John Ireland credited as playing...
Jack Burden
- Jack Burden: I tell you there's nothing on the judge.
- Willie Stark: Jack, there's something on everybody. Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption.
- Jack Burden: Appeal to their emotions. Make them laugh; make them cry; make them mad, even if they get mad at you. But for heaven's sake, don't try to improve their minds.
- Anne Stanton: He hit me, Jack. My own brother hit me.
- Jack Burden: Your brother's an old-fashioned man. He believes in a sister's honor. Me, I'm a modern man, the twentieth-century type. I run.
- Sadie Burke: How'd you get him here? He was out stiff.
- Jack Burden: A hair of the dog that bit him.
- Sadie Burke: Hair? He must've swallowed the dog!
- Jack Burden: Anne, Burden's Landing is a place on the Moon. It isn't real. It doesn't exist. It's me pretending to live on what I earn. It's my mother trying to keep herself young and drinking herself old. It's you and Adam living in this house as though your father were still alive. It's an old man like the judge dreaming of the past.
- Jack Burden: [inside the governor's swerving car being driven at dangerous speeds by Sugar] You'll never live to be impeached!
- Willie Stark: Boy, I'll live to be President!
- [Newspaper editor Madison sends Burden to the backwaters of the state to learn about political upstart Willie Stark]
- Jack Burden: What's so special about him?
- Madison: They say he's an honest man.
- Jack Burden: He roared across the state making speeches. All of them adding up to the same thing: 'It's not me they're after. It's you!' Willie hollered 'foul.' He knew if you hollered hard and loud enough... people begin to believe. Just in case they didn't, he organized demonstrations.
- Willie Stark: Tell the boys to get the hicks out. Bring them in from the sticks. Empty the pool halls. Turn em out! Turn the yokels out!
- Jack Burden: In case anyone hollered back, he organized spontaneous slugging. Willie pulled every trick he ever knew and added a few more.