Law & Order (TV Series)

American Dream (1993)

Michael Moriarty: Executive ADA Ben Stone

Quotes 

• Ben Stone : I guess you just weren't clever enough.

  Phillip Swann : I got this far, Ben.

  Ben Stone : A lot of effort to wind up right back where you started. And in polite society, Sir, you don't call people by their first name unless they ask you to - I didn't do that. You're not a friend, and you're certainly not a colleague.

• Ben Stone : Well, he's certainly going for the jugular. Tax returns for the last 10 years. Puts my life on the dissecting table, and he drools over it.

  Claire Kincaid : He is good. I don't know many lawyers who can recite chapter and verse on collateral estoppel.

  Ben Stone : [Animated]  What did he say right after that?

  Claire Kincaid : "It's not like this is my first case."

  Ben Stone : Waiter, check please.

• Adam Schiff : You may be right about Swann.

  Claire Kincaid : The papers are turning him into a folk hero.

  Adam Schiff : When he gets acquitted, I might offer him a job. You try dealing with him?

  Ben Stone : Adam, if you want me to plead him, you take me off the case.

  Adam Schiff : Don't tempt me.

• Phillip Swann : About that deduction, Ben. You should have gotten yourself a better divorce attorney.

  Ben Stone : You little creep. This isn't a game.

  Phillip Swann : You don't like me, Ben?

  Ben Stone : You just waking up to that?

  Phillip Swann : Could that be the reason that you used perjured testimony to convict me in the first trial?

  Ben Stone : There's no proof that Russell Bobbitt...

  Phillip Swann : Think again, counselor. I was acquitted in the second trial. Therefore, a fortiori, Bobbitt must have been lying in the first. Ergo, you are collaterally estopped from trying to prove otherwise.

• Adam Schiff : You lose, you ruin me and this office.

  Ben Stone : I can live without this job, sir. There are some things I can't live without.

  Adam Schiff : Your ego.

  Ben Stone : Mr. Schiff, if a man who lies can go pro se and win and a man who tells the truth can't, then I don't want to be in this anymore.

• [last lines] 

  Phillip Swann : So... who makes the first move?

  Ben Stone : I want a confession. Not only for the murder of Russell Bobbitt, but for the murder of Sid Cohen.

  Phillip Swann : [laughs in disbelief]  And give away my greatest victory?

  Ben Stone : [to corrections officers]  Take this man back to his cell.

  Phillip Swann : [confused, then angry]  You give up so easy? It doesn't make any sense, Ben, you're being totally *impractical*! That's not like you.

  Ben Stone : Obviously, you don't know me. You never did.

  [smirks]