Quotes

Dialogue

Andrew Beckett: I appreciate your faith in my abilities. Charles Wheeler: Faith, Andy, is the belief in something for which we have no evidence. It doesn't apply to this situation.

Dialogue

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.

Dialogue

Librarian: Wouldn't you be more comfortable in a research room? Andrew Beckett: No. Would it make you more comfortable?

Dialogue

Joe Miller: [approaches Andrew at the library] Who did you get? Andrew Beckett: What? Joe Miller: Did you find a lawyer? Andrew Beckett: I'm a lawyer.

Dialogue

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.

Dialogue

Lisa Miller: You have a problem with gays, Joe. Joe Miller: Not especially. Lisa Miller: Yes, you do. How many gays do you know? Joe Miller: How many do you know? Lisa Miller: Lots. Joe Miller: Like who? Lisa Miller: Karen Berman, my Aunt Theresa, cousin Tommy who lives in Rochester, Eddie Meyers from the office, Stanley - the guy who's putting in our kitchen cabinets. Joe Miller: Aunt Theresa's gay? That beautiful, sensuous, voluptuous woman is a lesbian? Since when? Lisa Miller: Probably since she was born. Joe Miller: All right. Well, hey, I admit it, okay? I'm prejudiced. I don't like homosexuals. There. You got me. Lisa Miller: All right. Joe Miller: I mean, the way these guys do that - thing, don't they get confused? "Oh, I don't know. Is that yours? Is that mine?" You know, I don't want to be in bed with anybody who's stronger than me or who has more hair on their chest than I do. Now, you can call me old-fashioned, you can call me conservative. Just call me a man. Besides, I th

Dialogue

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.

Dialogue

Joe Miller: Have you ever felt discriminated against at Wyatt Wheeler? Anthea Burton: Well, yes. Joe Miller: In what way? Anthea Burton: Well, Mr. Wheeler's secretary, Lydia, said that Mr. Wheeler had a problem with my earrings. Joe Miller: Really? Anthea Burton: Apparently Mr. Wheeler felt that they were too..."Ethnic" is the word he used. And she told me that he said that he would like it if I wore something a little less garish, a little smaller, and more "American." Joe Miller: What'd you say? Anthea Burton: I said my earrings are American. They're African-American.

Dialogue

Judge Garrett: In this courtroom, Mr.Miller, justice is blind to matters of race, creed, color, religion, and sexual orientation. Joe Miller: With all due respect, your honor, we don't live in this courtroom though, do we?

Dialogue

Charles Wheeler: You may tap dance around me all you wish with your innuendoes and locker room fantasies. But the truth still remains that your client worked when he wanted to work, telling us what he thought we needed to know about who he really was. Andy insisted on bending the rules and his work suffered tremendously in the long run as a result of that. Joe Miller: Will you explain this to me like I'm a six-year-old, Mr. Wheeler, 'cause I just don't get it. Who makes these rules that you're talking about, huh? You? Charles Wheeler: Read your Bible, Mr. Miller, Old - and the New Testament. Pretty valuable rules in there.

Dialogue

Bud Beckett: [to Andrew, during a family gathering, celebrating the 50th wedding anniversary for his parents] 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. Sarah Beckett: 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.

Dialogue

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.

Dialogue

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: [his last lines, while lying on a hospital bed and