Andrew Beckett quotes from Philadelphia (1993)

Wouldn't you be more comfortable in a research room?

Andrew Beckett

No. Would it make you more comfortable?

Joe Miller

The Federal Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against otherwise qualified handicapped persons who are able to perform the duties required by their employment. Although the ruling did not address the specific issue of HIV and AIDS discrimination...

Andrew Beckett

Subsequent decisions have held that AIDS is protected as a handicap under law, not only because of the physical limitations it imposes, but because the prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a social death which precede... which precedes the actual physical one.

Joe Miller

This is the essence of discrimination: formulating opinions about others not based on their individual merits, but rather on their membership in a group with assumed characteristics.

Andrew Beckett

What do you call a thousand lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean?

Joe Miller

I don't know.

Andrew Beckett

A good start.

Joe Miller

What do you love about the law, Andrew?

Andrew Beckett

I... many things... uh... uh... What I love the most about the law?

Joe Miller

Yeah.

Andrew Beckett

It's that every now and again - not often, but occasionally - you get to be a part of justice being done. That really is quite a thrill when that happens.

Andrew Beckett

Do you like opera?

Joe Miller

I'm not that familiar with opera.

Andrew Beckett

This is my favorite aria. This is Maria Callas. This is "Andrea Chenier", Umberto Giordano. This is Madeleine. She's saying how during the French Revolution, a mob set fire to her house, and her mother died... saving her. "Look, the place that cradled me is burning." Can you hear the heartache in her voice? Can you feel it, Joe? In come the strings, and it changes everything. The music fills with a hope, and that'll change again. Listen... listen..."I bring sorrow to those who love me." Oh, that single cello! "It was during this sorrow that love came to me." A voice filled with harmony. It says, "Live still, I am life. Heaven is in your eyes. Is everything around you just the blood and mud? I am divine. I am oblivion. I am the god... that comes down from the heavens, and makes of the Earth a heaven. I am love!... I am love."

Andrew Beckett

Miguel, I'm ready.

Andrew Beckett

I appreciate your faith in my abilities.

Faith, Andy, is the belief in something for which we have no evidence. It doesn't apply to this situation.

Joe Miller

Explain this to me like I'm a six-year-old, didn't you have an obligation to tell your employers you had this deadly infectious disease?

Andrew Beckett

That's not the point. From the day they hired me to the day they fired me, I served my clients consistently, thoroughly, with absolute excellency. If they hadn't fired me that's what I've be doing today.

Joe Miller

And they don't want to fire you for having AIDS so in spite of your brilliance they make you look incompetent thus the mysterious is that what you're trying to tell me?

Andrew Beckett

Correct, I was sabotaged.

Joe Miller

Who did you get?

Andrew Beckett

What?

Joe Miller

Did you find a lawyer?

Andrew Beckett

I'm a lawyer.

Uh, Andy, the way, the way that you handled this whole thing - uh, you and Miguel with, with so much courage - I don't believe there's anything that, that anyone could say that could make us feel anything but... incredibly proud of you.

Well, I didn't raise my kids to sit in the back of the bus. You get in there and you fight for your rights, okay?

Andrew Beckett

Gee, I love you guys.