Arthur Jensen: I started as a salesman, Mr. Beale. I sold sewing machines and automobile parts, hair brushes and electronic equipment. [puts arm around Beale's shoulders] Arthur Jensen: They say I can sell anything. I'd like to try to sell something ...
Howard Beale: 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,...
Howard Beale: Television is not the truth. Television is a goddamned amusement park.
Frank Hackett: Well, the issue is: Shall we kill Howard Beale, or not? I'd like to get some more opinions on that. Diana Christensen: I don't see we have any options, Frank. Let's kill the son-of-a-bitch.
Mary Ann Gifford: You fuckin' fascist! Did you see the film we made at the San Marino jail breakout demonstrating the rising up of the seminal prisoner class infrastructure? Laureen Hobbs: You can blow the seminal prisoner class infrastructure out yo...
Barbara: 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...
Howard Beale: ...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 inflati...
Diana Christensen: [shouting] Son of a bitch. We've struck the motherlode.
Max Schumacher: [about Diana] I'm not sure she's capable of any real feelings. She's television generation. She learned life from Bugs Bunny.
Max Schumacher: We could make a series of it. "Suicide of the Week." Aw, hell, why limit ourselves? "Execution of the Week." Howard Beale: "Terrorist of the Week." Max Schumacher: I love it. Suicides, assassinations, mad bombers, Mafia hitmen, automo...
Diana Christensen: 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, bo...
Max Schumacher: 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.
Frank Hackett: 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.
Frank Hackett: Mr. Jensen is unhappy with Howard Beale and wants him discontinued. Diana Christensen: He may be unhappy, but he isn't stupid enough to withdraw the number one show on television out of pique. Frank Hackett: Two billion dollars is not ...
Frank Hackett: 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.
Diana Christensen: Let's stop kidding ourselves. Full-fledged messiahs don't come in bunches.
Laureen Hobbs: 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 fuck are you talking about?
Arthur Jensen: [greeting Beale] How are you now? Howard Beale: I'm as mad as a hatter. Arthur Jensen: Who isn't?
