- Nun: You made one mistake. You said "after we die eternity begins". Eternity has no beginning, it has no end. Eternity can't come after life, eternity includes life. We make eternity, every hour, every day, every second. We choose what our eternity will be.
- Constance 'Connie' Potter: Doctor, I don't mean to be angry.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: Forget about it, I don't mean to be inhumane.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: My question is, if you were comatose would you want to be kept a live for months by machines.
- Dr. Butz: Hell no! When I go, I don't want to be tortured in some bed. I have this planned out, Warner. I'm gonna be sitting on my back porch, I'm gonna have a Cuban cigar in one hand, and a big glass 'o scotch in the other, and a belly full of barbecued ribs with a ton of sauce. That's why I don't have insurance.
- Bed Two: Will I see God?
- Furnaceman: Forget about it, you haven't got a chance.
- Bed Two: But I didn't do anything. I didn't commit any mortal sins, maybe... okay, maybe a few little sins.
- Furnaceman: Look, you were suppose to love God and love your neighbor. You didn't do either. You loved your parents. Big deal.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: If there's no reasonable prospect of cure, why should we proceed?
- Dr. Butz: Where have you been all your life? It's called revenue!
- Dr. Werner Ernst: It's important to say we did as much as we could.
- Stella: Which is doctor-speak for we put this patient through hell before he died.
- Dr. Butz: It's these HMOs that have confused the issue. If the patient were part of an HMO then I could understand your dilemma. With those babies we get paid *not* to perform medical procedures. It's a little like when the government pays the farmers not to grow crops. But with insurance we get paid *to* perform medical procedures.
- Robert Payne: Before we prepare a case it is absolutely essential that we know the truth, so that we can teach our witnesses to articulate truth to our best advantage.
- [last lines]
- Dr. Butz: [shouting from his car] Ernst! Stay away from him! You wanna get sued again? Damn it, make sure he's got insurance! Better ask him for proof of insurance! Haven't you learned anything from me?
- Mike: Are you a doctor?
- Dr. Werner Ernst: Yeah, I'm a doctor.
- Stella: Have you noticed how many of those nasty names start with a "d"? Dweeb, doofus, dickhead, dork, doctor.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: My best post-pubescent years were spent being totally rejected by women. I went from science dweeb in high school to biology nerd in college.
- Stella: What changed you into the stud you are today?
- Dr. Werner Ernst: Yeah, an "M.D." after my name. Suddenly, the dork was transformed into a smart, powerful, sexy, all-knowing, potentially *rich*, Master of Medicine. Exactly the kind of man that every girl hopes to marry.
- Stella: I worry about you, Dr. "Wiener". A life of no sleep and prodigious sex is not healthy.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: Who says?
- Stella: Hippocrates. You know what else he said?
- Dr. Werner Ernst: No. What?
- Stella: When the dingus gets hard, the brain gets soft.
- Dr. Butz: Do you remember what happened? They kicked me upstairs! Made me Chairman Emeritus of Intensive Care Medicine. Emeritus. That's Latin for "over the hill".
- Dr. Butz: I'll tell you what, next time his heart stops, let's just kiss his ass goodbye. Isn't that what we all went to medical school for?
- Dr. Butz: Take a look this cat shit. The Medical Licensing Board's coming after me with a pack of rattlesnake lawyers. Look at this, somebody filed another goddamn complaint.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: I have lettuce in my refrigerator with better chances of becoming conscious than this guy.
- Felicia Potter: One of the family members is totally bonkers! Connie has become a holy-rolling, bible-belting, religious nut!
- Constance 'Connie' Potter: I'd watch myself around her. My sister is - Delilah. Dr. Ernst, my sister is Salome and Jezebel.
- Furnaceman: Your problem is that your illness - makes you absolutely useless to other people. From now on, you're nothing but a burden to the living. People have - nothing to gain from being nice to you. Well, your loved ones may continue to - display an instinctual affection. But, even they will ultimately shun you. I mean, let me put it this way, when you were healthy - and were chasing money and women - how much time did you give to comforting the dying? Not much. And I'll tell you why. Because it's depressing, disturbing, and - thankless work. You see? You just have nothing to offer anyone anymore.
- Felicia Potter: So, there I was, with nothing except this little tiny orange bikini and my goose bumps! And they kept on spraying me. So that I would look wet, you know, like from the sea wet. Only it was so cold - that the water actually froze on my body. So all the later shots had me look like these icicles. And they couldn't use any of the shots. That's how glamorous modeling is.
- Richard Wilson: Don't worry. The Medical Center will protect your interests. Our outside counsel, Robert Payne, he'll take care of this.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: Is he good?
- Richard Wilson: He's the best. He's the fucking Terminator.
- Constance 'Connie' Potter: We are all sinners. But God loves sinners.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: That's good news.
- Dr. Butz: If I get sick, no doctor of this planet is gonna to come ten feet from me. They talk about a living will. You don't need a living will. Just make sure you don't have money for health care - and you'll die a happy fellow, with a big smile on your face, in your own king size bed.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: End my medical career? Do you have any idea what's taken me to get this far?
- Felicia Potter: It doesn't matter.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: Doesn't matter? Ten years of college. 120,000 dollars in tuition. A year of hell working as an intern for no money. Two years as a resident. Still no money, but the hours are even worse. 110, 120 hours a week. Never enough sleep. Never any time for myself. It doesn't matter?
- Furnaceman: Forget about earthly notions of justice - where people are talking about what you did. We are talking here about divine justice. Divine justice is based not only on what you did, but on what you did not do. And you did not do anything for anybody unless they could do something for you.
- Robert Payne: Have you ever been cross-examined?
- Dr. Werner Ernst: No, never.
- Robert Payne: Cross-examination can be a very unpleasant experience. Telling lies successfully is almost impossible. Lies change. The truth does not change. If an honest witness gets confused, he need only remember the truth and cling to it. A witness who is lying cannot cling to the truth. Changes appear. A good lawyer confronts those changes. Things get worse. Panic sets in. Lying under oath is perjury. Perjury is a serious crime. It can be a devastating experience.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: I understand.
- Robert Payne: One more thing. If Felicia Potter's attorney calls you to testify, I will be cross-examining you.
- Robert Payne: You should also be aware that in any litigation conducted by competent attorneys, the truth will come out. It's only a question of time.
- Nun: Something troubling you, doctor?
- Dr. Werner Ernst: What? Oh! I was just daydreaming.
- Nun: A teacher once told me: "Be careful what you dream, for you shall become as your dream".
- Nun: we all suffer. Suffering teaches us to love each another. When we see others suffer, we love them and we comfort them... Because we've suffered and we remember what it's like to suffer pain or loneliness... And to have a cool hand touch our brow. And to have a person who loves us for no reason. Listen to your heart.
- Nun: You can change. You can teach yourself to love what's important.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: No matter what we love, it won't be with us after we die. Our bodies, our minds, everything will be gone.
- Nun: In eternity, I will still be here holding this man's hand and praying. You will still be here, asking me these questions and struggling to love me - and to love this man and to love yourself. God will still be here. And everyone who ever lived will still be here too.
- [first lines]
- Stella: [dropping clipboard] That's six's blood gases. I'm up to oxygen 60%.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: Thank you.
- Dr. Werner Ernst: Don't forget, I can keep your father legally alive almost indefinitely. Actually with modern medical technology I could probably give a glass of water all the vital signs necessary to be legally alive. And I can end his life any time I want just by turning a knob.