Movie Quotes

"We’re all unlucky in love sometimes. When I am, I go jogging. The body loses water when you jog, so you have none left for tears." – He Zhiwu, Cop 223 (Chungking Express, 1994)

"- You cannot reach the spirit...you cannot reach the spirit through the senses. You cannot. It’s only by complete domination of the senses that you can ever achieve wisdom, truth and human dignity.
- Wisdom? Human dignity?
- Yes.
- What use are they? Genius is a divine gift. No, no: a divine affliction. A sinful, morbid flash fire of natural gifts.
- I reject! I reject! I reject the demonic virtues of art!
- And you are wrong! Evil is a necessity. It is the food of genius."

"Oui mais parler c’est presque une résurrection par rapport à la vie, en ce sens que quand on parle c’est une autre vie que quand on n'parle pas, vous comprenez ? Et alors pour vivre en parlant, il faut avoir passé par la mort de la vie sans parler, vous voyez ? Je ne sais pas si je m’explique bien, mais il y a une sorte d’ascèse en somme qui fait qu’on ne peut bien parler que quand on regarde la vie avec détachement."

"- What's he yelling at?
- Life."

"Pour moi il n’y a pas de putes. Pour moi, une fille qui se fait baiser par n’importe qui, qui se fait baiser n’importe comment, n’est pas une pute. Pour moi il n’y a pas de putes, c’est tout. Tu peux sucer n’importe qui, tu peux te faire baiser par n’importe qui, tu n’es pas une pute. Il n’y a pas de putes sur terre, putain comprends-le. Et tu le comprends certainement. La femme qui est mariée et qui est heureuse et qui rêve de se faire baiser par je ne sais qui, par le patron de son mari, ou par je ne sais quel acteur merdique, ou par son crémier ou par son plombier… Est-ce que c’est une pute? Il n’y a pas de putes. Y a que des cons, y a que des sexes. Qu’est-ce que tu crois. Ce n’est pas triste, hein, c’est super gai."

"Je sais que nous sommes deux personnes, normales, quoi, et qu’après tout, nous pourrions être ensemble. Mais pour combien de temps? Si nous sommes deux personnes comme les autres, quelle sera la durée de notre amour? Il n’y a pas d’amour éternel, même dans les livres, il n’y en a pas. Donc s’aimer, c’est s’aimer pour un certain temps. Il n’y aura pas de miracle pour nous. Nous ne sommes pas plus forts que les autres."

"Tu peux pas résister toute seule à notre histoire d'amour, parce que moi je suis armé et que... j'vais pas t'laisser faire."

"We're all young and smart and were raised by wolves. But the phenomenon of reputation is a delicate thing. A person rises on a word and falls on a syllable."

"How old are you, now that you're not younger than everyone else?"

"Life is too contemporary."

"Everything is a scandal. Dying is a scandal, but we all do it."

"There's pain enough for everybody now."

"- Fear of flying isn't your only problem.
- That's true, I also have a mild fear of dying."

"- You really take after your father. You're both rather pedantic.
- My instinct tells me that pedantry is an essential characteristic for capturing nazis.
- True, but solitude is the playground of resentement."

"There are many ways of dying. The worst of them is to continue living."

"No one ever thinks about death in a supermarket."

"You never look at the backside of a mirror because when you do, it'll affect your future because you're looking at yourself backwards. No, you're looking at your inner self and you don't recognize it because you've never seen it before."

"You can shear a sheep many times, but you can only skin him once."

"Life without decency is unbearable."

"I'd like to bring something in to Lotterman. Like a slide-action, "fuck you" gun. Man, slow-motion murder, just like they do in the movies. See him flying back, fuckin' arms flapping in the air. Okay, motherfucker. Look upon the last face you'll see this side of hell! Bam! Down he goes, morsels of vital organs spinning off into flesh orbit. Bam! There goes his asshole. Bam! There goes his dick. Bam! Bam! Fuck you, Lotterman! You're in a B-fucking movie,and I am the death machine! Shall we have some Adolf?"

"I find that the only way to get through life is to picture myself in an entirely disconnected reality. I often imagine how people would react to my death."

"- Mum, who would you save first in a fire, given the hypothetical situation that Dad and I were equally hard to save?
- I'd go for you but I'd feel bad for your father."

"- Dad, who would you save first in a house fire, given the hypothetical situation that both mum and I were equally difficult to save?
- I'd save your mother first, so we had a better chance of working together to save you."

"Please may Oliver be excused from class. His tiny heart is broken."

"You is kind. You is smart. You is important."

"- The man in the library in your house... Nurse said he's in a coma from a massive stroke. That's your father?
- Was. He's a vegetable now. Soon he'll be nothing.
- That's kind of harsh.
- It's a harsh world."

"Qué es un fantasma? Un evento terrible condenado a repetirse una y otra vez. Un instante de dolor, quizá. Algo muerto que parece por momentos vivo aún. Un sentimiento suspendido en el tiempo, como una fotografía borrosa. Como un insecto atrapado en ámbar."

"Qué lisonja de la pena el no poder ocultarse. Salgan signos a la boca, de lo que en el corazón arde, que nadie crea el incendio si el humo no da señales. El que su cuidado estime, su sentimiento no calle. Mayor es que yo, mi pena, y esto supuesto, más fácil será que ella a mí me venza, que no que yo en ella mande."

"Mi madre dice que por aquí, la tierra es tan seca y el aire tan caliente, que los muertos se quedan a medio camino del Cielo."

"Que soledad, la del príncipe sin reino, la del hombre sin calor."

"Un fantasma, eso soy yo."

"A woman who would steal your love, when your love was all you had, wasn't much of a woman."

"He buried her in the garden she loved more than she loved him."

"It's not real scientific, but I heard an ordinary name like Caroline can lead people to have ordinary expectations about a person."

"They say even the proudest spirit can be broken with love."

"- I'm innocent. I didn't kill that pimp. You couldn't get anything on me and you framed me.
- That is quite true. But your real crime has nothing to do with a pimp's death.
- Well then? What is it?
- Yours is the most terrible crime a human being can commit. I accuse you of a wasted life.
- Guilty."

"Someone once said that temptation resisted is the true measure of character."

"I would not join any club that would have someone like me for a member."

"When I was young, I invented an invisible friend called Mr Ravioli. My psychiatrist says I don't need him anymore, so he just sits in the corner and reads."

"- It was an accident.
- What, like he tripped and you fell?"

" The unlucky are nothing more than a frame of reference for the lucky. You are unlucky, so I may know that I am not. Unfortunately the lucky never realizes they are lucky until it's too late. Take yourself for instance; yesterday you were better off than you are off today but it took today for you to realize it. But today has arrived and it's too late. You see? People are never happy with what they have. They want what they had, or what someone else has."

"- How do you justify being a rabbi... and a gangster?
- I don't. I'm a bad man who doesn't waste time wondering what could've been when I am what could've been and what could not have been. I live on both sides of the fence. My grass is always green."

"La primera ventaja es que cuando el cuento llega al final no se acaba sino que se cae por un agujero y el cuento reaparece en mitad del cuento. La segunda ventaja, y la más grande, que desde aquí se le puede cambiar el rumbo. Si tu me dejas, si me das tiempo."

"- Why did they hang him so high?
- I do not know. Possibly in the belief it’d make him more dead."

"Never drink to feel better. Always drink to feel even better."

"If you ask me "Do you believe in God?", forgive me if I answer, "Does God believe in me?"

"The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."

"- I can get the part from Bristol. It'll take two weeks, here's your pomade.
- Two weeks? That don't do me no good.
- Nearest Ford auto man's Bristol.
- Hold on, I don't want this pomade. I want Dapper Dan.
- I don't carry Dapper Dan, I carry Fop.
- Well, I don't want Fop, goddamn it! I'm a Dapper Dan man!
- Watch your language, young feller, this is a public market. Now if you want Dapper Dan, I can order it for you, have it in a couple of weeks.
- Well, ain't this place a geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere!"

"Only a fool would look for logic in the chambers of the human heart."

"If you are in a camp with a bunch of campers and a bear attacks, you don't have to be faster than the bear. You only have to be faster than the slowest camper."

"- Come on, believe in Jesus. What do you have to lose?
- It's like the lotto. You can't get saved if you don't play."

"Yeah, you could be right. I don't think it's very likely, but yes, you could be right. Because my big thing is i don't know. That's what I preach. I preach the gospel of 'I don't know'. That's what I'm here promoting - doubt. That's my product. The other guys are selling certainty, but not me. I'm on the corner with doubt."

"This is the very spot a lot of christians believe life on earth will end. The irony of religion is that because of its power to divert men to destructive courses, the world actually could come to an end.
The plain fact is religion must die for menkind to live. The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge in having key decisions made by religious people - by irrationalists - by those who would steer the ship of state, not by a compass, but by the equivalent of reading the entrails of a chicken.
Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith, and enable and elevate it are intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction. Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says, "I'm willing, Lord! I'll do whatever you want me to do!" Except that since there are no gods actually talking to us, that void is filled in by people with their own corruptions and limitations and agendas. And anyone who tells you they know, they just know what happens when you die, I promise you, you don't. How can I be so sure? Because I don't know, and you do not possess mental powers that I do not. The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt. Doubt is humble, and that's what man needs to be, considering that human history is just a litany of getting shit dead wrong. This is why rational people, anti-religionists, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves. And those who consider themselves only moderately religious really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes at a terrible price. If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler, a mafia wife, for the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow travelers. If the world does come to an end here, or wherever, or if it limps into the future, decimated by the effects of religion-inspired nuclear terrorism, let's remember what the real problem was that we learned how to precipitate mass death before we got past the neurological disorder of wishing for it. That's it. Grow up or die."

"It seems to me that if there's a bad taste in your mouth, you spit it out. You don't constantly swallow it back."

"Do you know why i can stay in your spooky old room, Mr. Olin? Because i know that ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties don't exist. Even if they did, there's no God to protect us from them, is there?"

"Nothing was ever accomplished with tears."

"I don't mind being shot, I just don't dig being told about it."

"- How tall are you, private?
- Sir, five-foot-nine, sir.
- Five-foot-nine. I didn't know they stacked shit that high."

"What do I think about America's envolvement in the war? Well, I think we should win."

"I hate Vietnam. There's not one horse in this whole country. There's not one horse in Vietnam. There's something basically wrong with that."

"Seja um grão de areia ou uma pedra, na água, ambos se afundam."

"Ri-te e o mundo ri-se contigo. Chora e corarás sozinho."

"Embora não seja melhor que um animal, não terei, ainda assim, direito de viver?"

"Everything he sees exists. We can see it. I can see mummy's eyes, but I can't see my eyes. That little baby can see his hands, but he cannot see himself. So, does he really exist? Do I really exist?"

"If you mix the mashed potatoes and the sauce, you can't separate them later. It's forever. The smoke comes out of daddy's cigarrette, but it never goes back in. We cannot go back. That's why it's hard to choose. You have to make the right choice. As long as you don't choose, everything remains possible."

"- I wish everything would stop right now and things would stay this way forever.
- They say that if you slow your breathing, time slows down."

"I've not lived. I've died a few times."

"- All the sparrows in the garden have been scared off by Jean-Luc.
- Of course. He'd gobble them up.
- You think so? But he's so sweet.
- Are you kidding? It's only because we're bigger and we feed him that he doesn't eat us alive.
- You're so negative!
- Hasn't he put on weight?
- I had some cans of foie gras getting past their sell-by date...
- You fed him foie gras? You know he only eats dry cat food. I've had him ten years and that's all he eats. Fat is bad for animals! He's enormous! He's like dad! You get your hands on someone and turn them into a fat lump. They won't let me keep him with me in the cabin. That's why I have to keep him under 5 kilos. They'll put him in the luggage compartment, drug him and...lots of animals die during the flight.
- How can you say that? I've taken care of him for two weeks.
- I love this cat but your dad hates him, he calls him "eat-shit-sleep"."

"- Got enough, dad? Is that your diet?
- Rabbit is lean meat.
- But look how much you're eating!
- And look at your fat ass!
(...)
- I've got a fat ass because I stopped smoking 18 months ago."

"- By the way, i'll be in your apartment for a couple of days. Marion invited me.
- We got only one bedroom and a really small one.
- I'll bring foie gras. I feel that I'm your brother and what's mine is yours.
- Does that mean that what's mine is yours?
- If you want to give, i'll take it.
- Really? This applies for everything. Let me just explain something to you: i'm american, right? And, in America, what's mine is mine. My first religion is "private property". Don't trespass, don't touch my shit. Or I'll kill you."

"Taking credit when things go right doesn't work the other way. When things go wrong spreading the blame is an essential medic survival tool: «The elevator broke down», «The boyfriend was crazy», «I Should've called in sick», «The tube wouldn't go in»."

"It's always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And wherever you run into it, prejudice always obscures the truth. I don't really know what the truth is. I don't suppose anybody will ever really know. Nine of us now seem to feel that the defendant is innocent, but we're just gambling on probabilities - we may be wrong. We may be trying to let a guilty man go free, I don't know. Nobody really can. But we have a reasonable doubt, and that's something that's very valuable in our system. No jury can declare a man guilty unless he's sure. We nine can't understand how you three are still so sure. Maybe you can tell us."

"Waking up begins with saying «i'm» and «now». For the past 8 months, waking up has actually hurt. The cold realization that i'm still here slowly sets in. I was never terribly fond of waking up. I was never one to jump out of the bed and greet the day with a smile like Jim was. I used to want to punch him sometimes in the morning, he was so happy. I always used to tell him that only fools greet the day with a smile. That only fools can possibly escape the simple truth that «now» isn't simply «now». It's a cold reminder. One day later than yesterday. One year later than last year. And that sooner or later, it will come. He used to laugh at me and then give me a kiss on the cheek. It takes time in the morning for me to become George. Time to adjust to what is expected of George and how he is to behave. By the time I'm dressed, i put the final layer of polish on the now slightely stiff, but quite perfect George, I know fully what part I'm supposed to play. Looking in the mirror, starring back at me, isn't so much as a face as the expression of predicament.
- Just get through the goddamn day.
A bit melodramatic, i guess. But then again, my heart has been broken. I feel as if I'm sinking. Drowning. Can't breathe."

"- Sir, on page 79, Mr. Propter says that the stupidest text in the Bible is «they hated me without a cause». Does that mean the nazis were right to hate de Jews? Is Huxley an anti-semi?
- No. No, Mr. Huxley is not an anti-semi. Of course the nazis were wrong to hate de Jews, but their hate for the Jews was not without a cause. It's just that the cause wasn't real. The cause was imaginary. The cause was fear. Let's leave the Jews out of this for a moment. Let's think of another minority. One that can go unnoticed, if it needs to. There are all sorts of minorities. Blondes, for example. People with frekles. A minority is only thought of as one if it constitutes some kind of threat to the majority. A real threat or an imagined one. And there in lies the fear. And if that minority is, somehow, invisible, then the fear is much greater. And that fear is why the minority is persecuted. So you see, there always is a cause. The cause is fear. Minorities are just people. People like us. I can see I've lost you a bit. So, let me tell you what. We're gonna forget about Mr.Huxley today. And we're gonna talk about fear. Fear, afterall, is our real enemy. Fear is taking over our world. Fear is being used as a tool of manipulation in our society. It's how politicians peddle policy. It's how Madison Avenue sells you things you don't need. Think about it. The fear of being attacked. The fear that there are comunists looking around every corner. The fear that some little Caribean country that doesn't believe in our way of life poses a threat to us. The fear that black culture may take over the world. The fear of Elvis Presley's hips. Actually, maybe that one is a real fear. Fear that our bad breath may ruin our friendships. The fear of growing old. Of being alone. The fear that we're useless. That no one cares what we have to say."

"- Fear of things gets me all the time. You can't talk about it without anyone, or you just sound like a fool.
- You can't talk about it with Louis?
- I don't think she's affraid of anything.
- Everyone's affraid of something, Kenny.
- What are you affraid of, Sir?
- Cars.
- How can you live in Los Angeles and be affraid of cars?
- Maybe you can't.
- Sometimes, my fear of things can almost paralise me. It's like i get really panic stricted and I feel like I might explode or something."

"- Christopher, would you like it if I killed you?
- I don't know.
- But if you keep this up, you get to find out. So, why don't you go home and stop shooting people?"

"- Charlie, there is nothing wrong with your life. You just like feeling sorry for yourself. It's one of your great pleasures."

"- Quel malheur pour une fois qu'une princesse était jeune et jolie...
- Vous voulez dire que si elle avait été vieille et moche c’était moins grave ?
- Bah! Oui quand même ! Regardez mère Thérésa."

"C'est l'angoisse du temps qui passe qui nous fait tant parler du temps qu'il fait."

"Vous au moins vous ne risquez pas d'être un légume puisque même un artichaut a du coeur."

"Il faut que ça respire une femme. Elle tient la même réplique dans 'Un air de famille'."

"- Maybe you shouldn't drink so much.
- Maybe I shouldn't breathe so much."

"- I just keep thinking that if I could just be normal, if I could just get out of bed in the morning, everything would be okay.
- Well, what do you think normal is?
- Most people, you know, they cut themselves, they put a band-aid on, they keep going.
- And what do you do?
- I just keep bleeding."

"I need someone to shut off my brain and turn on my heart."

"Sometimes it feels like we're all living in a Prozac nation. The United States of Depression."

"Some things are true whether you believe them or not."

"I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her mouth, one touch of her hand, than an eternity without it."

" - Uli doesn't care about anything. He's a Nihilist.
- Ah, that must be exhausting."

"How do you live if you're ruled by your past, but how do you let go of a past that made you?"

"People die of common sense, Dorian, one lost moment at a time. Life is a moment. There is no hereafter. So make it burn always with the hardest flame."

"Some things are precious for not lasting."

"We wither and scar because the gods are cruel and hateful."