The Contender (2000)

Joan Allen: Laine Hanson

Photos 

17 more photos

Quotes 

• Laine Hanson : Principles only mean something when you stick to them when it's inconvenient.

• Laine Hanson : [closing remarks at Congressional confirmation hearing]  ... And, Mr. Chairman, I stand for the separation of Church and State, and the reason that I stand for that is the same reason that I believe our forefathers did. It is not there to protect religion from the grasp of government but to protect our government from the grasp of religious fanaticism. Now, I may be an atheist, but that does not mean I do not go to church. I do go to church. The church I go to is the one that emancipated the slaves, that gave women the right to vote, that gave us every freedom that we hold dear. My church is this very Chapel of Democracy that we sit in together, and I do not need God to tell me what are my moral absolutes. I need my heart, my brain, and this church.

• Shelly Runyon : Greatness is the orphan of urgency, Laine. Greatness only emerges when we need it most... in time of war or calamity. I can't ask somebody to be a Kennedy or a Lincoln. They were MEN created by their times. What I... What I can ask for... is the promise of greatness. And that, Madam Senator... you don't have.

  Laine Hanson : Well, then... I just wouldn't be using sex as leverage... if I were you, Sheldon. Because, you know, there's one thing you don't want. It's a woman with her finger on the button who isn't getting laid.

• Laine Hanson : Come on, Kermit. If we do that, we are no better than he is.

  Kermit Newman : We are no better than he is!

• Laine Hanson : It seems to me that all you can claim about me... claim, is that I had sex.

  Shelly Runyon : Deviant sex.

  Laine Hanson : Oh, deviant? Who says it was deviant?

  Shelly Runyon : I do. What I say the American people will believe. And do you know why? Because I will have a very big microphone in front of me.

• Shelly Runyon : So, how are Will and the boy?

  Laine Hanson : Let's forego the small talk today Shelly, I'm not in the mood.

  Shelly Runyon : Let the big talk begin.

• President Jackson Evans : [outside the White House, walking away from the party]  Well, can I tell you I'm just bustin' to know what really happened?

  Laine Hanson : You mean, this would just be between Laine and the President?

  President Jackson Evans : I'll go one better. This will be between Laine and Jackson.