Network (1976 film) Quotes

Network (1976 film) is a television show that was first aired in 1970 . Network completed its run in 1970.

It features Howard Gottfried as producer, Elliot Lawrence in charge of musical score, and Owen Roizman as head of cinematography.

Network (1976 film) is recorded in English and originally aired in United States. Each episode of Network (1976 film) is 121 minutes long. Network (1976 film) is distributed by United Artists.

The cast includes: Peter Finch as Howard Beale, Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen, William Holden as Max Schumacher, Faye Dunaway as Diana Christensen, Beatrice Straight as Louise Schumacher, Marlene Warfield as Laureen Hobbs, Jordan Charney as Harry Hunter, Robert Duvall as Frank Hackett, Wesley Addy as Nelson Chaney, Conchata Ferrell as Barbara, and Darryl Hickman as Bill Herron.

Network (1976 film) Quotes

Robert Duvall as Frank Hackett

• (Robert Duvall) "Mr. Jensen is unhappy with Howard Beale and wants him discontinued."
• (Faye Dunaway) "He may be unhappy, but he isn't stupid enough to withdraw the number one show on television out of pique."
• (Robert Duvall) "Two billion dollars is not pique. That's the Wrath of God. And the Wrath of God wants Howard Beale fired."

• (Robert Duvall) "Well, the issue is: Shall we kill Howard Beale, or not? I'd like to get some more opinions on that."
• (Faye Dunaway) "I don't see we have any options, Frank. Let's kill the son-of-a-bitch."

• (Unnamed) "So far, over 900 f***ing phone calls complaining about the foul language."
• (Robert Duvall) "s***."

• (Robert Duvall) "I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna impale the son-of-a-bitch with a sharp stick through the heart. I'll take out a contract on him. I'll hire a professional killer; no, I'll do it myself. I'll strangle him with a sash cord."

• (Robert Duvall) "Four hours ago I was the Sun God at CCA, Mr. Jensen's handpicked golden boy, the heir apparent. Now I'm a man without a corporation."

• (Robert Duvall) "The business of management is management."

Faye Dunaway as Diana Christensen

• (Faye Dunaway) "Son of a bitch. We've struck the motherlode."

• (Faye Dunaway) "I'm interested in doing a weekly dramatic series based on the Ecumenical Liberation Army. The way I see the series is: Each week we open with an authentic act of political terrorism taken on the spot, in the actual moment. Then we go to the drama behind the opening film footage. That's your job, Ms. Hobbs. You've got to get the Ecumenicals to bring in that film footage for us. The network can't deal with them directly; they are, after all, wanted criminals."

• (Faye Dunaway) "Let's stop kidding ourselves. Full-fledged messiahs don't come in bunches."

• (Faye Dunaway) "The next time I send out a marketing analysis you all better read it or I'll sack the f***ing lot of you."

• (Faye Dunaway) "The time has come to re-evaluate our relationship, Max."
• (William Holden) "So I see."
• (Faye Dunaway) "I don't like the way this script of ours has turned out. It's turning into a seedy little drama."
• (William Holden) "You're going to cancel the show?"
• (Faye Dunaway) "Right."

• (Faye Dunaway) "NBC's offering 2.2 and a half mill per"
• (Faye Dunaway) "per package of five James Bond movies, and I think I'm going to steal them for 3.5"
• (Faye Dunaway) "for their third run."

• (Faye Dunaway) "Well Max, here we are: Middle-aged man reaffirming his middle-aged manhood, and a terrified young woman with a father complex. What sort of script do you think we can make out of this?"

• (Faye Dunaway) "Look, I sent you all a concept analysis report yesterday. Did any of you read it?"
• (Faye Dunaway) "Well, in a nutshell, it said: "The American people are turning sullen. They've been clobbered on all sides by Vietnam, Watergate, the inflation, the depression; they've turned off, shot up, and they've f***ed themselves limp, and nothing helps." So, this concept analysis report concludes, "The American people want somebody to articulate their rage for them." I've been telling you people since I took this job six months ago that I want angry shows. I don't want conventional programming on this network. I want counterculture, I want anti-establishment. I don't want to play butch boss with you people, but when I took over this department, it had the worst programming record in television history. This network hasn't one show in the top twenty. This network is an industry joke, and we'd better start putting together one winner for next September. I want a show developed based on the activities of a terrorist group, "Joseph Stalin and His Merry Band of Bolsheviks," I want ideas from you people. This is what you're paid for. And by the way, the next time I send an audience research report around, you'd all better read it, or I'll sack the f***ing lot of you. Is that clear?"

• (Faye Dunaway) "By tomorrow, he'll have a 50 share, maybe even a 60. Howard Beale is processed instant God, and right now, it looks like he may just go over bigger than Mary Tyler Moore."

• (Faye Dunaway) "What's really bugging me now is my daytime programming. NBC's got a lock on daytime; lousy game shows; and I'd like to bust them. I'm thinking of doing a homosexual soap opera, "The Dykes": The heart-rending saga about a woman hopelessly in love with her husband's mistress."

• (Faye Dunaway) "You know, Barbara, the Arabs have decided to jack up the price of oil another 20% -- uh, the CIA has been caught opening Senator Humphrey's mail -- there's a civil war in Angola -- another one in Beirut -- the, uh, New York City's still facing default -- they finally caught up with Patricia Hearst -- and the whole front page of the "Daily News" is Howard Beale."

• (Faye Dunaway) "I was married for four years, and pretended to be happy; and I had six years of analysis, and pretended to be sane. My husband ran off with his boyfriend, and I had an affair with my analyst, who told me I was the worst lay he'd ever had. I can't tell you how many men have told me what a lousy lay I am. I apparently have a masculine temperament. I arouse quickly, consummate prematurely, and can't wait to get my clothes back on and get out of that bedroom. I seem to be inept at everything except my work. I'm god**** good at my work and so I confine myself to that. All I want out of life is a 30 share and a 20 rating."

• (Faye Dunaway) "Look, we've got a bunch of hobgoblin radicals called the Ecumenical Liberation Army who go around taking home movies of themselves robbing banks. Now, maybe they'll take movies of themselves kidnapping heiresses, hijacking 747s, bombing bridges, assassinating ambassadors. We'd open each week's segment with their authentic footage, hire a couple of writers to write a story behind that footage, and we've got ourselves a series."

• (Faye Dunaway) "I watched your 6 o'clock news today; it's straight tabloid. You had a minute and a half of that lady riding a bike naked in Central Park; on the other hand, you had less than a minute of hard national and international news. It was all sex, scandal, brutal crime, sports, children with incurable diseases, and lost puppies. So, I don't think I'll listen to any protestations of high standards of journalism when you're right down on the streets soliciting audiences like the rest of us. Look, all I'm saying is if you're going to hustle, at least do it right."

• (Faye Dunaway) "I'm sorry for all those things I said to you last night. You're not the worst f*** I ever had. Believe me, I've had worse. You don't puff or snorkel and make death-like rattles. As a matter of fact, you're rather serene in the sack."
• (William Holden) "Why is it that a woman always thinks that the most savage thing she can say to a man is to impugn his cocksmanship."
• (Faye Dunaway) "I'm sorry I impugned your cocksmanship."
• (William Holden) "I gave up comparing genitals back in the schoolyard."

Peter Finch as Howard Beale

• (Peter Finch) "What is finished -- is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It's the individual that's finished. It's the single, solitary human being that's finished. It's every single one of you out there that's finished, because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It's a nation of some 200-odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-that-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings, and as replaceable as piston rods -- Well, the time has come to say, is dehumanization such a bad word. Because good or bad, that's what is so. The whole world is becoming humanoid; creatures that look human but aren't. The whole world not just us. We're just the most advanced country, so we're getting there first. The whole world's people are becoming mass-produced, programmed, numbered, insensate things --"

• (Peter Finch) "Edward George Ruddy died today. Edward George Ruddy was the Chairman of the Board of the Union Broadcasting Systems, and he died at eleven o'clock this morning of a heart condition, and woe is us. We're in a lot of trouble."
• (Peter Finch) "So. A rich little man with white hair died. What has that got to do with the price of rice, right? And why is that woe to us? Because you people, and sixty-two million other Americans, are listening to me right now. Because less than three percent of you people read books. Because less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers. Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the Gospel, the ultimate revelation. This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers -- This tube is the most awesome God-damned force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls in to the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA; the Communication Corporation of America. There's a new Chairman of the Board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome God-damned propoganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what s*** will be peddled for truth on this network?"
• (Peter Finch) "So, you listen to me. Listen to me: Television is not the truth. Television is a God-damned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business. So if you want the truth -- Go to God. Go to your gurus. Go to yourselves. Because that's the only place you're ever going to find any real truth."

• (Narrator) "This story is about Howard Beale, who was the news anchorman on UBS TV. In his time, Howard Beale had been a mandarin of television, the grand old man of news, with a HUT rating of 16 and a 28 audience share. In 1969, however, his fortunes began to decline. He fell to a 22 share. The following year, his wife died, and he was left a childless widower with an 8 rating and a 12 share. He became morose and isolated, began to drink heavily, and on September 22, 1975, he was fired, effective in two weeks. The news was broken to him by Max Schumacher, who was the president of the news division at UBS. The two old friends got properly pissed."
• (Peter Finch) "I was at CBS with Ed Murrow in 1951."
• (William Holden) "Must've been 1950 then."
• (William Holden) "I was at NBC, uh, associate producer. Morning News. I was just a kid. 26 years old."
• (William Holden) "Anyway -- anyway -- they're building the lower level of the George Washington Bridge."
• (William Holden) "We were doing a remote from there."
• (William Holden) "And nobody told me."
• (William Holden) "Ten after seven in the morning, I get a call, "Where the hell are YOU? You're supposed to be on the George Washington Bridge.""
• (William Holden) "I jump out of bed, throw my raincoat over my pajamas. I run downstairs and out into the street --"
• (William Holden) "-- hail a cab, and I say to the cabbie, "TAKE ME TO THE MIDDLE OF THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE.""
• (William Holden) "And the cabbie turns around and he says --"
• (William Holden) "-- he says "Don't do it, buddy. You're a young man. You got your whole life ahead of you.""
• (William Holden) "Didn't I ever tell you that one before?"

• (Peter Finch) "-- I want you to get mad. I don't want you to protest, I don't want you to riot, I don't want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression, the inflation, the Russians, or the crime in the streets. All I know is that first -- You've got to get mad."

• (Peter Finch) "We are in a lot of trouble --. because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel- the ultimate revelation. This tube can make or break presidents popes prime minister -- This tube is the most awesome god**** force in the whole godless world and woe is us, if it ever falls in the hands of the wrong people. And when the largest company in the world controls the most awesome god**** propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what s*** will be peddled for truth on this network. So you listen to me -- listen to me: Television is not the truth. Television is a god****ed amusement park -- we are all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we are spinning here, you are beginning to think the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, eat like the tube, raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube -- This is mass madness you maniacs. In god's name you people are the real thing- we are the illusion."

• (Peter Finch) "I would like at this moment to announce that I will be retiring from this program in two weeks' time because of poor ratings. Since this show is the only thing I had going for me in my life, I've decided to kill myself. I'm going to blow my brains out right on this program a week from today. So tune in next Tuesday. That should give the public relations people a week to promote the show. You ought to get a hell of a rating out of that. 50 share, easy."

• (Peter Finch) "Good evening. Today is Wednesday, September the 24th, and this is my last broadcast. Yesterday I announced on this program that I was going to commit public suicide, admittedly an act of madness. Well, I'll tell you what happened: I just ran out of bulls***. Am I still on the air? I really don't know any other way to say it other than I just ran out of bulls***. Bulls*** is all the reasons we give for living. And if we can't think up any reasons of our own, we always have the God bulls***. We don't know why we're going through all this pointless pain, humiliation, decays, so there better be someone somewhere who does know. That's the God bulls***. And then, there's the noble man bulls***; that man is a noble creature that can order his own world; who needs God? Well, if there's anybody out there that can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature, believe me: That man is full of bulls***. I don't have anything going for me. I haven't got any kids. And I was married for thirty-three years of shrill, shrieking fraud. So I don't have any bulls*** left. I just ran out of it, you see."

• (Peter Finch) "All human beings are becoming humanoids. All over the world, not just in America. We're just getting there faster since we're the most advanced country."

• (Peter Finch) "All I know is, you've got to get mad. You've got to say, "I'm a human being, god**** it. My life has value.""

• (Peter Finch) "Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation; this tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers; this tube is the most awesome god**** propaganda force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA, the Communications Corporation of America; there's a new chairman of the board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome god**** propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what s*** will be peddled for truth on this network?"

• (Peter Finch) "But, man, you're never going to get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell. We'll tell you that, uh, Kojak always gets the killer, or that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker's house, and no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry, just look at your watch; at the end of the hour he's going to win. We'll tell you any s*** you want to hear. We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true. But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds -- We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing. WE are the illusion. So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I'm speaking to you now. TURN THEM OFF --"

• (Peter Finch) "I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad; worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad. I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot; I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it. My life has VALUE.' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE.' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell; 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore.' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad --. You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore.' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE.""

• (Peter Finch) "This is not a psychotic breakdown; it's a cleansing moment of clarity."

• (Peter Finch) "You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion."

• (Peter Finch) "Television is not the truth. Television is a god****ed amusement park."

• (Peter Finch) "I just ran out of bulls***."
• (Jordan Charney) "Mr. Schumacher's right here, do you want to talk to him?"
• (Peter Finch) "Bulls*** is all the reasons we give for living. If we can't think up reasons of our own, we always have the God bulls***."
• (William Holden) "Yeah, Tom, what is it?"
• (Peter Finch) "We don't know why we go through all this pointless pain, humiliation, and decay. So there better be someone somewhere who does know. That's the God bulls***."
• (William Holden) "He's saying that life is bulls***, and it is, so what are you screaming about?"

• (Unnamed) "Good afternoon, Mr. Beale."
• (Peter Finch) "I MUST MAKE MY WITNESS."
• (Unnamed) "Sure thing, Mr. Beale."

• (Peter Finch) "No, no. I'm gonna blow my brains out right on the air, right in the middle of the 7 O'clock news."
• (William Holden) "You'll get a hell of a rating, I'll guarantee you that. 50 share easy."

Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen

• (Ned Beatty) "How are you now?"
• (Peter Finch) "I'm as mad as a hatter."
• (Ned Beatty) "Who isn't?"

• (Ned Beatty) "You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it. Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU -- WILL -- ATONE. Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T;, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that -- perfect world -- in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel."
• (Peter Finch) "Why me?"
• (Ned Beatty) "Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday."
• (Peter Finch) "I have seen the face of God."
• (Ned Beatty) "You just might be right, Mr. Beale."

• (Ned Beatty) "I started as a salesman, Mr. Beale. I sold sewing machines and automobile parts, hair brushes and electronic equipment."
• (Ned Beatty) "They say I can sell anything. I'd like to try to sell something to you."

• (Ned Beatty) "Good morning, Mr. Beale. They tell me you're a madman."

• (Ned Beatty) "Valhalla, Mr. Beale. Please, sit down."

Darryl Hickman as Bill Herron

• (Darryl Hickman) "There's a hell of a lot of Liberation Armies in the revolutionary underground, and a lot of kidnapped heiresses."

William Holden as Max Schumacher

• (William Holden) "You need me. You need me badly. Because I'm your last contact with human reality. I love you. And that painful, decaying love is the only thing between you and the shrieking nothingness you live the rest of the day."
• (Faye Dunaway) "Then, don't leave me."
• (William Holden) "It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids. If I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You're television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure, and pain -- and love."
• (William Holden) "And it's a happy ending: Wayward husband comes to his senses, returns to his wife, with whom he has established a long and sustaining love. Heartless young woman left alone in her arctic desolation. Music up with a swell; final commercial. And here are a few scenes from next week's show."

• (William Holden) "Howard, I'm taking you off the air. I think you're having a breakdown, require treatment."
• (Peter Finch) "This is not a psychotic episode. This is a cleansing moment of clarity. I'm imbued, Max. I'm imbued with some special spirit. It's not a religious feeling at all. It's a shocking eruption of great electrical energy. I feel vivid and flashing, as if suddenly I'd been plugged into some great electromagnetic field. I feel connected to all living things. To flowers, birds, all the animals of the world. And even to some great, unseen, living force. What I think the Hindus call prana. But it's not a breakdown. I've never felt more orderly in my life. It is a shattering and beautiful sensation. It is the exalted flow of the space-time continuum, save that it is spaceless and timeless and -- of such loveliness. I feel on the verge of some great, ultimate truth. And you will not take me off the air for now or for any other spaceless time."

• (William Holden) "I feel lousy about the pain that I've caused my wife and kids. I feel guilty and conscience-stricken, and all of those things you think sentimental, but which my generation calls simple human decency. And I miss my home, because I'm beginning to get scared s***less, because all of a sudden it's closer to the end than the beginning, and death is suddenly a perceptible thing to me, with definable features."

• (William Holden) "Tell Hackett to go f*** himself."

• (William Holden) "She does have one script in which I kill myself: An adapted for television version of "Anna Karenina", where she's Count Vronsky and I'm Anna."

• (William Holden) "I'm not sure she's capable of any real feelings. She's television generation. She learned life from Bugs Bunny."

• (William Holden) "I'm the man that you presumably love. I'm a part of your life. I live here. I'm real. You can't switch to another station."
• (Faye Dunaway) "Well, what exactly is it you want me to do?"
• (William Holden) "I just want you to love me. I just want you to love me, primal doubts and all. You understand that, don't you?"
• (Faye Dunaway) "I don't know how to do that."

• (Secretary) "Mr. Hackett's trying to get through to you."
• (William Holden) "Tell Mr. Hackett to go f*** himself."

• (William Holden) "We could make a series of it. "Suicide of the Week." Aw, hell, why limit ourselves? "Execution of the Week.""
• (Peter Finch) ""Terrorist of the Week.""
• (William Holden) "I love it. Suicides, assassinations, mad bombers, Mafia hitmen, automobile smash-ups: "The Death Hour." A great Sunday night show for the whole family. It'd wipe that f***in' Disney right off the air."

• (William Holden) "After living with you for the last six months, I'm turning into one of your scripts. Well, this is not a script, Diana. There's some real, actual life going on here."

Conchata Ferrell as Barbara

• (Conchata Ferrell) "These are those four outlines submitted by Universal for an hour series. You needn't bother to read them; I'll tell them to you. The first one is set at a large Eastern law school, presumably Harvard. The series is irresistibly entitled "The New Lawyers." The running characters are a crusty-but-benign ex-Supreme Court justice, presumably Oliver Wendell Holmes by way of Dr. Zorba; there's a beautiful girl graduate student; and the local district attorney who is brilliant and sometimes cuts corners. The second one is called "The Amazon Squad." The running characters include a crusty-but-benign police lieutenant who's always getting heat from the commissioner; a hard-nosed, hard-drinking detective who thinks women belong in the kitchen; and the brilliant and beautiful young girl cop who's fighting the feminist battle on the force. Up next is another one of those investigative reporter shows. A crusty-but-benign managing editor who's always gett --"

Marlene Warfield as Laureen Hobbs

• (Marlene Warfield) "Well Ahmed, you ain't gonna believe this. They gonna make a TV star out of you. Just like Archie Bunker. You gonna be a household word."
• (Great Ahmed Kahn) "What the f*** are you talking about?"

• (Marlene Warfield) "Don't f*** with my distribution costs. I'm making a lousy two-fifteen per segment and I'm already deficiting twenty-five grand a week with Metro. I'm paying William Morris ten percent off the top, and I'm giving this turkey ten thou per segment, and another five to this fruitcake. And Helen, don't start no s*** about a piece again. I'm paying Metro twenty-thousand for all foreign and Canadian distribution, and that's after recoupment. The Communist Party's not gonna see a nickel of this god**** show until we go into syndication."
• (Helen Miggs) "C'mon Laureen. The party's in for seventy-five hundred a week of the production expenses."
• (Marlene Warfield) "I'm not giving this pseudoinsurrectionary sedentarian a piece of my show. I'm not giving him script approval, and I sure as s*** ain't gotten him into my distribution charges."
• (Mary Ann Gifford) "You f***ing fascist. Did you see the film we made of the San Marino jail breakout, demonstrating the rising up of the seminal prisoner class infrastructure?"
• (Marlene Warfield) "You can blow the seminal prisoner class infrastructure out your ass. I'm not knockin' down my god**** distribution charges."
• (Great Ahmed Kahn) "Man, give her the f***ING overhead clause. Let's get back to page twenty-two, number 5, small 'a'. Subsidiary rights."

• (Marlene Warfield) "He's plague, he's smallpox, he's typhoid. I don't want to follow his god**** show. I want out of that 8 o'clock spot. I've got enough troubles without Howard Beale as a lead-in. You guys scheduled me up against "Tony Orlando and Dawn," NBC's got "Little House on the Prairie," ABC's got "The Bionic Woman". You've gotta do something. You've gotta do something about Howard Beale. Get him off the air. Get him off. Do something. DO ANYTHING."

• (Mary Ann Gifford) "You f***in' fascist. Did you see the film we made at the San Marino jail breakout demonstrating the rising up of the seminal prisoner class infrastructure?"
• (Marlene Warfield) "You can blow the seminal prisoner class infrastructure out your ass. I'm not knockin' down my god**** distribution charges."

Beatrice Straight as Louise Schumacher

• (Beatrice Straight) "Then get out, go anywhere you want, go to a hotel, go live with her, and don't come back. Because, after 25 years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain that we have inflicted on each other, I'm damned if I'm going to stand here and have you tell me you're in love with somebody else. Because this isn't a convention weekend with your secretary, is it? Or; or some broad that you picked up after three belts of booze. This is your great winter romance, isn't it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that what's left for me? Is that my share? She gets the winter passion, and I get the dotage? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to sit at home knitting and purling while you slink back like some penitent drunk? I'm your wife, damn it. And, if you can't work up a whit of passion for me, the least I require is respect and allegiance. I hurt. Don't you understand that? I hurt badly."

Wesley Addy as Nelson Chaney

• (Wesley Addy) "All I know is that this violates every canon of respectable broadcasting."
• (Robert Duvall) "We're not a respectable network. We're a whorehouse network, and we have to take whatever we can get."
• (Wesley Addy) "Well, I don't want any part of it. I don't fancy myself the president of a whorehouse."
• (Robert Duvall) "That's very commendable of you, Nelson. Now sit down. Your indignation is duly recorded; you can always resign tomorrow."

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