The Contender quotes

View Quote Laine Hanson: Come on, Kermit. If we do that, we are no better than he is.
Kermit Newman: We are no better than he is!

View Quote Laine Hanson: It seems to me that all you can claim about me... claim, is that I had sex.
Shelly Runyon: Deviant sex.
Laine Hanson: Oh, deviant? Who says it was deviant?
Shelly Runyon: I do. What I say the American people will believe. And do you know why? Because I will have a very big microphone in front of me.

View Quote President Jackson Evans: [outside the White House, walking away from the party] Well can I tell you I'm just bustin' to know what really happened?
Laine Hanson: You mean, this would just be between Laine and the President?
President Jackson Evans: I'll go one better. This will be between Laine and Jackson.

View Quote Shelly Runyon: Greatness is the orphan of urgency, Laine. Greatness only emerges when we need it most... in time of war or calamity. I can't ask somebody to be a Kennedy or a Lincoln. They were MEN created by their times. What I... What I can ask for... is the promise of greatness. And that, Madam Senator... you don't have.
Laine Hanson: Well, then... I just wouldn't be using sex as leverage... if I were you, Sheldon. Because, you know, there's one thing you don't want. It's a woman with her finger on the button who isn't getting laid.

View Quote Shelly Runyon: So, how are Will and the boy?
Laine Hanson: Let's forego the small talk today Shelly, I'm not in the mood.
Shelly Runyon: Let the big talk begin.

View Quote [about Rep. Reginald Webster] Well, he may not know his right from his left, but he does know the difference between right and wrong.

View Quote [addressing the Congress] Napoleon once said when asked to explain the lack of great statesmen in the world, that "to get power you need to display absolute pettiness; to exercise power, you need to show true greatness." Such pettiness and greatness are rarely found in one person... Laine Hanson has asked that I allow her to step aside. She asked me to do this because she wants my presidency to end on a note of triumph and not controversy. Understand, those of you who worked to bring Laine Hanson down, that she asked to have her name withdrawn from consideration, NOT because she isn't great, but because she isn't petty. Because those two forms of leadership traits could not live in her body or her soul. Greatness. It comes in many forms, sometimes it comes in the form of sacrifice - that's the loneliest form.

View Quote [after missing a shot while bowling] Well, that's what I get for my Leftist tendencies.

View Quote [closing remarks at Congressional confirmation hearing] ... And, Mr. Chairman, I stand for the separation of Church and State, and the reason that I stand for that is the same reason that I believe our forefathers did. It is not there to protect religion from the grasp of government but to protect our government from the grasp of religious fanaticism. Now, I may be an atheist, but that does not mean I do not go to church. I do go to church. The church I go to is the one that emancipated the slaves, that gave women the right to vote, that gave us every freedom that we hold dear. My church is this very Chapel of Democracy that we sit in together, and I do not need God to tell me what are my moral absolutes. I need my heart, my brain, and this church.

View Quote [to Gov. Hathaway] Who doesn't want a shortcut to greatness?

View Quote [to Gov. Hathaway] You're the future of the Democratic party. And you always will be.

View Quote [to Laine Hanson] We're both sticking to our guns. The difference is, mine are loaded.

View Quote [Trying to dig up dirt on Shelly Runyon] I want something EMBARRASSING! Something sexual! Little boys, midgets, that sort of thing! Cows! I don't give a goddamn!

View Quote I should have come down here and pointed my finger your way... [points at Rep. Shelley Runyon] ... pointed my finger YOUR way, and asked "Have you no decency, sir?"

View Quote I'll die before Shelly Runyon checkmates me.