Yakavetta:
I'm having a shitty day. I'm depressed. Tell me a funny joke.
Rocco:
Now? A joke? Uh... um, uh... A joke. Yeah, alright. Um... There's these, uh, three guys, uh... a-a-a-a spic, a-a-a-a white guy and a black guy.
Yakavetta:
Nigger.
Rocco:
Yeah, n-n- Yeah. And-and they walk along the beach, they see this pot, they rub it, genie comes out. Genie says, you know, "You wish for anything you want." So, he asks, uh-uh, Mexican what-what he wants, and he goes, uh, uh, "I want, uh, all my people in America to be happy and free and in Mexico." And so, genie - Poof! And, all the spics are in Mexico. And then he asks the black guy...
Vincenzo Lipazzi:
Nigger.
Rocco:
Yeah, that's what I said. Goes to the, uh- uh, nigger, says, uh, "What do you want?" And he goes, um, uh, "I want all my African- my nigger brothers in America to be back in Africa and-and happy and everything." You know? So, genie goes poof! And, um, all the niggers in America are in Africa. And, uh, uh, uh, this is go- I'm not funny today. I-I know. I'm havin' a hard day. I-I-I- This joke sucks. It's-it's-it's a stupid joke.
Yakavetta:
Continue the joke.
Rocco:
So the genie says to the white guy, uh, um, "What's your one wish?" And the white guy goes, "You mean to tell me all the niggers and spics are out of America?" Genie goes, "Yeah." He says, "Well, um, I'll have a Coke, then."
Mona Lisa Vito:
The car that made these two, equal-length tire marks had positraction. You can't make those marks without positraction, which was not available on the '64 Buick Skylark!
Vinny Gambini:
And why not? What is positraction?
Mona Lisa Vito:
It's a limited slip differential which distributes power equally to both the right and left tires. The '64 Skylark had a regular differential, which, anyone who's been stuck in the mud in Alabama knows, you step on the gas, one tire spins, the other tire does nothing. [the jury members nod, with murmurs of "yes," "that's right," etc]
Vinny Gambini:
Is that it?
Mona Lisa Vito:
No, there's more! You see? When the left tire mark goes up on the curb and the right tire mark stays flat and even? Well, the '64 Skylark had a solid rear axle, so when the left tire would go up on the curb, the right tire would tilt out and ride along its edge. But that didn't happen here. The tire mark stayed flat and even. This car had an independent rear suspension. Now, in the '60's, there were only two other cars made in America that had positraction, and independent rear suspension, and enough power to make these marks. One was the Corvette, which could never be confused with the Buick Skylark. The other had the same body length, height, width, weight, wheel base, and wheel track as the '64 Skylark, and that was the 1963 Pontiac Tempest.
Vinny Gambini:
And because both cars were made by GM, were both cars available in metallic mint green paint?
Mona Lisa Vito:
They were!
Vinny Gambini:
Thank you, Ms. Vito. No more questions. Thank you very, very much. [kissing her hands]
Vinny Gambini:
You've been a lovely, lovely witness.
Jake Tyler Brigance:
We're going to lose this case, Carl lee. There are no more points of law to argue here. I want to cope a plea, maybe Buckley will cop us a second degree murder and we can get you just life in prison.
Carl Lee Hailey:
Jake, I can't do no life in prison. You got to get me off. Now if it was you on trial...
Jake Tyler Brigance:
It's not me, we're not the same, Carl Lee. The jury has to identify with the defendant. They see you, they see a yardworker; they see me, they see an attorney. I live in town, you live in the hill.
Carl Lee Hailey:
Well, you are white and I'm black. See Jake, you think just like them, that's why I picked you; you are one of them , don't you see?. Oh, you think you ain't because you eat in Claude's and you are out there trying to get me off on TV talking about black and white, but the fact is you are just like all the rest of them. When you look at me, you don't see a man, you see a black man.
Jake Tyler Brigance:
Carl Lee, I'm your friend.
Carl Lee Hailey:
We ain't no friends, Jake. We are on different sides of the line, I ain't never seen you in my part of town. I bet you don't even know where I live. Our daughters, Jake; they ain't never gonna play together.
Jake Tyler Brigance:
What are you talking about?
Carl Lee Hailey:
America is a war and you are on the other side. How's a black man ever going to get a fair trial with the enemy on the bench and in the jury box?. My life in white hands? You Jake, that's how. You are my secret weapon because you are one of the bad guys. You don't mean to be but you are. It's how you was raised. Nigger, negro, black, African-american, no matter how you see me, you see me different, you see me like that jury sees me, you are them. Now throw out your points of law Jake. If you was on that jury, what would it take to convince you to set me free? That's how you save my ass. That's how you save us both.
Robert F. Kennedy:
[voiceover] This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives. It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours. Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet. No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason. Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded. "Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs." Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire. Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them. Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul. For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter. This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered. We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers. Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence. We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge. Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution. But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.
Colin:
Exciting news!
Tony:
What?
Colin:
I've bought a ticket to the States. I'm off in three weeks.
Tony:
No!
Colin:
Yes! To a fantastic place called Wisconsin.
Tony:
No!
Colin:
Yes! Wisconsin babes, here comes Sir Colin! Whoo hoo!
Tony:
No, Col! There are a few babes in America, I grant you, but they're already going out with rich, attractive guys.
Colin:
Nah, Tone, you're just jealous. You know perfectly well that any bar anywhere in America contains ten girls more beautiful and more likely to have sex with me than the whole of the United Kingdom.
Tony:
That is total bollocks. You've actually gone mad, now.
Colin:
No, I'm wise. Stateside I am Prince William without the weird family.
Tony:
No, Colin, no!
Colin:
Yes!
Tony:
Nyet!
Colin:
Da!
Tony:
Nein!
Colin:
Ja, darling!
Katherine "Katie" McLoughlin:
The stories we hear about how the West was won are all lies. The history of the West was written by the horse. Wherever a settler left his footprint there was a hoof print beside it. Men came further and further west to stake their claim on the great American wilderness. But they encountered a strength that couldn't be tamed - wild horses. Mustangs. The settlers called them parasites that would strip the land and starve their own herds. They couldn't domesticate them so they destroyed them. Isolated and hungry, they were on their way to disappearing from the face of the earth. Sometimes when the light disappears an afterimage remains - just for a second. Mustangs are an afterimage of the West, no better then ghosts, hardly there at all. No one really wants them, not ranchers, not city people - that's their destiny. Let them disappear once and for all, along with all the other misfits, loners, and relics of a wilderness no one cares about anymore. Lucky for us a few mustangs survived, hidden away in the mountains. We need to protect them, for they are the hope of some kind of living memory of what the promise of America used to be - and could be again. I believe there is a force in this world that lives beneath the surface, something primitive and wild that awakens when you need an extra push just to survive, like wildflowers that bloom after fire turns the forest black. Most people are afraid of it, and keep it buried deep inside themselves. But there will always be a few people who have the courage to love what is untamed inside us. One of those men is my father. There was once a time when Americans came West to discover their destiny. Today they seem to move around every which way, restless and unsettled. But I think they're still looking for the same thing - a place where they can be optimistic about the future, a place that helps them to be who they really want to be, where they can feel that this life makes sense, a place where they can feel what I feel when I'm riding Flicka - because when we're riding, all I feel... is free.
Tony Blair:
[first lines - about initial ops in Afghanistan, 2001] I wish to say finally, as I've said many times before, that this is not a war with Islam. It angers me, as it angers the vast majority of Muslims, to hear Bin Laden and his associates described as Islamic terrorists. They are terrorists, pure and simple. Islam is a peaceful and tolerant religion, and the acts of these people are wholly contrary to the teachings of the Qur'an.
George W. Bush:
[2001 State of the Union address] I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It's practice freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful. And those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. [enthusiastic applause]
Bill Clinton:
[about 1998 raid on Afghanistan and Sudan] I want you to understand, and I want the world to understand that our actions today were not aimed against Islam. The faith of hundreds of millions of good, peace-loving people all around the world, including the United States. No religion condones the murder of innocent men, women, and children. But our actions were aimed at fanatics and killers, who wrap murder in the cloak of righteousness, and in so doing profane the great religion in whose name they claim to act.
Hedwig:
Our apartment was so small, that mother made me play in the oven. Late at night I would listen to the voices of the American masters, Tony Tennille, Debby Boone, Anne Murray who was actually a Canadian working in the American idiom. And then there were the crypto-homo rockers: Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, David Bowie who was actually an idiom working in America and Canada. These artists, they left as deep an impression on me as that oven rack did on my face. To be an American in muskrat love, soft as an easy chair not even the chair, I am I said, have I never been mellow? And the colored girls sing... doo do doo do doo do doo... but never with the melody. How could I do it better than Tony or Lou... HEY BOY, TAKE A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE!
Eleanor Shaw:
I will do whatever is necessary to protect America from anyone who opposes her. I can't... am I the only person in this room who's been reading these NSA reports?
Congressman Healy:
I've read them.
Eleanor Shaw:
All right, then. You know... you know we are on the brink of another cataclysm, probably nuclear, on our own soil.
Congresswoman Becket:
Oh, Ellie, that's a bit extreme.
Eleanor Shaw:
And it's not from random terrorists, but from covert alliances of disaffected nations who've all been made bold by this kind of Jordan one-worlder who believes that human beings are essentially good and that our powers are somehow, I don't know, shameful or evil and never to be used. Make no mistake. The American people are terrified. They know something's coming. They can feel it. And we can either shovel them the same old shit and call it sugar or we can arm them. We can arm them with a young, vibrant Vice President. We can give them heat, energy! Give them a war hero with heart, forged by enemy fire in the desert in the dark when American lives hung on the balance!
[last lines]
Herb Brooks:
[voiceover] Two days later the miracle was made complete. My boys defeated Finland to win the gold medal, coming from behind once again. As I watched them out there, celebrating on the ice, I realized that Patti had been right. It was a lot more than a hockey game, not only for those who watched it, but for those who played in it. I've often been asked in the years since Lake Placid what was the best moment for me. Well, it was here - the sight of 20 young men of such differing backgrounds now standing as one. Young men willing to sacrifice so much of themselves all for an unknown. A few years later, the U.S. began using professional athletes at the Games - Dream Teams. I always found that term ironic because now that we have Dream Teams, we seldom ever get to dream. But on one weekend, as America and the world watched, a group of remarkable young men gave the nation what it needed most - a chance, for one night, not only to dream, but a chance, once again, to believe.
