- Tess: I dunno, Sam. There's a whole lot o'them and just one of me.
- Sam: And here I thought you loved children.
- Tess: I do love children; I'm an angel, that's what I do, but actually talking to them and things... Gettin' 'em to listen and stop 'em from runnin' around and fidgeting and, asking question after question after question...
- Sam: Tess. Tess.
- Tess: What?
- Sam: When children stop asking questions, that's when you've got a problem.
- Sam: Well, sooner or later the hatred in a man's heart, finds its way into his words, then to his hands. Until he finally becomes a creator of evil itself.
- [first lines]
- Sam: Well, this may not be the most famous building in Washington, D.C. But it might just be the most important.
- Principal: Anyone not in their seat in five seconds is gonna spend the day with me in the principal's office.
- Tess: [the kids scramble to their desks] How'd she do that?
- [Sam chuckles]
- John Wilkes Booth: What state are you from?
- Andrew: I like to think that I am from the State of Grace.
- Andrew: God never made anyone a slave. People made people slaves. And slavery, sir, is an abomination.
- John Wilkes Booth: I'm a gentlemen; we can agree to disagree, right?
- Andrew: Yes.
- John Wilkes Booth: You can go your way, I can go mine, right?
- Andrew: Yes.
- John Wilkes Booth: So why can't the states do the same; if the South can't agree with the North, why can't we all just be gentlemen, and call it a day?
- Andrew: Because if every disagreement dissolved the union there would be no marriage. There would be no friendship. There would be, no contracts... no country. There would be nothing but anarchy. And that is where tyrants come from, sir.
- Abraham Lincoln: And what are you, another one of, uh, Mary's spiritualists?
- Monica: No. Spiritualists seek messages from a - mysterious beyond. I deliver messages from God, Who is neither mysterious nor beyond but with us here, now, in this room.
- Abraham Lincoln: [of his dream] There seemed to be a, deathlike stillness all about me. And then I - I heard sobs, very subdued sobbing. So I... got up out of bed and I wandered downstairs. Until I arrived at the East Room. And there I met a... rather unpleasant surprise. Before me rested a corpse, in funeral vestments. And around it were soldiers and a throng of people were weeping, bitterly. "Who is dead in the White House?" I demanded of one of the soldiers. "The President," was his answer. "He was killed by an assassin."
- Monica: I believe your faith in God a long time ago prepared you to leave this world and meet your Creator. But until that day comes, God wants to reward your faithfulness by giving you some new measure of peace, now.
- John Wilkes Booth: [to Andrew] I believe that you are an interloper. What we refer to in the theatre as "the mysterious stranger" who enters to complicate the plot.
- Sam: Hello, Mr. President. God is with you. And He's sent His angel to be with you, until He calls ya home.
- Monica: I-I cannot see into the future. Only God, Who loves you very much, and do that. But He wants you to know this about your dream. That no matter what happens, what matters most is that in your dream, you were walkin' the halls off the White House. And that for generations to come, children and presidents, citizens and legislators, average Amerians and world leaders will - walk these same hals, and listen for the echo of your footsteps, hoping to hear one distant reassuring sound of honesty, and goodness, and genuine sacrifice. For the people of this country, and the centuries to come, will not simply honor your memory, sir. They will need it. They will cling to it in the days when the real heroes are hard to find. When the little boys and little girls wonder if there was a time when principles mattered more than politics. When parents need an example of courage to point to. They will need you - the men and women of every race and religion who continue the struggle that you began. Who will fight for freedom and fairness, who will even sacrifice their own lives: the fighters, and the dreamers, who will follow you to the mountaintop.
- John Wilkes Booth: A hundred years from now when the schoolchildren are reading about the heroes of the South, right next to Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee will be the names John Wilkes Booth and David Harold!
- Sam: All the lives that were lost during the Civil War, the hundreds of thousands, on both sides, broke God's heart. And if Abraham Lincoln dies tonight, then God will weep again. Now you know He's perfectly capable of sending an angel to remove the gun from the hand of a murderer. He could lift the weapon from the hands of every soldier. He could take the - angry words out of the mouths of every hateful person on Earth. He could do this. But He doesn't. God could change the course of history every day. But that wouldd mean, that there'd be no freedom left in this world. And the last thing Mr. Lincoln would ever want would be to live at the cost of freedom.
- John Wilkes Booth: It's amazing. The light from the fire. It, *illuminates* you. You like some sort of - *avenging angel*. It's quite theatrical, actually.
- Andrew: I am an angel, John. Sent by God.
- John Wilkes Booth: No doubt God wishes to congratulate me.
- Andrew: What you have done was not ordained by God; what you have done, is murder a human being in cold blood. And yet by the grace of that same God there is still time for you to trade that - shame, for mercy.
- John Wilkes Booth: You have avenged nothing. You have achieved nothing, except for the wrath of God. And even now God offers you a choice. You can choose - forgiveness, and peace. Or separation from Him, forever.
- Andrew: There's still time, John. You don't have to die alone.
- John Wilkes Booth: ...I can't.
- Soldier: Can't what?
- John Wilkes Booth: My hands.
- Soldier: What?
- John Wilkes Booth: Put them in front of my face.
- Soldier: Why?
- John Wilkes Booth: ...Please.
- Soldier: Get his hands over them.
- John Wilkes Booth: [the soldiers move his arms so he is now in a position to pray] ... Useless. Useless.
- Soldier: What's useless?
- Andrew: No. John - it's never useless to pray but the time is now, before...
- [Booth is dead]
- Andrew: Before it's too late.
- Sam: A heart can change in an instant. And each heart must be given that chance, but... some hearts, well - sometimes a heart is already dead long before the man dies.
- Andrew: It's over?
- Sam: For him, yes. But there's still something left to be done. But that requires a different *kind* of angel.
- [glances aside; Andrew follows his gaze to Lincoln]
- Sam: I know it usually happens right away, but - the Father had a purpose. And he has new work for *you*, Andrew.
- Andrew: An Angel of Death?
- [Sam pats his shoulder and smiles]
- Andrew: I'd be honored... Hello, Abraham. My name's Andrew.
- Tess: Where would this country be if the children stopped thinking of how to make it a better place to live?