Quotes from Peter Finch movies and TV shows

Howard Beale: I would like at this moment to announce that I will be retiring from this program in two weeks' time because of poor ratings. Since this show is the only thing I had going for me in my life, I've decided to kill myself. I'm going to blow my brains out right on this program a week from today. So tune in next Tuesday. That should give the public relations people a week to promote the show. You ought to get a hell of a rating out of that. 50 share, easy.

Howard Beale: We'll tell you anything you want to hear, we lie like hell.

Howard Beale: You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion.

Howard Beale: ...I want you to get mad. I don't want you to protest, I don't want you to riot, I don't want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression, the inflation, the Russians, or the crime in the streets. All I know is that first... You've got to get mad.

Howard Beale: No, no. I'm gonna blow my brains out right on the air, right in the middle of the 7 o'clock news.
Max Schumacher: You'll get a hell of a rating, I'll guarantee you that. 50 share easy.

Howard Beale: All I know is, you've got to get mad. You've got to say, "I'm a human being, goddamn it. My life has value."

Howard Beale: I want you to go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."

Max Schumacher: We could make a series of it. "Suicide of the Week." Aw, hell, why limit ourselves?"Execution of the Week."
Howard Beale: "Terrorist of the Week."
Max Schumacher: I love it. Suicides, assassinations, mad bombers, Mafia hitmen, automobile smash-ups: "The Death Hour." A great Sunday night show for the whole family. It'd wipe that fuckin' Disney right off the air.

Oscar Wilde: Iced champagne is a favorite drink of mine, much against my doctor's orders.
Sir Edward Carson: Never mind your doctor's orders.
Oscar Wilde: I never do.