Mr. Smith Goes to Washington1939

Jefferson Smith:
You sure had the right idea about me, Saunders. You told me to go back home, keep fillin' those kids full of hooey. Yeah. Just a simple guy you said was still wet behind the ears. A lot of junk about American ideals. Yeah, that's certainly a lot of junk, all right...I don't know. This is a whole new world to me. What are you gonna believe in? And a man like Paine, Senator Joseph Paine gets up and swears that I've been robbing kids of nickels and dimes. A man I've admired and worshiped all my life. There are a lot of fancy words here. Some of them are carved in stone, some of them men like Taylor put up there. So suckers like me could read them. Then you find out what those men actually do. I'm getting out of this town so fast. Away from all the words, the monuments, the whole rotten show.

Clarissa Saunders:
I see. When you get home, what are you gonna tell those kids?

Jefferson Smith:
I'll tell 'em the truth. Might as well find it out now as later.

Clarissa Saunders:
I don't think they'll believe you, Jeff. You know, they're liable to look up at you with hurt faces and say, 'Jeff, what did you do? Quit? Didn't you do something about it?'

Jefferson Smith:
Well, what do you expect me to do? An honorary stooge like me against the Taylors and Paines and machines and lies...

Clarissa Saunders:
Your friend Mr. Lincoln had his Taylors and Paines. So did every other man whoever tried to lift his thought up off the ground. Odds against 'em didn't stop those men. They were fools that way. All the good that ever came into this world came from fools with faith like that. You know that Jeff. You can't quit now. Not you! They aren't all Taylors and Paines in Washington. Their kind just throw big shadows, that's all. You didn't just have faith in Paine or any other living man. You had faith in something bigger than that. You had plain, decent, every day, common rightness. And this country could use some of that. Yeah - so could the whole cock-eyed world. A lot of it. Remember the first day you got here? Remember what you said about Mr. Lincoln? You said he was sitting up there waiting for someone to come along. You were right! He was waiting for a man who could see his job and sail into it. That's what he was waiting for. A man who could tear into the Taylors and root 'em out into the open. I think he was waiting for you Jeff. He knows you can do it. So do I.

Jefferson Smith:
What? Do what, Saunders?

Clarissa Saunders:
You just make up your mind you're not gonna quit and I'll tell you what. I've been thinkin' about it all the way back here. It's a forty foot dive into a tub of water, but I think you can do it.

Jefferson Smith:
Clarissa, where can we get a drink?

Clarissa Saunders:
[slapping his knee] Now you're talkin'!