Don't You Just Love Great Lines From Movies? I Do Too! Here's 20 More of My Favorites

I recently took a stroll down this blog's memory lane. I variably winced, guffawed, nodded approvingly and dozed off as I read the ghosts of posts past. But there were a couple of posts, offered on consecutive day last November, that I really, really enjoyed. In a sense I was not the author, the words having been provided by several dozen screenwriters from the past 80 or so years. 


The first of these posts was a compilation of 20 memorable film lines uttered by male actors in English language movies. The second was another 20, this time as spoken by female actors. I found re-reading the lines exhilarating. Each recalled not only a film, but a scene and an actor. They bespoke the excellence, not just of that movie, but of cinema in general. 


So having had had one success with an idea I find myself ascribing to the current Hollywood philosophy and repeating it. Yes, here I offer the first of a two-part sequel to those posts with 20 more of my favorites from male actors with 20 from actresses to follow. 

You know what to do, feed the French and shoot the Germans! - Lee Marvin as Major Reisman in The Dirty Dozen (1967).


Just look at that parking lot. - Simon Helberg as Rabbi Scott in A Serious Man (2009).


You're a brave man. Go and break through the lines. And remember, while you're out there risking your life and limb through shot and shell, we'll be in be in here thinking what a sucker you are. - Groucho Marx as Rufus T. Firefly in Duck Soup (1933).


Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! - John Belushi as Bluto in Animal House (1978).


And our bodies are earth. And our thoughts are clay. And we sleep and eat with death. - Lew Ayers as Paul Baumer in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).


Oooh, that's a bingo! - Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009).

It's just like the first time I came here, isn't it? We were talking about automobile insurance, only you were thinking about murder. And I was thinking about that anklet. - Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff in Double Indemnity(1944).



You think you're God Almighty, but you know what you are? You're a cheap, lousy, dirty, stinkin' mug! And I'm glad what I done to you, ya hear that? I'm glad what I done! - Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954).


As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. - Ray Liotta as Henry Hill in Goodfellas (1990).


I knew all that stuff about you helping us was baloney. I'll tell you why we can't go home--because our folks are poor. They can't get jobs and there isn't enough to eat. What good will it do you to send us home to starve? You say you've got to send us to jail to keep us off the streets. Well, that's a lie. You're sending us to jail because you don't want to see us. You want to forget us. But you can't do it because I'm not the only one. There's thousands just like me, and there's more hitting the road every day. - Frankie Darro as Eddie Smith in Wild Boys of the Road (1933).


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die. - Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty in Blade Runner (1982).


I object, your honor! This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham. - Woody Allen as Fielding Melesh in Bananas (1971).


Yes, it's safe, it's very safe, it's so safe you wouldn't believe it. - Dustin Hoffman as Babe in Marthon Man (1976).


And what are you? So full of hate you want to go out and fight everybody! Because you've been whipped and chased by hounds. Well that might not be living, but it sure as hell ain't dying. And dying's been what these white boys have been doing for going on three years now! Dying by the thousands! Dying for *you*, fool! I know, 'cause I dug the graves. And all this time I keep askin' myself, when, O Lord, when it's gonna be our time? Gonna come a time when we all gonna hafta ante up. Ante up and kick in like men. LIKE MEN! You watch who you call a nigger! If there's any niggers around here, it's YOU. Just a smart-mouthed, stupid-ass, swamp-runnin' nigger! And if you not careful, that's all you ever gonna be!  - Morgan Freeman as Sgt. Rawlins in Glory (1989).


Boy, I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals. - Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).


I gotta know what day it is. I gotta know what's the name of the game and what the rules are without anyone else telling me. You gotta own your own days and name 'em, each one of 'em, every one of 'em, or else the years go right by and none of them belong to you.  - Jason Robards as Murray Burns in A Thousand Clowns (1965).


 I don't wanna badmouth the kid, but he's a horrible, dishonest, immoral louse. And I say that with all due respect. - Woody Allen as Danny Rose in Broadway Danny Rose (1984).


Hey, pilgrim! You forgot your pop-gun! - John Wayne as Tom Doniphon in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).


Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I never wanted another. - Martin Sheen as Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now (1979).



You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter. In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider. - Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life (1946).