Movie Quote of the Day (‘Advise and Consent,’ on ‘A Washington Kind of Lie’)

 

Johnny Leffingwell [played by Eddie Hodges]: “The phone—Senator Munson.”

Robert Leffingwell [his father, played by Henry Fonda]: “Tell him I've gone out.”

Johnny: “Why?”

Robert: “Because, Johnny, he'll want to do some things that might obligate me.”

Johnny: “I mean, why do you want me to lie? If you're in, you're in; if you're out, you're out.”

Robert: “Son, this is a Washington, D.C. kind of lie. It's when the other person knows you're lying, and also knows you know he knows. You follow?”— Advise and Consent (1962), screenplay by Allen Drury and Wendell Mayes, adapted from the novel by Drury, directed by Otto Preminger

Quote of the Day (Allen Drury, on D.C. Political Slaughter ‘For the Best of Motives’)

"Nobody in this town ever does anything except for the best of motives. I've never known a major issue yet in which all sides didn't claim, even as they slaughtered one another, that they were slaughtered by the noblest of reasons."— Allen Drury, Advise and Consent (1959)