but you know what? Maybe if your voice saying "be nice" hadn't been in my head, then maybe I wouldn't have helped the guy with the fucking sick dog! Stay there, Jack. I'm calling the fucking lawyer. I can't stay in this place.

Reba McClane: Who is it?

Francis Dollarhyde: It's me.

Reba McClane: Who? Who is it?

Francis Dollarhyde: It's me.

Reba McClane: [opens the door] Oh. Francis?

Francis Dollarhyde: No. Not Francis. Francis is gone. Francis is gone forever.

Pat Nixon: This isn't political, Dick. This is our life.

Richard Nixon: Everything's political, for Christ's sake! I'm political! You're political!

Pat Nixon: It took me a long time to fall in love with you, Dick. But it doesn't make you happy. You want them to love you. But they never will, Dick. No matter how many elections you win.

Anne Hamilton: She is out foolin around with that boy until two o'clock in the morning and it has got to stop! I didn't spend seventeen years of my life raising a daughter and giving her everything so she could throw it away on a summer romance!