All the President's Men quotes

View Quote Debbie Sloan: This is an honest house.
Woodward: That's why we'd like to see your husband.
Bernstein: Facing certain criminal charges that might be brought against some people that are innocent, we just feel that it would be...
Woodward: It's really for his benefit.
Debbie Sloan: No, it's not.
Woodward: [long pause] No, it's not.

View Quote Woodward: This man Gordon Liddy--he's going to be tried along with Hunt and the five burglars--we know he knows a lot, we just don't know what.
Deep Throat: You changed cabs? You're sure no one followed you?
Woodward: I did everything you said, but it all seemed--
Deep Throat: Melodramatic? Things are past that--remember, these are men with switchblade mentalities who run the world as if it were Dodge City.
Woodward: What's the whole thing about--do you know?
Deep Throat: What I know, you'll have to find out on your own.
Woodward: Liddy--you think there's a chance he'll talk?
Deep Throat: Talk? Once, at a gathering, he put his hand over a candle. And he kept it there. He kept it right in the flame until his flesh seared. A woman who was watching asked, "What's the trick?" And he replied. "The trick is not minding."

View Quote Bernstein: You heard? They put us both on the break-in thing. Simons liked the way we worked together.
[Woodward nods]
Bernstein: Listen, I'm sorry I said your story was bullshit.
Woodward: It's OK; I'm sorry I called you a failure.
Bernstein: Forget it, the main thing--did you call me a failure?
Woodward: I was sure trying.

View Quote Woodward: Who's Charles Colson?
Rosenfeld: I would liken your query to being in Russia half a century ago and asking someone, "I understand who Lenin is and Trotsky I got too, but who's this yokel Stalin?"
Woodward: Who's Colson, Harry?
Rosenfeld: The most powerful man in America is President Nixon, probably you've heard his name. The second most powerful man is Robert Haldeman. Just below him are a trio: Mr. Erlichman is Haldeman's friend, and they protect the President from everybody which is why they are referred to as either The German Shepherds or the Berlin Wall. Mr. Mitchell we've already discussed. Mr. Colson is the President's special counsel.
Woodward: Thanks, Harry. Know anything about Colson?
Rosenfeld: Just that on his office wall there's a cartoon with a caption reading, "When you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."

View Quote Woodward: Mr. Caddy? My name's Bob Woodward, I'm from the Post and I wanted to ask about how you happened to come on this case--
Caddy: I'm not here.
Woodward: OK. Douglas Caddy, the attorney of record, when questioned about his presence in the courtroom, denied he was in the courtroom, "I'm not here," Mr. Caddy said.
Caddy: Clearly, I am here, but only as an individual, I'm not the attorney of record. Mr. Rafferty has that position. Whatever you want, you'll have to get from him, I have nothing more to say.

View Quote My first day as a copy boy I was sixteen and wearing my only grown-up suit--it was cream colored. At 2:30 the head copy boy comes running up to me and says, "My God, haven't you washed the carbon paper yet? If it's not washed by three, it'll never by dry for tomorrow." And I said, "Am I supposed to do that?" and he said, "Absolutely, it's crucial." So I run around and grab all the carbon paper from all the desks and take it to the men's room. I'm standing there washing it and it's splashing all over me and the editor comes in to take a leak, and he says, "What the **** do you think you're doing?" And I said, "It's 2:30. I'm washing the carbon paper." Just wanted you to know I've done dumber things than get us lost, that's all.

View Quote Goddammit, when is somebody going to go on the record in this story?!...You guys are about to write a story that says the former Attorney General, the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in this country, is a crook! Just be sure you're right...Leave plenty of room for his denial.

View Quote Woodward: What the hell were you doing rewriting my story?
Bernstein: I sure couldn't hurt it, could I?
Woodward: It was fine the way it was.
Bernstein: It was bullshit the way it was.
Woodward: I have to stand here and listen to the staff correspondent from Virginia?
Bernstein: What have you been here, nine months? I been in this business since I was sixteen.
Woodward: And you've had some ****ing meteoric rise, that's for sure. By the time you turn forty you might be the head of the Montana bureau.
Bernstein: You only got the job because both you and Bradlee went to Yale.
Woodward: Bradlee went to Harvard.
Bernstein: They're all the same, all those Ivy League places. They teach you about striped ties and suddenly you're smart.
Woodward: I'm smart enough to know my story was solid.
Bernstein: Mine's better.
Woodward: No way.
Bernstein: Read 'em both and you'll see.
[Woodward reads the stories]
Woodward: Crap.
Bernstein: Is mine better?
[Woodward nods]
Woodward: What is it about my writing that's so rotten?
Bernstein: Mainly it has to do with your choice of words.

View Quote All right, you made a mistake maybe, we all have, just don't make another. And watch your personal lives, who you hang around with. Someone once said the price of democracy is a bloodletting every ten years. Make sure it isn't our blood.

View Quote I lived here all my life, I got a million contacts, but they're all bus boys and bellhops.

View Quote Either of you want a drink or should I order? Because--because our ****s are on the chopping block and you've got to be sure that you're not just dealing with people who hate Richard Nixon and want to get him through us. You see, I don't give a shit who's President--I really don't, it's an adversary situation between them and us and it's always gonna be. I never had a closer friend than Jack Kennedy and once I printed something that pissed him off and for seven months I didn't exist.

View Quote [to Martin Dardis] Look, you've been jerking my chain all day. If there's some reason you can't talk to me--like the fact that you've already leaked everything to The New York Times--just say so.

View Quote Now hold it, hold it. We're about to accuse Mr. Haldeman, who only happens to be the second most important man in America, of conducting a criminal conspiracy from inside the White House. It would be nice if we were right.

View Quote Sloan: Try and understand this. I'm a decent Republican. I believe in Richard Nixon. I worked in the White House four years--so did my wife. What happened on June 17 I don't think the President knew anything about. Some of his men I'm not so sure of.
Bernstein: Do you think the truth will come out at the trial?
Sloan: That's another of the things I'm not so sure of.
Bernstein: Because people at the Committee were told to lie to the prosecutors?
Sloan: We were never told flat out "Don't talk." But the message was clear.
Bernstein: To cover up?
Sloan: Well, they sure didn't ask us to come forward and tell the truth.
Woodward: Does "they" mean the White House?
Sloan: As opposed to the Committee? The Committee's not an independent operation. Everything is cleared with the White House. I don't think that the FBI or the prosecutors understand that.

View Quote Segretti: I'm a lawyer, and I'll probably go to jail, and be disbarred, and what did I do that was so awful? None of it was my idea, Carl--I didn't go looking for the job.
Bernstein: Chapin did contact you then?
Segretti: Sure--off the record.
Bernstein: On the orders of Haldeman?
Segretti: I don't know anything about Haldeman, except, Dwight's frightened of him--everybody's frightened of him--Christ, I wish I'd never gotten messed around with this--all I wanna do is sit in the sun; sit, swim, see some girls.
Bernstein: It gets interesting if it was Haldeman, because our word is that when Chapin says something, he's gotten the OK from Haldeman, and when Haldeman says something, he's gotten the OK from the President.
Segretti: Can't help you.
Benrstein: At USC, you had a word for this--screwing up the opposition you all did it at college and called it rat****ing. [Segretti smiles and nods] Ever wonder if Nixon might turn out to be the biggest rat****er of them all?