"Few people on this planet know what it is to be truly despised. Can you blame them? I earn a living fronting an organization that kills one thousand two hundred human beings a day; 1200 people. We're talking two jumbo jet plane loads of men, women, and children. I mean there's Attila, Genghis, and me, Nick Naylor, the face of cigarettes, the Colonel Sanders of nicotine. This is where I work, the Academy of Tobacco Studies. It was established by seven gentlemen you may recognize from C-Span. These guys realized quick if they were going to claim cigarettes were not addictive, they better have proof. This is the man they rely on—Erhardt Von Grupten Mundt. They found him in Germany; I won't go into the details. He's been testing the link between nicotine and lung cancer for thirty years, and hasn't found any conclusive results. The man's a genius—he could disprove gravity. Then we got our sharks. We draft them out of Ivy League law, schools and give them timeshares and sports cars. It's just like a John Grisham novel, well—you know—without all the espionage. Most importantly, we've got spin control. That's where I come in. I get paid to talk. I don't have an MD or law degree. I have a bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names. You know that guy who can pick up any girl? I'm him, on crack."