Quotes

Joe Miller: Some of these people make me sick. But a law's been broken here. You do remember the law, don't you?

Joe Miller: Now, explain it to me like I'm a four-year-old.

Andrew Beckett: That's their story. Wanna hear mine?

Joe Miller: How many lawyers did you go to before me?

Andrew Beckett: Nine.

Joe Miller: Go on.

Joe Miller: The Federal Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against otherwise qualified handicapped persons who are able to perform the duties required by their employment. Although the ruling did not address the specific issue of HIV and AIDS discrimination...

Andrew Beckett: Subsequent decisions have held that AIDS is protected as a handicap under law, not only because of the physical limitations it imposes, but because the prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a social death which precede... which precedes the physical one.

Joe Miller: This is the essence of discrimination: formulating opinions about others not based on their individual merits, but rather on their membership in a group with assumed characteristics.

Joe Miller: We're standing here in Philadelphia, the, uh, city of brotherly love, the birthplace of freedom, where the, uh, founding fathers authored the Declaration of Independence, and I don't recall that glorious document saying anything about all straight men are created equal. I believe it says all men are created equal.

Joe Miller: Have you ever felt discriminated against at Wyatt Wheeler?

Anthea Burton: Well, yes.

Joe Miller: In what way?

Anthea Burton: Well, Mr. Wheeler's secretary, Lydia, said that Mr. Wheeler had a problem with my earrings.

Joe Miller: Really?

Anthea Burton: Apparently Mr. Wheeler felt that they were too..."Ethnic" is the word she used. And she told me that he said that he would like it if I wore something a little less garish, a little smaller, and more "American."

Joe Miller: What'd you say?

Anthea Burton: I said my earrings are American. They're African-American.

Joe Miller: What do you love about the law, Andrew?

Andrew Beckett: I... many things... uh... uh... What I love the most about the law?

Joe Miller: Yeah.

Andrew Beckett: It's that every now and again - not often, but occasionally - you get to be a part of justice being done. That really is quite a thrill when that happens.

[Andrew transcendentally describes his favorite opera]

Andrew Beckett: Do you like opera?

Joe Miller: I'm not that familiar with opera.

Andrew Beckett: This is my favorite aria. This is Maria Callas. This is "Andrea Chenier", Umberto Giordano. This is Madeleine. She's saying how during the French Revolution, a mob set fire to her house, and her mother died... saving her. "Look, the place that cradled me is burning." Can you hear the heartache in her voice? Can you feel it, Joe? In come the strings, and it changes everything. The music fills with a hope, and that'll change again. Listen... listen..."I bring sorrow to those who love me." Oh, that single cello! "It was during this sorrow that love came to me." A voice filled with harmony. It says, "Live still, I am life. Heaven is in your eyes. Is everything around you just the blood and mud? I am divine. I am oblivion. I am the god... that comes down from the heavens, and makes of the Earth a heaven. I am love!... I am love."

Joe Miller: Who did you get?

Andrew Beckett: What?

Joe Miller: Did you find a lawyer?

Andrew Beckett: I'm a lawyer.

Sarah Beckett: [to Andrew] Well, I didn't raise my kids to sit in the back of the bus. You get in there and you fight for your rights, okay?