Memorable quotes for
Frost/Nixon (2008) More at IMDbPro »

[from trailer]
David Frost: Are you really saying the President can do something illegal?
Richard Nixon: I'm saying that when the President does it, that means it's *not* illegal!
David Frost: ...I'm sorry?

---

[from trailer]
David Frost: Why didn't you burn the tapes?
Richard Nixon: I didn't want to take any questions on Watergate!

---

[from trailer]
David Frost: I've had an idea for an interview: Richard Nixon.
John Birt: You're a talk show host. I spent yesterday watching you interview the Bee Gees.
David Frost: Weren't they terrific?

---

[from trailer]
Richard Nixon: Why would I want to talk to David Frost?
Swifty Lazar: I've got half a million dollars.
Richard Nixon: Really?

---

Bob Zelnick: [Doing his Nixon impersonation] That Jack Kennedy, he screwed anything that moved. He had a go at Checkers once, and that poor bitch was never the same after that.

---

Richard Nixon: That's our tragedy, you and I Mr. Frost. No matter how high we get, they still look down at us.
David Frost: I really don't know what you're talking about.
Richard Nixon: Yes you do. Now come on. No matter how many awards or column inches are written about you, or how high the elected office is, it's still not enough. We still feel like the little man. The loser. They told us we were a hundred times, the smart asses in college, the high ups. The well-born. The people who's respect we really wanted. Really craved. And isn't that why we work so hard now, why we fight for every inch? Scrambling our way up in undignified fashion. If we're honest for a minute, if we reflect privately, just for a moment, if we allow ourselves a glimpse into that shadowy place we call our soul, isn't that why we're here? Now? The two of us. Looking for a way back into the sun. Into the limelight. Back onto the winner's podium. Because we can feel it slipping away. We were headed, both of us, for the dirt. The place the snobs always told us that we'd end up. Face in the dust, humiliated all the more for having tried. So pitifully hard. Well, to *hell with that*! We're not going to let that happen, either of us. We're going to show those bums, we're going to make 'em choke on our continued success. Our continued headlines! Our continued awards! And power! And glory! We are gonna make those mother fuckers *choke*!

---

Richard Nixon: Whenever I have had my doubts I remembered the construction worker in Philadelphia because he came up to me and he said 'Sir I got only one criticism of that Cambodia thing; if you'd gone in earlier you might of captured the gun that killed my boy three months ago'. So you're asking me do I regret going into Cambodia?... No, I don't. You know what, I wish I'd gone in sooner. And harder!

---

Richard Nixon: I let them down. I let down my friends, I let down my country, and worst of all I let down our system of government, and the dreams of all those young people that ought to get into government but now they think; 'Oh it's all too corrupt and the rest'. Yeah... I let the American people down. And I'm gonna have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life. My political life is over.

---

James Reston, Jr.: You know the first and greatest sin of the deception of television is that it simplifies; it diminishes great, complex ideas, trenches of time; whole careers become reduced to a single snapshot. At first I couldn't understand why Bob Zelnick was quite as euphoric as he was after the interviews, or why John Birt felt moved to strip naked and rush into the ocean to celebrate. But that was before I really understood the reductive power of the close-up, because David had succeeded on that final day, in getting for a fleeting moment what no investigative journalist, no state prosecutor, no judiciary committee or political enemy had managed to get; Richard Nixon's face swollen and ravaged by loneliness, self-loathing and defeat. The rest of the project and its failings would not only be forgotten, they would totally cease to exist.

---

Richard Nixon: You know those parties of yours, the ones I read about in the newspapers. Do you actually enjoy those?
David Frost: Of course.
Richard Nixon: You have no idea how fortunate that makes you, liking people. Being liked. Having that facility. That lightness, that charm. I don't have it, I never did.

---

James Reston, Jr.: You have to set up that he has an anti-democratic personality. There's a reason they call him Tricky Dick.

---

David Frost: I'm in this for all I've got.

---

Richard Nixon: We're not gonna let that happen! We're gonna make 'em choke!

---

Richard Nixon: [Watching Frost head for his car] You mean to say he just paid me two hundred grand for a visit?
Jack Brennan: Yeah.
Richard Nixon: Huh. If I'd known that I would invited him for tea.

---

David Frost: What have I done?

---

Richard Nixon: [Reston swore to Zelnick earlier he would never shake Nixon's hand] Pleasure to meet you.
[Offers Reston his hand]
James Reston, Jr.: [after a pause, he shakily extends his own hand] Mr. President...
Bob Zelnick: [after Nixon leaves] Oh that was devastating, I don't think he's ever going to get over that.
James Reston, Jr.: Fuck off.

---

Richard Nixon: [Frost is signing a cheque] I hope that isn't coming out of your own pocket.
David Frost: [Gives a quick smile] I wish my pockets were that deep.

---

[reading from a newspaper]
Caroline Cushing: "Frost has hired three crack investigators..."
James Reston, Jr.: Can I be Crack #1?
Bob Zelnick: Can I be Deep Crack?

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Plot synopsis	Plot keywords
FAQ	Parents Guide	User comments
Trivia	Goofs	Main details
IMDb quotes browser	Search quotes section
Browse titles with quotes by letter    A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other

*