Wag the Dog Quotes

Brean Let me ask you a simple question: Why do people go to war?

CIA Agent Charlie Young I'll play your silly game.

Brean Okay. Why do people go to war?

Young To ensure their way of life.

Brean Would you go to war to do that?

Young I have.

Brean And if you went to war again, who would it be against? Your ability to fight a two-ocean war against who? Who? Sweden and Togo? That time is passed. It's over. The war of the future is nuclear terrorism, and it'll be against a small group of dissidents who, unbeknownst perhaps to their own government, have... blah blah blah. To go to that war, you have to be prepared, you gotta be alert, the public has gotta be alert. Because that is the war of the future, and if you're not gearing up to fight that war, then eventually the axe will fall, and you're gonna be out on the street. You can call this a drill, you can call this job security, you can call it anything you like. But I got one for you: You said go to war to preserve your way of life? Well, Chuck, this is your way of life. And if your spy satellites don't see nothin', if there ain't no war, then you can go home and prematurely take up golf, my friend. Cause there ain't no war but ours.

Stanley Motss Corny? He says it's corny? Of course it's corny. We wouldn't be doing the flippin thing if it wasn't corny.

Johnny Dean Albania's hard to rhyme.

Brean You can't tell anyone about this.

Conrad Connie Brean Can't have a war without an enemy...You could have one, but it would be a very dull war...

Johnny Dean I was just on my way to get drunk.

Conrad Connie Brean A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

Brean Our job's over come election day.

Brean What, just for the symmetry of the thing? Well, if ] can win the Peace Prize, I wouldn't be surprised if I woke up and found I'd won the Preakness.

Motss Yeah, but our guy did bring peace.

Brean There was never a war.

Motss All the greater accomplishment.

Stanley Motss King, King, I got a thing here, a product placement, gonna have a bigger back-end than Hattie McDaniel.

Stanley Motss That's right. During the filming of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, three of the horsemen died two weeks before the ending of principle photography. This is nothing, this is nothing. This is... this is... this is act one- The War.

Conrad Connie Brean 54, 40 or fight. What does that mean?...Remember the Maine...Tippecanoe and Tyler, too...They're war slogans Mr. Motss. We remember the slogans, we can't even remember the fucking wars. Y'know why? Cause its show business. That's why I'm here. ]. ], Mount Suribachi. V for Victory, Y'remember the picture, fifty years from now, they'll have forgotten the war. Gulf War? Smart bomb, falling down a chimney. Twenty five hundred missions a day, 100 days, one video of one bomb Mr. Motss. The American people bought that war.

Conrad Connie Brean This is a shitty business, and it needs no ghosts coming from the grave to tell us so. But Lord willing and Jesus tarries, in eight days I will be taking you into the second term.

CIA Agent Charlie Young When the fit hits the shan somebody's going to have to stay after school.

Stanley Motss You take the fruit of 40 years - hard lessons, mistakes - and you call it wisdom.

Conrad Connie Brean All combat takes place at night, in the rain, and at the junction of four map segments.

Stanley Motss This is nothing. D'you ever shoot in Italy? Try three Italian starlets wacked out on Benzedrine and grappa, this is a walk in the park...

Winifred Ames Oh, God. What do we do now? Huh? Huh? What do we do now, huh, boy producer? Huh? Mister win-an-Emmy, social-conscience, whale-shit, save-the-rain-forest, peacenik-commie, fuckin'-hire-a-convict-shithead? Huh? What do we do now, liberal, affirmative action, shithead, peacenik commie fuck? What do you want to do now?

Motss As long as he gets his medications, he's fine.

Ames What if he doesn't get them?

Motss He's not fine.

Stanley Motss Look at that! That is a complete fucking fraud, and it looks 100% real. This is the best work I've ever done in my life - because it's so honest.

Motss Yeah, it's like a plumber: do your job right and nobody should notice. But when you fuck it up, everything gets full of shit.

Stanley Motss The war ain't over til I say it's over. This is my picture. You think you're in a spot? You think this is a tight spot? Try making the Hunchback of Notre Dame when your three lead actors die, two weeks from the end of principal photography.

Stanley Motss Y'know, producing is being a Samurai warrior. They pay you, day in, day out, for years, so that, ONE DAY, when called upon, you can respond, your training at Its peak, and save the day.

Amy Cain But there isn't a B-3 bomber.

Conrad Brean Where'd you go to school, kid? Wellesly?

Cain Dartmouth.

Brean Then show a little spunk. There Is no B-3 Bomber. General Scott, the best of your knowledge, is not in Seattle to talk with Boeing...

Winifred Ames It won't hold, Connie, it won't prove out.

Brean We don't need it to prove out. We've got less than two weeks till the election, so we just need to distract them.

Ames What on Earth would do that?

Brean Well, I'm working on that.

Stanley Motss Johnny, I got a lot of people here who are a little depressed because the war just ended, please give me a new song.

CIA Agent Charlie Young There are two things I know to be true. There's no difference between good flan and bad flan, and there is no war.