Carl Bernstein Quotes in All the President's Men (1976)

Howard Simons: Then can we use their names?

Carl Bernstein: No.

Ben Bradlee: Goddammit, when is somebody going to go on the record in this story? You guys are about to write a story that says the former Attorney General, the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in this country, is a crook! Just be sure you're right.

Carl Bernstein: I think it's Magruder.

Bob Woodward: I think it's Magruder too.

Carl Bernstein: Why do you think it's Magruder?

Bob Woodward: Because he was second in command under Mitchell. Why do you think it's Magruder?

Carl Bernstein: [Carl gets up and goes to open a jar of cookies] I think it's Magruder because at one time he was the temporary head of the Committee to Re-Elect before Mitchell.

[he flings one at Bob who, still furiously typing away, catches it without missing a beat]

Bob Woodward: I don't want a cookie.

John Mitchell: [on phone] You tell your publisher, tell Katie Graham she's gonna get her tit caught in a big wringer if that's published.

Ben Bradlee: [later] He really said that about Mrs. Graham?

Carl Bernstein: [nods]

Ben Bradlee: Well, I'd cut the words "her tit" and print it.

Carl Bernstein: Why?

Ben Bradlee: This is a family newspaper.

Sally Aiken: Ken Clawson told me he wrote the Canuck letter.

Carl Bernstein: The letter that said Muskie was slurring the Canadians.

Bob Woodward: Clawson.

Carl Bernstein: The deputy director of White House communications wrote the Canuck letter. When'd he tell you this?

Sally Aiken: When we were having drinks.

Carl Bernstein: Where were you?

Sally Aiken: My apartment.

Carl Bernstein: When did you say he told you?

Sally Aiken: Two weeks ago.

Carl Bernstein: What else did he say? He didn't say anything? Come on, you're hedging.

Bob Woodward: Do you think he said it to impress you, to try to get you to go to bed with him?

Carl Bernstein: Jesus!

Bob Woodward: No, I want to hear her say it. Do you think he said that to impress you, to try to get you to go to bed with him?

Carl Bernstein: Why did it take you two weeks to tell us this, Sally?

Sally Aiken: I guess I don't have the taste for the jugular you guys have.

Bob Woodward: Segretti crisscrossed the country, at least a dozen times. And always stayed in cities where there were Democratic primaries.

Carl Bernstein: So if the break-in was just one incident in a campaign of sabotage that began a whole year before Watergate...

Bob Woodward: Then for the first time the break-in makes sense.

Carl Bernstein: This isn't so crazy. This whole thing didn't start with the bugging of the headquarters.

Bob Woodward: Segretti was doing this a year before the bugging.

Carl Bernstein: And a year before, Nixon wasn't slaughtering Muskie, he was running behind Muskie, before Muskie self-destructed.

Bob Woodward: *If* he self-destructed!

Carl Bernstein: Bob, listen, I think I've got something, I don't know what it is. But somewhere in this world there is a Kenneth H. Dahlberg, and we gotta get to him before the New York Times does, because I think they've got the same information.

Carl Bernstein: Boy, that woman was paranoid! At one point I - I suddenly wondered how high up this thing goes, and her paranoia finally got to me, and I thought what we had was so hot that any minute CBS or NBC were going to come in through the windows and take the story away.

Bob Woodward: You're both paranoid. She's afraid of John Mitchell, and you're afraid of Walter Cronkite.

Debbie Sloan: This is an honest house.

Bob Woodward: That's why we'd like to see your husband.

Carl Bernstein: Facing certain criminal charges that might be brought against some people that are innocent, we just feel that it would be...

Bob Woodward: It's really for his benefit.

Debbie Sloan: No, it's not.

Bob Woodward: No. It's not.

Hugh Sloan Jr.: Deborah, tell them to come in.

Carl Bernstein: All these checks from Mexico?

Dardis: See?

Carl Bernstein: How come? Did the money originate there?

Dardis: Well, I doubt it started off as pesos.

Harry Rosenfeld: Bernstein, why don't you finish one story before trying to get on another?

Carl Bernstein: I finished it.

Harry Rosenfeld: The Virginia legislature story?

Carl Bernstein: I finished it.

Harry Rosenfeld: All right, give it to me.

Carl Bernstein: I'm just polishing it.

Ben Bradlee: Bernstein, are you sure on this story?

Carl Bernstein: Absolutely.

Ben Bradlee: Woodward?

Carl Bernstein: I'm sure.

Ben Bradlee: I'm not. It still seems thin.

Howard Simons: Get another source.

Carl Bernstein: [Walking up to the Sloans' house] All these neat, little houses and all these nice, little streets... It's hard to believe that something's wrong with some of those little houses.

Bob Woodward: No, it isn't.

Carl Bernstein: What was that term you used when you screwed up something?

Donald H. Segretti: We're rat-fuckin'.

[Woodward is woken up by a call from Bernstein]

Carl Bernstein: Woodward, What did you find out? What did he say?

Bob Woodward: What time is it?

Carl Bernstein: You fell asleep?

Bob Woodward: Oh God dammit!

[Woodward hangs up and runs out the door, realizing that he forgot about his secret meeting with Deep Throat]