The Insider Quotes

Lowell Bergman: I did not burn you. I did not give you up to anyone!
Jeffrey Wigand: This is my house... In front of my wife, my kids? What business do we have?
Lowell Bergman: To straighten something out with you. Right here. Right now.
Jeffrey Wigand: So, you didn't mention my name? You haven't talked to

anybody about me?
Lowell Bergman: Why am I gonna mention your name?
Jeffrey Wigand: How did Brown & Williamson know I spoke to you...?
Lowell Bergman: How the hell do I know about Brown & Williamson?
Jeffrey Wigand: It happened after I talked to you. I do not like coincidences!
Lowell

Bergman: And I don't like paranoid accusations! I'm a journalist. Think. Use your head. How do I operate as a journalist by screwing the people who could provide me with information before they provided me with it?
Jeffrey Wigand: [pauses] ... You came all the way down here to tell me that?

Lowell Bergman: [Kluster demands that Wigand's interview be censored into an alternate version] I'm not touching my film.
Eric Kluster: I'm afraid you are.
Lowell Bergman: No, I'm not.
Eric Kluster: We're doing this with or without you, Lowell. If you like, I can sign another producer to edit your show.

Lowell Bergman: Uh, since when has the paragon of investigative journalism allowed LAWYERS to determine the news content on 60 Minutes?

Lowell Bergman: You go public, and 30 million people hear what you gotta say, nothing - I mean nothing - will ever be the same again. You believe that?
Jeffrey Wigand: No.
Lowell Bergman: You should. Because when you're done, the judgement is gonna go down in the court of public opinion, my friend. And that's... the power you have.

Jeffrey Wigand: You believe that?
Lowell Bergman: I believe that? Yes, I believe that.
Jeffrey Wigand: You believe that because you get information out to people, something happens?
Lowell Bergman: Yes.
Jeffrey Wigand: Maybe that's what you've been telling yourself all these

years to justify having a good job. Having status. Maybe for the audience, its just voyeurism, something to do on a Sunday night. And maybe it won't change a fucking thing. And people like myself, and my family are left hung out to dry, used up, broke, alone.
Lowell Bergman: Are you talking to me, or did somebody else just walk in here? I never forced any of that...

Jeffrey Wigand: I don't really understand, exactly...
Lowell Bergman: Don't evade a choice you gotta make by questioning my reputation or 60 Minutes with this cheap skepticism.
Jeffrey Wigand: I have to put my family's welfare on the line here, my friend, and what are you putting up? You're putting up words.
Lowell

Bergman: "Words." While you've been dicking around some fucking company golf tournaments, I've been out in the world, giving my word... and backing it up with action. Now, are you gonna go and do this thing, or not?
Jeffrey Wigand: I said I'd call the kids before they went to bed.

Mike Wallace: You heard Mr. Sandefur say before Congress that he believed nicotine was not addictive.
Jeffrey Wigand: I believe Mr. Sandefur perjured himself because I watched those testimonies very carefully.
Mike Wallace: All of us did, and it was this whole line of people, whole line of CEOs up there, all swearing.

Jeffrey Wigand: Part of the reason I'm here is that I felt that their representations clearly misstated - at least within Brown and Williamson's representation - clearly misstated what is common language within the company: "We are in the nicotine delivery business."
Mike Wallace: And that's what cigarettes are for.
Jeffrey Wigand: A

delivery device for nicotine.
Mike Wallace: A delivery device for nicotine. Put it in your mouth, light it up, and you're gonna get your fix.
Jeffrey Wigand: You're gonna get your fix.
Mike Wallace: You're saying that Brown and Williamson manipulates and adjusts the nicotine fix not by artificially adding nicotine but by

enhancing the effect of nicotine through the use of elements such as ammonia?
Jeffrey Wigand: The process is known as "impact boosting". While not spiking nicotine, they clearly manipulate it. There was extensive use of this technology known as "ammonia chemistry". It allows for the nicotine to be more rapidly absorbed in the lung and therefore affect the brain and central

nervous system. The straw that broke the camel's back for me, and really put me in trouble with Sandefur, was a compound called coumarin. When I came on board at B. and W., they had tried the transition from coumarin to a similar flavor that would give the same taste, and had been unsuccessful. I wanted out immediately. I was told that it could affect sales, so I should mind my own business. I

constructed a memo to Mr. Sandefur indicating I could not in conscience continue with coumarin, a product we now know and we had documentation was similar to coumadin, a lung-specific carcinogen.
Mike Wallace: And you sent the documents to Sandefur?
Jeffrey Wigand: I sent the documents forward to Sandefur. I was told that we would continue to work on

a substitute but we weren't going to remove it as it would impact sales, and that was his decision.
Mike Wallace: In other words, you were charging Sandefur and Brown and Williamson with ignoring health considerations consciously?
Jeffrey Wigand: Most certainly.
Mike Wallace: And on March 24th, Thomas Sandefur, CEO of Brown

and Williamson, had you fired. And the reason he gave you?
Jeffrey Wigand: "Poor communication skills."
Mike Wallace: And you wish you hadn't come forward? You wish you hadn't blown the whistle?
Jeffrey Wigand: Yeah, at times I wish I hadn't done it. There were times I felt compelled to do it. If you ask me would I do it

again, do I think it's worth it? Yeah, I think it's worth it.

Mike Wallace: Am I missing something?
John Harris: What do you mean, Mike?
Mike Wallace: I mean, he's got a corporate secrecy agreement - give me a break! I mean, this is a public health issue! Like an unsafe airframe on a passenger jet or some company dumping cyanide into the East River, issues like that! He can talk, we can air it!

They've got no right to hide behind a "corporate agreement"! Pass the milk.