Frost/Nixon (2008) - Quotes

An Epic Battle for the Truth

Taglines: An epic battle for the truth.

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The World Awaits the Truth

Taglines: 400 million people were waiting for the truth.

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A Conversation on Charisma and Choices

Richard Nixon: You know those parties of yours, the ones I read about in the newspapers. Do you actually enjoy those?

David Frost: Of course.

Richard Nixon: [chuckles] You have no idea how fortunate that makes you, liking people. Being liked. Having that facility. That lightness, that charm. I don't have it, I never did. It kind of makes you wonder why I chose a life that hinged on being liked. I'm better suited to a life of thought, debate, intellectual discipline. Maybe we got it wrong. Maybe you should have been a politician and I the rigorous interviewer.

David Frost: [smiling] Maybe.

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The President's Justification for Unlawful Actions

Richard Nixon: Look, when you're in office, you gotta do a lot of things sometimes that are not always, in the strictest sense of the law, legal, but you do them because they're in the greater interests of the nation!

David Frost: Right. Wait. Just so I understand correctly, are you really saying that in certain situations, the president can decide whether it's in the best interests of the nation and then do something illegal?

Richard Nixon: I'm saying, that when the President does it, that means it's not illegal!

David Frost: ...I'm sorry?

Richard Nixon: That's what I believe. But I realize... no one else shares that view.

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The Struggle for Acceptance and Recognition

Richard Nixon: That's our tragedy, isn't it, Mr. Frost? No matter how high we get, they still look down at us.

David Frost: I really don't know what you're talking about.

Richard Nixon: Yes, you do. Now come on. No matter how many awards or column inches are written about you, or how high the elected office is for me, it's still not enough. We still feel like the little man, the loser they told us we were a hundred times. The smartasses in college, the high-ups, the well-born. The people whose respect we really wanted, really craved. And isn't that why we work so hard now, why we fight for every inch? Scrambling our way up in undignified fashion. If we're honest for a minute, if we reflect privately, just for a moment, if we allow ourselves a glimpse into that shadowy place we call our soul, isn't that why we're here, now? The two of us. Looking for a way back into the sun, into the limelight. Back onto the winner's podium, because we could feel it slipping away. We were headed, both of us, for the dirt. The place the snobs always told us that we'd end up. Face in the dust, humiliated all the more for having tried so pitifully hard. Well, to hell with that! We're not gonna let that happen, either of us. We're gonna show those bums! We're gonna make em choke on our continued success, our continued headlines, our continued awards and power and glory! We are gonna make those motherfuckers CHOKE!... Am I right?

David Frost: You are... Except only one of us can win.

Richard Nixon: Yes. And I shall be your fiercest adversary. I shall come at you with everything I've got. Because the limelight can only shine on one of us. And for the other, it'll be the wilderness, with nothing and no one for company but those voices ringing in our head... You can probably tell I've had a drink. It's not too many, just one or two. But you believe me, when the time comes, I'm gonna be focused and ready for battle.

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The Moment of Realization in Competition

Jack Brennan: 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.

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Demand for Accountability in Political Leadership

James Reston, Jr.: [[Gerald Ford|Ford; [Richard Nixon] The man lost twenty-one thousand Americans and a million Indochinese during his administration. He only escaped jail because of ]'s pardon. Right now, I submit it's impossible to feel anything close to sympathy for ]. 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.

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Critique of Political Character in Leadership

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

The Simplification of Complex Ideas in Media

James Reston, Jr.: 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.

Nixon's Regret and Burden of Failure

Richard Nixon: 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.

Self-Responsibility and Accountability in Leadership

Richard Nixon: 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.

Nixon's Reflection on Cambodia Intervention

Richard Nixon: 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!