"Our days are numbered. One of the primary goals in our lives should be to prepare for our last day. The legacy we leave is not just in our possessions, but in the quality of our lives. What preparations should we be making now? The greatest waste in all of our earth, which cannot be recycled or reclaimed, is our waste of the time that God has given us each day."—Billy Graham
By Scoti Springfield Domeij
Is Your Writing Quotable?
Jesus, famous authors and leaders make statements that stick. Like tape stuck on your finger, it's hard to shake the quote from your mind. When you write, do you ask?
- "Is my writing quotable?"
- "Are my characters or is my character memorable?"
- "Does what I write make a difference in the lives and circumstances confronting others?"
- "Could I write something with the potential to enter the national lexicon?"
As I read the movie quotes below, not only did I remember the movie, my mind's ear heard the intonation and actor's voice. Some of the quotes made me laugh, because I recalled the scene.
Writing passes on a rich inheritance for future generations to remember or discover. The best legacy a writer can leave behind?
A trail of wisdom learned along the road of life.
1920
"Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet! Wait a minute, I tell ya! You ain't heard nothin'!" Jakie Rabinowitz/Jack Robin/Al Jolson, The Jazz Singer, 1927
1930
"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know." Capt. Geoffrey T. Spaulding/Groucho Marx, Animal Crackers, 1930
"Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?" Cesare Enrico "Rico" Bandello/Edward G. Robinson, Little Caesar, 1930
"It's alive! It's alive!" Henry Frankenstein/Colin Clive, Frankenstein, 1931
"Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make." Count Dracula/Bela Lugosi, Dracula, 1931
"I want to be alone." Grusinskaya/Greta Garbo, Grand Hotel, 1932
"Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!" Julian Marsh/Warner Baxter, 42nd Street, 1933
"Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!" Oliver/Oliver Hardy, Sons of the Desert, 1933
"Why don't you come up sometime and see me?" Lady Lou/Mae West, She Done Him Wrong, 1933
"Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast." Carl Denham/Robert Armstrong, King Kong, 1933
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Rhett Butler/Clark Gable, Gone with the Wind, 1939
"As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again." Scarlett O'Hara/Vivien Leigh, Gone with the Wind, 1939
"Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."Dorothy Gale/Judy Garland, The Wizard of Oz, 1939
"There's no place like home." Dorothy Gale/Judy Garland, The Wizard of Oz, 1939
"I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!" Wicked Witch of the West/Margaret Hamilton, The Wizard of Oz, 1939
"Elementary, my dear Watson." Sherlock Holmes/Basil Rathbone, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1939
1940
"Tell 'em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper." Knute Rockne/Pat O'Brien, Knute Rockne, All American, 1940
"The stuff that dreams are made of." Sam Spade/Humphrey Bogart, The Maltese Falcon, 1941
"Rosebud." Charles Foster Kane/Orson Welles, Citizen Kane, 1941
"My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks you. And I thank you." George M. Cohan/James Cagney, Yankee Doodle Dandy, 1942
"Round up the usual suspects." Capt. Louis Renault/Claude Rains, Casablanca, 1942
"Here's looking at you, kid." Rick Blaine/Humphrey Bogart, Casablanca, 1942
"Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'" Ilsa Lund/Ingrid Bergman, Casablanca, 1942
"We'll always have Paris." Rick Blaine/Humphrey Bogart, Casablanca, 1942
"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." Rick Blaine/Humphrey Bogart, Casablanca, 1942
"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Rick Blaine/Humphrey Bogart, Casablanca, 1942
"Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." Lou Gehrig/Gary Cooper, The Pride of the Yankees, 1942
"Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars." Charlotte Vale/Bette Davis, Now, Voyager, 1942
"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow." Marie "Slim" Browning/Lauren Bacall, To Have and Have Not, 1944
"Who's on First?" Dexter/Bud Abbott, The Naughty Nineties, 1945
"Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!" "Gold Hat"/Alfonso Bedoya, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948
"Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" Arthur "Cody" Jarrett/James Cagney, White Heat, 1949
"What a dump." Rosa Moline/Bette Davis, Beyond the Forest, 1949
1950
"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." Norma Desmond/Gloria Swanson, Sunset Boulevard, 1950
"I am big! It's the pictures that got small." Norma Desmond/Gloria Swanson, Sunset Boulevard, 1950
"Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night." Margo Channing/Bette Davis, All About Eve, 1950
"Stella! Hey, Stella!" Stanley Kowalski/Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." Blanche DuBois/Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
"Shane. Shane. Come back!" Joey Starrett/Brandon De Wilde, Shane, 1953
"You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am." Terry Malloy/Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront, 1954
"Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!" Mame Dennis/Rosalind Russell, Auntie Mame, 1958
"Well, nobody's perfect." Osgood Fielding III/Joe E. Brown, Some Like It Hot, 1959
1960
"A boy's best friend is his mother." Norman Bates/Anthony Perkins, Psycho, 1960
"Bond. James Bond." James Bond/Sean Connery, Dr. No, 1962
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" President Merkin Muffley/Peter Sellers, Dr. Strangelove, 1964
"Shaken, not stirred." James Bond/Sean Connery, Goldfinger, 1964
"What we've got here is failure to communicate." Captain/Strother Martin, Cool Hand Luke, 1967
"They call me Mister Tibbs!" Virgil Tibbs/Sidney Poitier, In the Heat of the Night, 1967
"We rob banks." Clyde Barrow/Warren Beatty, Bonnie and Clyde, 1967
"Plastics." Mr. Maguire/Walter Brooke, The Graduate, 1967
"Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?" Benjamin Braddock/Dustin Hoffman, The Graduate, 1967
"Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" George Taylor/Charlton Heston, Planet of the Apes, 1968
"Open the pod bay doors, HAL." Dave Bowman/Keir Dullea, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968
"Hello gorgeous." Fanny Brice/Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl, 1968
"I'm walking here! I'm walking here!" "Ratso" Rizzo/Dustin Hoffman, Midnight Cowboy, 1969
1970
"Love means never having to say you're sorry." Jennifer Cavilleri Barrett/Ali MacGraw, Love Story, 1970
"You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?" Harry Callahan/Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry, 1971
"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse." Vito Corleone/Marlon Brando, The Godfather, 1972
"Soylent Green is people!" Det. Robert Thorn/Charlton Heston, Soylent Green, 1973
"Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." Michael Corleone/Al Pacino, The Godfather Part II, 1974
"Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown." Duffy/Joe Mantell, Chinatown, 1974
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." Martin Brody/Roy Scheider, Jaws, 1975
"Attica! Attica!" Sonny Wortzik/Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon, 1975
"You talkin' to me?" Travis Bickle/Robert De Niro, Taxi Driver, 1976
"Is it safe?" Dr. Christian Szell/Laurence Olivier, Marathon Man, 1976
"Yo, Adrian!" Rocky Balboa/Sylvester Stallone, Rocky, 1976
"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Howard Beale/Peter Finch, Network, 1976
"May the Force be with you." Han Solo/Harrison Ford, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, 1977
"La-dee-da, la-dee-da." Annie Hall/Diane Keaton, Annie Hall, 1977
"Toga! Toga!" John "Bluto" Blutarsky/John Belushi, National Lampoon's Animal House, 1978
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning!" Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore/Robert Duvall, Apocalypse Now, 1979
1980
"Here's Johnny!" Jack Torrance/Jack Nicholson, The Shining, 1980
"Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a miracle…It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!"Carl Spackler/Bill Murray, Caddyshack, 1980
Striker: "Surely you can't be serious!" Rumack: "I am serious... and don't call me Shirley." Ted Striker and Dr. Rumack/Robert Hays and Leslie Nielsen, Airplane!, 1980
"No wire hangers, ever!" Joan Crawford/Faye Dunaway, Mommie Dearest, 1981
"Listen to me, mister. You're my knight in shining armor. Don't you forget it. You're going to get back on that horse, and I'm going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we're gonna go, go, go!" Ethel Thayer/Katharine Hepburn, On Golden Pond, 1981
"E.T. phone home." E.T./Pat Welsh, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982
"They're here!" Carol Anne Freeling/Heather O'Rourke, Poltergeist, 1982
"Go ahead, make my day." Harry Callahan/Clint Eastwood, Sudden Impact, 1983
"Say hello to my little friend!" Tony Montana/Al Pacino, Scarface, 1983
"I'll be back." The Terminator/Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminator, 1984
"I feel the need—the need for speed!" Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell and Lt. Nick "Goose" Bradshaw/Tom Cruise and Anthony Edwards, Top Gun, 1986
"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." Gordon Gekko/Michael Douglas, Wall Street, 1987
"Nobody puts 'Baby' in a corner." Johnny Castle/Patrick Swayze, Dirty Dancing, 1987
"Snap out of it!" Loretta Castorini/Cher, Moonstruck, 1987
"I'll have what she's having." Customer/Estelle Reiner, When Harry Met Sally, 1989
"If you build it, he will come." Shoeless Joe Jackson/Ray Liotta, Field of Dreams, 1989
"Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary." John Keating/Robin Williams, Dead Poets Society, 1989
1990
"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." Hannibal Lecter/Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs, 1991
"Hasta la vista, baby." The Terminator/Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991
"You can't handle the truth!" Col. Nathan Jessup/Jack Nicholson, A Few Good Men, 1992
"There's no crying in baseball!" Jimmy Dugan/Tom Hanks, A League of Their Own, 1992
"Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." Forrest Gump/Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump, 1994
"Houston, we have a problem." Jim Lovell/Tom Hanks, Apollo 13, 1995
"Show me the money!" Rod Tidwell/Cuba Gooding, Jr., Jerry Maguire, 1996
"You had me at 'hello'." Dorothy Boyd/Renée Zellweger, Jerry Maguire, 1996
"I'm the king of the world!" Jack Dawson/Leonardo DiCaprio, Titanic, 1997
"I see dead people." Cole Sear/Haley Joel Osment, The Sixth Sense, 1999
2000
"My precious." Gollum/Andy Serkis, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, 2002
