My Favorite Movie Quotes

I watch a lot of movies because I’m an asocial homebody and they do all the living for me. Why play sports when I can just watch Major League or Raging Bull? Who needs to go out and party when Risky Business does it better than I ever could? Besides, we’ll all eventually be batshit senile and unable to distinguish real memories from things we viewed on the tube. I can’t wait until I’m telling the other cadavers at the nursing home about the time my friend Lloyd Christmas sabotaged my date with Mary Swanson by feeding me so many laxatives that I almost shit my colon into the toilet.


The point of all this is that, in my day, I’ve seen some good films that contained some good lines. I’d like to share a few of those quotes with you now.



The days go on and on. They don’t end. All my life needed was a sense of some place to go. I don’t believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention. I believe that one should become a person like other people.
-Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver


Let’s start with my all-time favorite, Taxi Driver. When people ask me what my favorite film is, I usually say either Heat or Scarface, but that’s only because I want to hide just how much Taxi Driver, the tale of a sexually frustrated, socially inept nutjob, resonates with me. I mean I might as well say I watch Silence of the Lambs because I identify with Buffalo Bill.


There is no way to dissect this line. It is simple and perfect, like a Snickers bar or a picture of a puppy spooning a kitten. In the briefest of words, it sums up the struggle to find meaning in life, which we can all identify with. At least I hope you identify with it. Otherwise, this all just read like a page out of Mark David Chapman’s diary.



Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Did your parents have any children that lived?
Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, yes, sir.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: I bet they regret that. You’re so ugly you can be a modern art masterpiece! What’s your name, fat-body?
Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, Leonard Lawrence, sir.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Lawrence? Lawrence what? Of Arabia?
Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, no, sir.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: That name sounds like royalty. Are you royalty?
Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, no, sir.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Do you suck dicks?
Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, no, sir.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Bullshit! I bet you could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.
Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, no, sir.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: I don’t like the name Lawrence, only faggots and sailors are called Lawrence. From now on you’re Gomer Pyle.
Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, yes, sir.
-Sgt. Hartman and Leonard ‘Gomer Pyle’ Lawrence, Full Metal Jacket


If you haven’t seen Full Metal Jacket, you’re missing what I believe to be the greatest performance ever put to film. R. Lee Ermey’s 10 minute opening monologue berating the Marine recruits under his command is the definition of genius. I was so obsessed with the scene as a teenager that I recorded the audio to a cassette and would play it on my Walkman ad nauseam. To this day I can recite it verbatim. What can I say? Sometimes life is hard for me, being such a pussy magnet.



So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be really hard. We’re gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day. Will you do something for me, please? Just picture your life for me? 30 years from now, 40 years from now? What’s it look like? If it’s with him, go. Go! I lost you once, I think I can do it again. If I thought that’s what you really wanted. But don’t you take the easy way out.
-Noah, The Notebook


This film sucks. For some reason, though, I wanted to lure you into a false feeling of security by making you think I liked it, thereby giving you permission to admit that you did, too, then mock you for enjoying such maudlin pablum. I will admit Rachel McAdams did look pretty fuckable in that Amish bikini.



I feel good today, Silent Bob. We’re gonna make some money. Then, you know what we’re going to do? We’re gonna go to that party, we’re gonna get some pussy, and I’m gonna fuck this bitch, I’ll fuck this bitch, I’ll fuck ANYTHING THAT MOVES!
-Jay, Clerks


As a film, Clerks had plenty of stronger lines. What makes this one special, though, is vividly recall my grandmother hearing it as she sat on a chair next to me as I watched the film. It was hugely uncomfortable because I like to think that my parents never had sex and that I was immaculately conceived. To consider my grandmother had any idea of what Jay was talking about was too much to bear. Thankfully, all she uttered was, “Wait a minute, what the hell did he just say?” which I chose to not acknowledge until she went back to reading her copy of the National Enquirer. The rest of the film finished without comment. To this day I wonder just how much she listened to.


So there you have it, a list of some of my favorite movie quotes. It’s by no means complete, and I’d love to hear what lines you hold near and dear to your heart. Feel free to paste them on the Papa’s Basement Facebook page, Tweet them to me or just leave them as a comment. Please note: Anyone mentioning a post-Happy Gilmore Adam Sandler film will face a lifetime ban. That is all.