Every Friday on First Thoughts we host a discussion about some aspect of popular culture. Unfortunately, I didn’t prepare a topic in time for this week so I’m recycling a previous post. Have a suggestion for a topic? (I need some fresh ideas.) Send them to me at jcarter@firstthings.com]
“Great movie quotes become part of our cultural vocabulary,” said American Film Institute director Jean Picker Firstenberg as he unveiled AFI’S 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes: America’s Greatest Quips, Comebacks and Catchphrases. The AFI list is as comprehensive as it is dull; a mix of the classic (“Here’s looking at you, kid.”), the banal (“I feel the need—the need for speed!”), and the downright silly (“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”). Left off of the list were many of the enduring favorites of our misspent youths (think anything from Caddyshack or the Monty Python movies) that are repeated ad nauseum by college freshman as if they were fresh inside jokes.
Somewhere there is a middle ground between the trite classics and the trite cult standards. To fill that gap I offer the following fifty quotable lines of dialogue from movies that are neither overly familiar nor exceedingly obscure. The criteria for making the cut was that the quote had to be relatively short, profanity-free, and provide either a kernel of wisdom, insight, or humor. Some of them come from exceptional films while others are gleaned from movies that are merely watchable. I tried to choose representative quotes so your feelings about the snippet of dialogue are likely to mirror your appreciation of each movie. These are not necessarily the best (or even my favorite movie quips—though some are) but they are all, in my opinion, deserving of more attention.
Principal: Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Billy Madison: Okay, a simple no would’ve done just fine.
Barcelona 
(There are very few movies that can be charming, funny, urbane, and champion conservative social mores all at the same time. Director Whit Stillman, however, has managed to make three such movies: Barcelona, Metropolitan, and Last Days of Disco. While the dry wit may not appeal to everyone, I recommend them to anyone who can appreciate a subtly humorous examination of an almost extinct social class: preppies.)
Fred: You are far weirder than someone merely into S&M. At least they have a tradition. We have some idea what S&M is about. There’s movies and books about it. But so far as I know, there is nothing to explain the way you are.
Marta: I think there is something fascist about a boy who immediately talks of marrying a woman he likes.
Fred: I don’t think Ted is a fascist of the marrying kind.
Fred: Maybe you can clarify something for me. Since I’ve been, you know, waiting for the fleet to show up, I’ve read a lot, and . . .
Ted: Really?
Fred: And one of the things that keeps popping up is this about “subtext.” Plays, novels, songs – they all have a “subtext,” which I take to mean a hidden message or import of some kind. So subtext we know. But what do you call the message or meaning that’s right there on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. What do you call what’s above the subtext?
Ted: The text.
Fred: OK, that’s right, but they never talk about that.
Charlie: Fourierism was tried in the late nineteenth century . . . and it failed. Wasn’t Brookfarm Fourierist? It failed.
Tom: That’s debatable.
Charlie: Whether Brookfarm failed?
Tom: That it ceased to exist, I’ll grant you, but whether or not it failed cannot be definitively said.
Charlie: Well, for me, ceasing to exist is – is failure. I mean, that’s pretty definitive.
Tom: Well, everyone ceases to exist. Doesn’t mean everyone’s a failure.
Nick Smith: It’s a tiny bit arrogant of people to go around worrying about those less fortunate.
Nick Smith: Rick Von Slonecker is tall, rich, good looking, stupid, dishonest, conceited, a bully, liar, drunk and thief, an egomaniac, and probably psychotic. In short, highly attractive to women.
Tom Platt: The environmental movement of our times was sparked by the rerelease of Bambi in the 1950s.
Josh Neff: [Describing the Disney movie Lady and the Tramp] There is something depressing about it and it’s not really about dogs. Except for some superficial bow-wow stuff at the start, the dogs all represent human types which is where it gets into real trouble. Lady, the ostensible protagonist, is a fluffy blond cocker spaniel with absolutely nothing on the brain. She’s great looking but, let’s be honest, incredibly insipid. Tramp, the love interest is a smarmy braggart of the most obnoxious kind, an oily jail bird
Josh Neff: [Still talking about Lady and the Tramp] No, [Tramp's] a self confessed chicken thief; an all around sleaze ball. What’s the function of a film of this kind? Essentially it’s a primer about love and marriage directed at very young people, imprinting on their little psyches that smooth talking delinquents recently escaped from the local pound are a good match for nice girls in sheltered homes. When in ten years the icky human version of Tramp shows up around the house their hormones will be racing and no one will understand why. Films like this program women to adore jerks.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
God: What are you doing now?
King Arthur: Averting our eyes, oh Lord.
God: Well, don’t. It’s just like those miserable psalms, always so depressing.
Ponette 
(You haven’t seen this movie yet? What are you waiting for? Oh, and don’t forget the tissue. Watching this film about a four-year-old grieving the loss of a parent is guaranteed to break your heart.)
La Fille de l’Internet: You shouldn’t be so sad.
Ponette: Yes, I should.
La Fille de l’Internet: Your mother was sad, too. She cried on her way to Heaven. God cried as He waited for her. When God was on earth as Jesus, He cried, too. But usually He was as joyful as a child.
Ponette: It isn’t joyful to be a child.
Ponette: I’m waiting for my mommy.
Matiaz: Dead people don’t come back.
Ponette: Jesus did it for his friends. I’m more than a friend. I’m my mommy’s daughter.
Matiaz: Grandpa never came back.
Ponette: That’s because no one was waiting for him.
Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness (Starring Bruce Campbell, the greatest B-movie actor alive.)
Ash: (Bruce Campbell) Don’t touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn’t understand things with alloys and compositions and things with . . . molecular structures.
Arthur: Are all men from the future loud-mouthed braggarts?
Ash: Nope. Just me baby . . . Just me.
Miller’s Crossing (An undderrated gangster film.)
Eddie Dane: How’d you get the fat lip?
Tom Reagan: Old war welt. Acts up around morons.
PCU (An underrated frat movie.)
Droz (Jeremy Piven): These, Tom, are the Causeheads. They find a world-threatening issue and stick with it for about a week.
Droz: What’s this? You’re wearing the shirt of the band you’re going to see? Don’t be that guy.
Jock #1: [at a party] What’s up, babes?
Womynist #1: Pack up your rape culture and take a hike!
Jock #1: [holds up a beer] You want a brewdog?
Womynist #1: We’re not interested in your penis!
Womynist #2: Wait, wait, I think he’s offering us a beer.
[turns to jock, speaks slowly]
Womynist #2: Um . . . Yes. We, would like, a beer.
Jock #1: Okay!
[turns around to get a beer]
Womynist #1: So it’s like, if you’re nice to them, they bring you things?
Womynist #2: Exactly.
Kicking and Screaming (An all around underrated film.)
Grover: Oh, I’ve been to Prague. Well, I haven’t “been to Prague” been to Prague, but I know that thing, that, “Stop shaving your armpits, read the Unbearable Lightness of Being, date a sculptor, now I know how bad American coffee is thing . . . ”
Jane: They have good beer there.
Grover: “. . . now I know how bad American beer is thing.”
Harry Morant: Live each day as though it were your last; one day you’re sure to be right.
Sir Robert Morton: I wept today because right had been done.
Catherine Winslow: Not justice?
Sir Robert Morton: No, not justice. Right. Easy to do justice. Very hard to do right.
Janet Livermore: Somewhere around 25, bizarre becomes immature.
Linda Powell: I think that, a) you have an act, and that, b) not having an act is your act.
Mabel: To look at a thing is quite different from seeing a thing, and one does not see anything until one sees its beauty.
Sir Robert Chiltern: Do you know, Arthur, I sometimes wish I were you.
Lord Arthur Goring: Do you know, Robert, sometimes I wish you were too. Except that you would probably make something useful out of my life, and that would never do.
Antonia: This is no time for Schopenhauer. This is important.
Mrs. Crisp: What kind of doctor are you?
Dr. Mumford: Ph.D. in psychology.
Mrs. Crisp: Oh. Not a real doctor.
Dr. Mumford: That’s right, the fake kind.
Althea Brockett: You know what this feels like? – When I was in high school the thing I wanted most when I was stuck in class, the thing that I was desperately in pursuit of, was a hall pass. That’s all I ever wanted. I loved moving freely around the school while everybody else was trapped in there. That’s how I feel right now. Like I have some giant – all day – hall pass.
Lester Bangs: The only true currency in this bankrupt world . . . is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.
Dennis Hope:
I didn’t invent the rainy day, man. I just own the best umbrella.Elaine Miller:
Adolescence is a marketing ploy.Will: The thing is, a person’s life is like a TV show. I was the star of The Will Show. And The Will Show wasn’t an ensemble drama. Guests came and went, but I was the regular. It came down to me and me alone. If Marcus’ mum couldn’t manage her own show, if her ratings were falling, it was sad, but that was her problem. Ultimately, the whole single mum plotline was a bit complicated for me.
Christine: You will end up childless and alone.
Will: Well, fingers crossed, yeah.
Will: In my opinion, all men are islands. And what’s more, now’s the time to be one. This is an island age.
John: So, what do you reckon to our new Prime Minister, then?
Judy: I like him. Can’t understand why he’s not married, though.
John: Oh, you know the type. Married to his job. Either that or gay as a picnic basket.
Prime Minister (Hugh Grant): [to a portrait of Margaret Thatcher] Did you ever have this kind of problem? Yeah – of course you did, you saucy minx.
Daniel (Liam Neeson): Option One: ask her out.
Sam: Impossible.
Daniel: Fair enough. Option Two: become her friend.
Sam: She’s the most popular girl in school and she hates boys.
Daniel: Okay. Option Three: kidnap her and keep her tied up in your room until she agrees to marry you.
Sam: It’s a route I’ve considered.
Daniel: And quite rightly rejected on the grounds of . . .
Sam: Hygiene.
Paul: Supermodels are beautiful girls, Will. A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you’ve been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high full of the single greatest commodity known to man – promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it’s going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That’s all they are. Bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels.
Andera: So why the sad face?
Willie Conway: Job requirement. Happy piano players work the circus.
Willie Conway: I can’t play Pooh to your Christopher Robin.
Helen: What does your therapist say about all of this?
Jessica: Oh, I could never tell my therapist.
Helen: Why not?
Jessica: Because it’s private.
Daryl Zero (Bill Pullman): Now, a few words on looking for things. When you go looking for something specific, your chances of finding it are very bad. Because of all the things in the world, you’re only looking for one of them. When you go looking for anything at all, your chances of finding it are very good. Because of all the things in the world, you’re sure to find some of them.
Madeleine (Kate Winslet): Some things belong on paper, others in life. It’s a blessed fool who can’t tell the difference.
Royer-Collard: If you’re going to martyr yourself Abbe, do it for God, not the chambermaid.
Royer-Collard: You prefer a book to your husband’s company? Well no wonder, I’m only flesh and blood – that’s no match for the printed page
Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix): [To the Marquis De Sade] You’re not the anti-Christ. You’re only a malcontent who knows how to spell.
Saved! (Overall, this satire about a Christian school is a disappointment. But it has some razor sharp lines that are worth mentioning.)
Hilary Faye: Mary, turn away from Satan. Jesus, he loves you.
Mary: You don’t know the first thing about love.
Hilary Faye: [throws a Bible at Mary] I am FILLED with Christ’s love! You are just jealous of my success in the Lord.
Mary: [Mary holds up the Bible] This is not a weapon! You idiot.
Cassandra: There’s only one reason Christian girls comes down to the Planned Parenthood.
Roland: She’s planting a pipe bomb?
Cassandra: Okay, two reasons.
If you counted you’ll notice that there are actually only forty-nine quotes listed. Number fifty remains to be filled in by you in the comments section. What quote (or quotes) should be added to the list?
September 17th, 2010 | 7:47 am
What, no lines from Raising Arizona? Nearly everything they said in that movie was gold!
September 17th, 2010 | 8:11 am
I’m glad to see some love for “Army of Darkness” in your list, Joe. So #50 should come from that classic (take your pick):
Ash: “Good. Bad. I’m the guy with the gun.”
or
Ash: “Gimme some sugar, baby.”
September 17th, 2010 | 8:29 am
from Raising Arizona:
Parole Board chairman: They’ve got a name for people like you H.I. That name is called “recidivism.”
Parole Board member: Repeat offender!
Parole Board chairman: Not a pretty name, is it H.I.?
H.I.: No, sir. That’s one bonehead name, but that ain’t me any more.
Parole Board chairman: You’re not just telling us what we want to hear?
H.I.: No, sir, no way.
Parole Board member: ‘Cause we just want to hear the truth.
H.I.: Well, then I guess I am telling you what you want to hear.
Parole Board chairman: Boy, didn’t we just tell you not to do that?
H.I.: Yes, sir.
Parole Board chairman: Okay, then.
September 17th, 2010 | 8:49 am
It says something about Coen Brothers movies that the only way to find an obscure Coen brothers quote is to reference an obscure Coen brothers movie (Millers Crossing.) If anyone has ever consistently made more quotable movies than those two I’d like to see it.
—–
Maybe this is just because I went to school in Boston last year, but my favorite quote that almost no one else understood was a line from Good Will Hunting where they go to a bar in Harvard Square and Ben Affleck’s character says (complete with Southie Accent) “So this is a Harvard Bar? I feel like there should be equations and s— on the walls.”
As a result my friends from Boston College and I went around Harvard Yard repeating that in reference to whatever location we were in– “So this is a Harvard dorm room…” “So this is a Harvard 7/11…” “So this is a Harvard stairwell…” The barneys remained oblivious.
But that might be more inside joke than good movie quote.
September 17th, 2010 | 9:22 am
High Fidelity
Rob: What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?
Clerks
Randal Graves: [talking about the second Death Star] A construction job of that magnitude would require a helluva lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I’ll bet there were independent contractors working on that thing: plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers.
Dante Hicks: Not just Imperials, is what you’re getting at…
Randal Graves: Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly they’d hire anybody who could do the job. Do you think the average storm trooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing and white uniforms.
Dante Hicks: All right, so even if independent contractors are working on the Death Star, why are you uneasy with its destruction?
Randal Graves: All those innocent contractors hired to do a job were killed – casualties of a war they had nothing to do with.
[notices Dante's confusion]
Randal Graves: All right, look-you’re a roofer, and some juicy government contract comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia – this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn’t ask for that. You have no personal politics. You’re just trying to scrape out a living.
September 17th, 2010 | 10:22 am
So…The Big Lebowski. Are there any quotes from that that are truly obscure?
Jackie Treehorn: You know, people forget that the brain is the body’s largest sexual organ.
The Dude: On you maybe.
September 17th, 2010 | 10:27 am
Cohen Brothers movies are full of the best quotes. Raising Arizona is my favorite. Here are some favorites from others:
The Big Lebowski:
Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) on nihilism:
“Nihilists! F___ me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.
Nihilist #2: Iss not fair!
Walter Sobchak: Fair! Who’s the F____ing Nihilist here!
Oh Brother Where Art Thou?
Delmar: Care for some gopher?
Everett: No thank you Delmar. One third of a gopher would only arouse my appetite without bedding it down.
September 17th, 2010 | 11:09 am
More O Brother:
Tommy: Well the devil taught me to play this here guitar real good!
Delmar: Oh, son, you traded your immortal soul for that?
Tommy: Well, I wasn’t usin’ it!
September 17th, 2010 | 12:16 pm
I’ve always found Judge Smales underrepresented in Caddyshack quotes.
Judge Smales: I’ve sent boys your age to gas chamber Danny. I didn’t want to, but I felt I …owed it to them.
Anthony Hopkins in The Edge:
Charles Morse: We’re all put to the test… but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer, does it?
September 17th, 2010 | 12:45 pm
When I was a kid, I saw a really forgettable WWII movie on TV that had one line that I’ve always remembered. (I don’t remember the movie’s title.) The gestapo officer was about to torture an American for information. The American said something to the effect that no matter what they did to him, he wouldn’t talk. The gestapo officer said, “Before I am through with you, you will be telling me things I don’t even want to know.” (Ghastly, I know. But a good line is a good line!)
September 17th, 2010 | 12:53 pm
The New Guy:
High school’s a lot like prison…the sex you want, you don’t get, and the sex you’re getting……you don’t want.
September 17th, 2010 | 12:54 pm
From Paddy Chayefsky’s The Hospital:
George C. Scott: “Somebody’s got to be responsible.”
September 17th, 2010 | 1:30 pm
Superman 2 is full of good quotes, especially from one of the best movie villains of all time:
President of the United States (kneeling down before his new ruler): Oh God…
General Zod (correcting him): Zod.
—
Zod: This ‘Super man’ is nothing of the kind. He actually cares for these… ‘humans.’
Ursa: Like pets?
Zod: I suppose so.
—
Zod: Come to me, son of Jor-el! Kneel before Zod!
September 17th, 2010 | 2:42 pm
In “The Flight of the Phoenix”: “You act as though stupidity were a virtue.”
September 17th, 2010 | 5:56 pm
“The Friends of Eddie Coyle”, a movie where nobody cares about anybody else and everybody’s making deals with the devil. Says the cop to the informant: “Have a nice day.”
September 18th, 2010 | 1:45 am
I’m not sure what counts as obscure here, but:
A League of their Own (too many great lines to list them all)-
Jimmy Dugan: … sneaking out like this, quitting, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Baseball is what gets inside you. It’s what lights you up, you can’t deny that.
Dottie Hinson: It just got too hard.
Jimmy Dugan: It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard … is what makes it great.
Lupin the Third (one of the few anime films I really liked, not the least for this perfect line:)
Inspector Zenigata: Blast! Lupin managed to steal something again!
Lady Clarisse: He didn’t steal anything. All he did was fight for me.
Zenigata: No! He stole something quite precious … your heart.
September 18th, 2010 | 2:02 am
Oops! I forgot to mention which Lupin film in my above citation. It was Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro
September 20th, 2010 | 3:47 pm
From Ball of Fire (1941)
Sugarpuss O’Shea: Hello, kids. Look down my throat. Go on. Look down. All right, right down there, look.
Prof. Bertram Potts: I don’t know what to look for. There is possibly a slight rosiness in the laryngeal region.
Sugarpuss: Slight rosiness? It’s as red as the ‘Daily Worker’ and just as sore.
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