& Rocco: So what’ve you got me fighting for then?
Dalton Trumbo: «Peace on Earth, good will toward men.»
Rocco: You can’t do that, this is America.
Trumbo: All right. How about sex and money?
Rocco: There you go, two things we all love. None of your little sermons on citizenship.
& Arlen Hird: I mean, if I’m wrong here, tell me, but ever since I’ve known you, you talk like a radical, but you live like a rich guy.
Trumbo: That is true.
Arlen: Well, I don’t know that you’re... I don’t think that you’re willing to lose all of this just to do the right thing.
Trumbo: Well, I despise martyrdom and I won’t fight for a lost cause, so you’re right, I’m not willing to lose it all, certainly not them— But I am willing to risk it all. That’s where the radical and the rich guy make the perfect combination. The radical may fight with the purity of Jesus... but the rich guy wins with the cunning of... Satan.
Arlen: Oh shit.
Trumbo: What?
Arlen: Just please shut up. Please, I’ll do whatever you want, just please don’t say shit like that anymore.
Trumbo: .... I can’t guarantee that.
& Louis B. Mayer: I’m running a studio here, Hedda. You think I love every person on my payroll? Grow up.
Hedda Hopper: Then how about I make crystal clear to my thirty-five million readers
exactly who runs Hollywood and won’t fire these traitors? How about I name names,
real names?..
Jacob Varner, Jack Warner Schmuel Gelbfisz, Sam Goldwyn... and of course yours
Lazar Meir.
Mayer: You watch what you say to me—
Hedda: Forty years ago, you’re starving in some shtetl, the greatest country on Earth takes you in, gives you wealth, power, but the second we need you, you do nothing! And that’s exactly what my readers expect from a business run by kikes.
& Ian McLellan Hunter: I hate the title.
Niki Trumbo: Me too.
Trumbo: Really, what’s wrong with it?
The Princess and the Peasant...
Hunter: Please Trumbo, it sounds like a puppet show.
Trumbo: Well then change it.
Hunter: I did....
Trumbo: Really, you think this title’s better?
Roman Holiday?
Niki: I like it.
& Arlen: I wouldn’t change anything. Going back. Not one thing.
Trumbo: Let’s ask each other in a year.
& Trumbo: I’ll write you a movie for twelve hundred, then.
Frank King: And you don’t want your name on it...?
Trumbo: No, you don’t want my name on it.
Frank King: You got that right... especially if you’re still... y’know... up to stuff. Are ya?
Trumbo: Perpetually.
& Trumbo: Well, there are many angry and ignorant people in the world. They seem to be breeding in record numbers. All we can do, as a family is stick together and remain vigilant.
& Frank King: So look. We bought a gorilla suit. And we gotta use it.
& Frank King: «Elwood Carr»?.. Murder at the circus? Needs work. I knew the clown did it.
Hunter: It’s always the clown.
& Trumbo: Why can you not see this? If we get one big movie, we can get all the big movies and the whole rotten thing could collapse from the sheer irony that every unemployable writer is employed.
Arlen: Jesus Christ, do you have to say everything like it’s going to be chiseled into a rock?
& Niki: Do you imagine that’s his head?
Cleo: No. But you can.
& Hedda: Drinking alone?
Trumbo: Preferably.
& Niki: Can you believe it?.. Democrats. Voting for segregation.
Trumbo: Southern Dixiecrats.
& — Fire Dalton Trumbo and the rest of ’em or you got pickets, headlines and boycotts. We will put you right out of business.
Frank King: We...?
— The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Me, Ronald Reagan, Hedda Hopper, guilds, studio heads, John Wayne..
Frank King: I love John Wayne.
& Hedda: Who the hell is Robert Rich?
& Kirk Douglas: I’m doing a new picture. And I just got the script.
Trumbo: Must be seven hours of entertainment there.
Kirk Douglas: And not a single page is entertaining. But there’s a good story in there, somewhere. About one man... who tried to take on the whole world.
Trumbo: Well, you’ve got me so far.
Kirk Douglas: He was a slave who led a revolt against the Roman Empire...
Trumbo: And what’s the title?
Kirk Douglas: Spartacus.
& Otto Preminger: Are your duties completed for Mr. Kirk Douglas?
Trumbo: No, but I do have two weeks off for Christmas...
Otto Preminger: During which time you will work with me.
Trumbo: Will I...?
Otto Preminger: If you are as intelligent as your writing... and as greedy as your reputation. It is an adaptation of the novel Exodus. You’ve read it?
Trumbo: No.
Otto Preminger: A colossal best-seller. Very nearly a perfect piece of shit. But—
Trumbo: —there’s a good story in there, somewhere.
Otto Preminger: I have no idea. But I have Paul Newman.
& Trumbo: Well?
Otto Preminger: Better.
Trumbo: Thank God.
Otto Preminger: But. It simply... lacks genius.
Trumbo: Otto. If every scene is brilliant, your movie is going to be utterly monotonous.
Otto Preminger: I tell you what. You write every scene brilliantly. And I will direct unevenly.
& Kirk Douglas: I just need you a few days on some the new scenes.
Trumbo: Of course, but not until the second...
Kirk Douglas: I wouldn’t ask but I’ve never had a director who’s a bigger pain in my ass than Stanley Kubrick. Worst part is, he’s right.
& Ed Muhl: Kirk, If you won’t get rid of Trumbo, I will.
Kirk Douglas: And right after I quit, you can re-shoot all my scenes. See, Ed, for better or worse... I am Spartacus.
--
+ quotes on the IMDb
Σ Unbelievable.