What makes a movie quote so quotable?

What movie has the most entries on the American Film Institute's (AFI) list of 100 best movie quotes?

Casablanca with six: l) "Here's looking at you, Kid." 2) "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine." 3) "We'll always have Paris." 4) "You stop breathing, you die. You stop fighting, the world dies." 5) Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." 6) "Play it once, Sam.  For old times' sake."

Just repeating these quotes, immediately brings one right back to that place, that mood, as is in the case with hundreds of great films.  Just a few of many favorite screenwriters are Joseph Mankowicz, Billy Wilder, William Goldman. For me, one of Joseph Mankiewicz's best films is All
About Eve; its famous quote, "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!". From Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot; "Well, nobody's perfect."  And William Goldman's Marathon Man; Is It Safe?" But his best quote about Hollywood in general is, "Nobody knows anything."

So, why does a line become quotable? 

William Goldman

(CNN) -- Screenwriter William Goldman has written some of the most famous lines in movie history.

You know the ones. "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die from The Princess Bride. "Is it safe?" from Marathon Man. "Follow the money" from All the President's Men. "Think ya used enough dynamite there, Butch?" from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

He's won two Oscars, two Edgars, a Hugo and a career achievement award from the National Board of Review. He obviously knows how to write. And he still has no idea why some of his dialogue manages to become part of the national vernacular. There are so many factors that go into creating a movie, he says, that it's all a writer can do to get his script right.

 

"When you're doing a movie you have no idea who the powers on the movie are going to be, and is there going to be a star who wants this line or doesn't like that line. You're at the mercy of everybody and you do the best you can," he says. "But you never know."

 

(It's no wonder that another of Goldman's most famous lines is his summation of Hollywood: "Nobody knows anything.")

 

If you're a screenwriter, it's not exactly something you can plan. Maybe the actor gives a line a poor spin; maybe the director doesn't capture the moment; maybe the film editor changes the rhythm of the scene in the cutting room. It's been said that nobody plans to make a bad film, but with so many variables at play, even a good script isn't bulletproof.

 

Fred Shapiro, editor of "The Yale Book of Quotations" and several other books in the field, points out that movie quotations can be a shorthand -- something that brings up powerful associations.

"Some movie quotes become popular because they evoke a great film, or a great scene, or a great actor," he says. "Sometimes the words of the quote become proverbial -- something like 'The natives are restless' or 'If you build it they will come' or 'Win one for the Gipper!' They enter into the language."

 

He also notes that lines tend to get condensed or changed. For example, he was quick to point out that the correct quotation from "Field of Dreams" is "If you build it, he will come."

They're also social glue. Repeat a line from popular comedies such as "Airplane!" or "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," and you can immediately establish bonds with similarly minded individuals. This summer Marvel fans have been fond of repeating, "I am Groot."

The late Harold Ramis was a champ at composing such wisecracks, anti-establishment jokes that have been repeated by generations of viewers.

 

During the Oscars, Pepsi even promoted its "mini can" with a commercial that featured only well-known movie quotations. Why that strategy? "We want to take this to an emotional place," Seth Kaufman, PepsiCo's VP-marketing for colas, told Advertising Age

.

Shapiro makes a distinction between popular quotations and catchphrases. The latter is more of a trademark, he says -- Bugs Bunny's "What's up, doc?", for example, and incessantly repeated. They're often even said in the voice of the performer. It's hard to say "Make my day" without evoking Clint Eastwood's clenched-jaw delivery.

 

These days, thanks to repeated television showings, video streaming and the Internet, quotations attach themselves to our craniums more quickly than ever. Ironically, that means the person who wrote the immortal line is now more ignored than ever. Think about Goldman's classics: "Who do you think of, the actor or the writer?"

 

"Nobody cares about who the screenwriter is," Goldman says. "That's one of the things you have to deal with if you write a screenplay. Nobody has the least knowledge of what's going to work, and everybody wants Tom Cruise."

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Part of the AFI 100 Years... series, AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes is a list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema. The American Film Institute (AFI) revealed the list on June 21, 2005, in a three-hour television program on CBS.

How many do you recognize?

The list

The table below reproduces the quotes as the AFI published them. However, the following have since been identified as being misquoted by the AFI^.

• #2: Marlon Brando says "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse", not "...going to...".
• #4: Judy Garland says "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." (AFI misquotes the line as "I've got a feeling...")
• #40: Tom Hanks says "My momma always said, 'Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.'" (AFI omitted "my.")
• #66: Charlton Heston says "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape", not "Get..."
• #78: Keir Dullea says "Open the pod bay doors, HAL." (AFI added "please.")
• #98: Patrick Swayze says "Nobody puts Baby in the corner", not "...a corner."

Quotation number	Quotation	Character	Actor/Actress	Film	Year
1	Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.	Rhett Butler	Clark Gable	Gone with the Wind	1939
2	I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.	Vito Corleone	Marlon Brando	The Godfather	1972
3	You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am."	Terry Malloy	Marlon Brando	On the Waterfront	1954
4	Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.	Dorothy Gale	Judy Garland	The Wizard of Oz	1939
5	Here's looking at you, kid.	Rick Blaine	Humphrey Bogart	Casablanca	1942
6	Go ahead, make my day.	Harry Callahan	Clint Eastwood	Sudden Impact	1983
7	All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.	Norma Desmond	Gloria Swanson	Sunset Boulevard	1950
8	May the Force be with you.	Han Solo	Harrison Ford	Star Wars	1977
9	"Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.	Margo Channing	Bette Davis	All About Eve	1950
10	You talkin' to me?	Travis Bickle	Robert De Niro	Taxi Driver	1976
11	What we've got here is failure to communicate.	Captain	Strother Martin	Cool Hand Luke	1967
12	I love the smell of napalm in the morning.	Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore	Robert Duvall	Apocalypse Now	1979
13	Love means never having to say you're sorry.	Jennifer Cavilleri Barrett	Ali MacGraw	Love Story	1970
14	The stuff that dreams are made of.	Sam Spade	Humphrey Bogart	The Maltese Falcon	1941
15	E.T. phone home.	E.T.	Pat Welsh	E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial	1982
16	They call me Mister Tibbs!	Virgil Tibbs	Sidney Poitier	In the Heat of the Night	1967
17	Rosebud.	Charles Foster Kane	Orson Welles	Citizen Kane	1941
18	Made it, Ma! Top of the world!	Arthur "Cody" Jarrett	James Cagney	White Heat	1949
19	I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore	Howard Beale	Peter Finch	Network	1976
20	Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.	Rick Blaine	Humphrey Bogart	Casablanca	1942
21	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
22	Bond. James Bond.	James Bond	Sean Connery	Dr. No	1962
23	There's no place like home.	Dorothy Gale	Judy Garland	The Wizard of Oz	1939
24	I am big! It's the pictures that got small.	Norma Desmond	Gloria Swanson	Sunset Boulevard	1950
25	Show me the money!	Rod Tidwell	Cuba Gooding, Jr.	Jerry Maguire	1996
26	Why don't you come up sometime and see me?	Lady Lou	Mae West	She Done Him Wrong	1933
27	I'm walking here! I'm walking here!	"Ratso" Rizzo	Dustin Hoffman	Midnight Cowboy	1969
28	Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'"	Ilsa Lund	Ingrid Bergman	Casablanca	1942
29	You can't handle the truth!	Col. Nathan R. Jessup	Jack Nicholson	A Few Good Men	1992
30	I want to be alone.	Grusinskaya	Greta Garbo	Grand Hotel	1932
31	After all, tomorrow is another day!	Scarlett O'Hara	Vivien Leigh	Gone with the Wind	1939
32	Round up the usual suspects.	Capt. Louis Renault	Claude Rains	Casablanca	1942
33	I'll have what she's having.	Customer	Estelle Reiner	When Harry Met Sally...	1989
34	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
35	You're gonna need a bigger boat."	Martin Brody	Roy Scheider	Jaws	1975
36	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
37	I'll be back.	The Terminator	Arnold Schwarzenegger	The Terminator	1984
38	Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.	Lou Gehrig	Gary Cooper	The Pride of the Yankees	1942
39	If you build it, he will come.	Shoeless Joe Jackson	Ray Liotta (voice)	Field of Dreams	1989
40	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
41	We rob banks.	Clyde Barrow	Warren Beatty	Bonnie and Clyde	1967
42	Plastics.	Mr. Maguire	Walter Brooke	The Graduate	1967
43	We'll always have Paris.	Rick Blaine	Humphrey Bogart	Casablanca	1942
44	I see dead people.	Cole Sear	Haley Joel Osment	The Sixth Sense	1999
45	Stella! Hey, Stella!	Stanley Kowalski	Marlon Brando	A Streetcar Named Desire	1951
46	Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars.	Charlotte Vale	Bette Davis	Now, Voyager	1942
47	Shane. Shane. Come back!	Joey Starrett	Brandon De Wilde	Shane	1953
48	Well, nobody's perfect.	Osgood Fielding III	Joe E. Brown	Some Like It Hot	1959
49	It's alive! It's alive!	Henry Frankenstein	Colin Clive	Frankenstein	1931
50	Houston, we have a problem."	Jim Lovell	Tom Hanks	Apollo 13	1995
51	You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?	Harry Callahan	Clint Eastwood	Dirty Harry	1971
52	You had me at "hello."	Dorothy Boyd	Renée Zellweger	Jerry Maguire	1996
53	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
54	There's no crying in baseball!	Jimmy Dugan	Tom Hanks	A League of Their Own	1992
55	La-dee-da, la-dee-da.	Annie Hall	Diane Keaton	Annie Hall	1977
56	A boy's best friend is his mother.	Norman Bates	Anthony Perkins	Psycho	1960
57	Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.	Gordon Gekko	Michael Douglas	Wall Street	1987
58	Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.	Michael Corleone	Al Pacino	The Godfather Part II	1974
59	As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.	Scarlett O'Hara	Vivien Leigh	Gone with the Wind	1939
60	Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!	Oliver	Oliver Hardy	Sons of the Desert	1933
61	Say 'hello' to my little friend!"	Tony Montana	Al Pacino	Scarface	1983
62	What a dump.	Rosa Moline	Bette Davis	Beyond the Forest	1949
63	Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?	Benjamin Braddock	Dustin Hoffman	The Graduate	1967
64	Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!	President Merkin Muffley	Peter Sellers	Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb	1964
65	Elementary, my dear Watson.	Sherlock Holmes	Basil Rathbone	The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes	1939
66	Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape.	George Taylor	Charlton Heston	Planet of the Apes	1968
67	Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.	Rick Blaine	Humphrey Bogart	Casablanca	1942
68	Here's Johnny!	Jack Torrance	Jack Nicholson	The Shining	1980
69	They're here!	Carol Anne Freeling	Heather O'Rourke	Poltergeist	1982
70	Is it safe?	Dr. Christian Szell	Laurence Olivier	Marathon Man	1976
71	Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet!"	Jakie Rabinowitz/Jack Robin	Al Jolson	The Jazz Singer	1927
72	No wire hangers, ever!	Joan Crawford	Faye Dunaway	Mommie Dearest	1981
73	Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?	Cesare Enrico "Rico" Bandello	Edward G. Robinson	Little Caesar	1930
74	Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."	Lawrence Walsh	Joe Mantell	Chinatown	1974
75	I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.	Blanche DuBois	Vivien Leigh	A Streetcar Named Desire	1951
76	Hasta la vista, baby.	The Terminator	Arnold Schwarzenegger	Terminator 2: Judgment Day	1991
77	Soylent Green is people!	Det. Robert Thorn	Charlton Heston	Soylent Green	1973
78	Open the pod bay doors please, HAL."	Dave Bowman	Keir Dullea	2001: A Space Odyssey	1968
79	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
80	Yo, Adrian!	Rocky Balboa	Sylvester Stallone	Rocky	1976
81	Hello, gorgeous.	Fanny Brice	Barbra Streisand	Funny Girl	1968
82	Toga! Toga!	John "Bluto" Blutarsky	John Belushi	National Lampoon's Animal House	1978
83	Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.	Count Dracula	Bela Lugosi	Dracula	1931
84	Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty  killed the Beast.	Carl Denham	Robert Armstrong	King Kong	1933
85	My precious.	Gollum	Andy Serkis	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	2002
86	Attica! Attica!	Sonny Wortzik	Al Pacino	Dog Day Afternoon	1975
87	Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!	Julian Marsh	Warner Baxter	42nd Street	1933
88	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
89	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
90	A martini. Shaken, not stirred.	James Bond	Sean Connery[	Goldfinger[	1964
91	Who's on first?	Dexter	Bud Abbott	The Naughty Nineties	1945
92	Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac...It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!	Carl Spackler	Bill Murray	Caddyshack	1980
93	Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!	Mame Dennis	Rosalind Russell	Auntie Mame	1958
94	I feel the need—the need for speed!	Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell and Lt. Nick "Goose" Bradshaw	Tom Cruise  Anthony Edwards	Top Gun	1986
95	Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.	John Keating	Robin Williams	Dead Poets Society	1989
96	Snap out of it!	Loretta Castorini	Cher	Moonstruck	1987
97	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
98	Nobody puts Baby in a corner.	Johnny Castle	Patrick Swayze	Dirty Dancing	1987
99	I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!	Wicked Witch of the West	Margaret Hamilton	The Wizard of Oz	1939
100	I'm the king of the world!	Jack Dawson	Leonardo DiCaprio	Titanic	1997

 

 

As Time Goes By, or Play it Sam, Casablanca