All the President's Men (1976)

Dustin Hoffman: Carl Bernstein

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Howard Simons : Then can we use their names?

  Carl Bernstein : No.

  Ben Bradlee : Goddammit, when is somebody going to go on the record in this story? You guys are about to write a story that says the former Attorney General, the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in this country, is a crook! Just be sure you're right.

• John Mitchell : [on phone]  All that crap you're putting in the paper? It's all been denied. You tell your publisher, tell Katie Graham she's gonna get her tit caught in a big wringer if that's published. Good Christ, that's the most sickening thing I ever heard.

  Ben Bradlee : [later]  He really said that about Mrs. Graham?

  Carl Bernstein : [nods] 

  Ben Bradlee : Well, I'd cut the words "her tit" and print it.

  Carl Bernstein : Why?

  Ben Bradlee : This is a family newspaper.

• Carl Bernstein : Boy, that woman was paranoid! At one point I - I suddenly wondered how high up this thing goes, and her paranoia finally got to me, and I thought what we had was so hot that any minute CBS or NBC were going to come in through the windows and take the story away.

  Bob Woodward : You're both paranoid. She's afraid of John Mitchell, and you're afraid of Walter Cronkite.

• Carl Bernstein : I think it's Magruder.

  Bob Woodward : I think it's Magruder too.

  Carl Bernstein : Why do you think it's Magruder?

  Bob Woodward : Because he was second in command under Mitchell. Why do you think it's Magruder?

  Carl Bernstein : [Carl gets up and goes to open a jar of cookies]  I think it's Magruder because at one time he was the temporary head of the Committee to Re-Elect before Mitchell.

  [he flings one at Bob who, still furiously typing away, catches it without missing a beat] 

  Bob Woodward : I don't want a cookie.

• Harry Rosenfeld : Bernstein, why don't you finish one story before trying to get on another?

  Carl Bernstein : I finished it.

  Harry Rosenfeld : The Virginia legislature story?

  Carl Bernstein : I finished it.

  Harry Rosenfeld : All right, give it to me.

  Carl Bernstein : I'm just polishing it.

• Sally Aiken : Ken Clawson told me he wrote the Canuck letter.

  Carl Bernstein : The letter that said Muskie was slurring the Canadians.

  Bob Woodward : Clawson.

  Carl Bernstein : The deputy director of White House communications wrote the Canuck letter. When'd he tell you this?

  Sally Aiken : When we were having drinks.

  Carl Bernstein : Where were you?

  Sally Aiken : My apartment.

  Carl Bernstein : When did you say he told you?

  Sally Aiken : Two weeks ago.

  Carl Bernstein : What else did he say? He didn't say anything? Come on, you're hedging.

  Bob Woodward : Do you think he said it to impress you, to try to get you to go to bed with him?

  Carl Bernstein : Jesus!

  Bob Woodward : No, I want to hear her say it. Do you think he said that to impress you, to try to get you to go to bed with him?

  Carl Bernstein : Why did it take you two weeks to tell us this, Sally?

  Sally Aiken : I guess I don't have the taste for the jugular you guys have.

• Carl Bernstein : Bob, listen, I think I've got something, I don't know what it is. But somewhere in this world there is a Kenneth H. Dahlberg, and we gotta get to him before the New York Times does, because I think they've got the same information.

• Bob Woodward : Segretti crisscrossed the country, at least a dozen times. And always stayed in cities where there were Democratic primaries.

  Carl Bernstein : So if the break-in was just one incident in a campaign of sabotage that began a whole year before Watergate...

  Bob Woodward : Then for the first time the break-in makes sense.

  Carl Bernstein : This isn't so crazy. This whole thing didn't start with the bugging of the headquarters.

  Bob Woodward : Segretti was doing this a year before the bugging.

  Carl Bernstein : And a year before, Nixon wasn't slaughtering Muskie, he was running behind Muskie, before Muskie self-destructed.

  Bob Woodward : *If* he self-destructed!

• Carl Bernstein : All these checks from Mexico?

  Dardis : See?

  Carl Bernstein : How come? Did the money originate there?

  Dardis : Well, I doubt it started off as pesos.

• Carl Bernstein : I was wondering if Hugh Sloan was being set up now as a fall guy for John Mitchell? What do you think?

  Bookkeeper : if you guys could just get John Mitchell, that would be beautiful.

• Kay Eddy : My only chance of getting that story is if see him. I don't want to see him again.

  Carl Bernstein : Do you have to see him?

  Kay Eddy : Sure, I have to see him.

  Carl Bernstein : No, do you have to see him that way? Can't you just call him up on the telephone and say you want to have a drink with him? Just feel him out? You say the relationship is over. What the hell do you have to lose?

• Debbie Sloan : This is an honest house.

  Bob Woodward : That's why we'd like to see your husband.

  Carl Bernstein : Facing certain criminal charges that might be brought against some people that are innocent, we just feel that it would be...

  Bob Woodward : It's really for his benefit.

  Debbie Sloan : No, it's not.

  Bob Woodward : No. It's not.

  Hugh Sloan Jr. : Deborah, tell them to come in.

• [Woodward is woken up by a call from Bernstein] 

  Carl Bernstein : Woodward, What did you find out? What did he say?

  Bob Woodward : What time is it?

  Carl Bernstein : You fell asleep?

  Bob Woodward : Oh God dammit!

  [Woodward hangs up and runs out the door, realizing that he forgot about his secret meeting with Deep Throat] 

• Bob Woodward : A guy can come up to me on the street.

  Carl Bernstein : Yeah.

  Bob Woodward : And he can ask me an address. Now, is the man interrogating me or is he lost? What kind of story do I write? What kind of deduction do I make from that?

• Carl Bernstein : You can talk to us. We don't reveal our sources.

  CRP Woman : You people, you think you can come into my home and ask me a few questions, have me destroy the reputations of men that I work for and respect? Do you understand loyalty? Have you ever heard of loyalty?

• Bob Woodward : How can you write that there's a cover up? We don't know that there's a cover up.

  Carl Bernstein : Well, then, I don't know what the hell you need? So, you tell me what you need.

  Bob Woodward : I need more fact for a story is what I need and I think you should need the same thing.

• Carl Bernstein : If you get in a car.

  Bob Woodward : We're in a car.

  Carl Bernstein : Okay, and there's music playing in the car, hypothetically.

  Bob Woodward : Yeah.

  Carl Bernstein : And there's music playing in the car for 10 minutes and there's no commercials. What can you deduce from that? Is it AM or FM?

• Carl Bernstein : [Walking up to the Sloans' house]  All these neat, little houses and all these nice, little streets... It's hard to believe that something's wrong with some of those little houses.

  Bob Woodward : No, it isn't.

• Carl Bernstein : What was that term you used when you screwed up something?

  Donald H. Segretti : We're rat-fuckin'.

• Miss Milland : Please go away, okay? I mean, please leave before they see you.

  Carl Bernstein : Who do you mean by...

  Bob Woodward : Who do you mean they? Could you give us their names?

  Carl Bernstein : We never reveal the sources of the people that talk to us.

• Carl Bernstein : Any of Mr. Mitchell's assistants were part of this?

  Bookkeeper : I had all the evidence. It was destroyed. I don't know who destroyed it. I think Gordon did a lot of shredding.

  Carl Bernstein : Hard evidence?

  Bookkeeper : Well, I can't say that it would positively prove that they planned the break-in; but, it would come pretty close.

• Bob Woodward : You know, one thing I'm just still not completely clear about?

  Carl Bernstein : What?

  Bob Woodward : [to Sloan]  I don't know how - how did you - when you handed out the money - how did that work, exactly?

  Hugh Sloan : Badly.

• Ben Bradlee : Bernstein, are you sure on this story?

  Carl Bernstein : Absolutely.

  Ben Bradlee : Woodward?

  Bob Woodward : I'm sure.

  Ben Bradlee : I'm not. It still seems thin.

  Howard Simons : Get another source.