# Best single lines of dialogue from artistic works **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 20, 2023, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111 "2023-02-20T22:37:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2023, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/41 "2023-02-21T22:22:45Z")
Remember, Sully, when I promised to kill you last? That’s right, Matrix! You did! I lied. (from Commando) ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2023, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/42 "2023-02-21T22:24:15Z")
“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, _Beyond Good and Evil_ ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2023, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/43 "2023-02-21T22:27:28Z")
“Fate, It Seems, Is Not Without A Sense Of Irony.” ---
**Author:** ![up2eleven](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/up2eleven/32/13432_2.png) [@up2eleven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up2eleven)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2023, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/44 "2023-02-21T22:27:39Z")
Got frop? ---
**Author:** ![up2eleven](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/up2eleven/32/13432_2.png) [@up2eleven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up2eleven)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2023, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/45 "2023-02-21T22:29:35Z")
“Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle.” - Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2023, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/46 "2023-02-21T22:32:15Z")
Love me, hate me, kill me—anything. Just let me know it. Yeah, well, sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand. Nah, calling it your job don’t make it right, Boss. –Luke Jackson ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2023, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/47 "2023-02-21T22:35:36Z")
“You can imagine what happens next.” “He fixes the cable?” -The Big Lebowski ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2023, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/48 "2023-02-21T22:37:31Z")
Danger doesn’t exist for Teela Brown. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2023, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/49 "2023-02-21T23:05:59Z")
Sweetheart, acting is acting like you’re not acting. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2023, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/50 "2023-02-21T23:46:16Z")
“An edible complex is when a guy likes his mom’s cooking better than eating out.” –Hawkeye in M\*A\*S\*H\* (TV) ---
**Author:** ![Steven\_Maven](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steven_maven/32/3272_2.png) [@Steven\_Maven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steven_Maven)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2023, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/51 "2023-02-21T23:54:58Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > “The cheaper the crook the gaudier the patter.” > > Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade to Sidney Greenstreet as Mr. Gutman re: Elisha Cook, Jr. (can’t remember _his_ character’s name). Elisha Cook Jr’s character’s name was Wilmer Cook, as in the book. Almost all of John Houston’s dialog is taken verbatim from the book. He said he couldn’t improve it. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/52 "2023-02-22T00:12:09Z")
Yeah, I’d read the book could remember whole passages when I heard them in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/53 "2023-02-22T02:15:02Z")
“Don’t think that, just because I _speak_ with an accent, I _think_ with an accent.” ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/54 "2023-02-22T02:52:04Z")
You’re right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars _next_ year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I’ll have to close this place in… 60 years. - Charles Foster Kaine ---
**Author:** ![Galactus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galactus/32/3581_2.png) [@Galactus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galactus)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/55 "2023-02-22T02:55:33Z")
“I don’t deserve this, to die like this.” “Deserves got nothing to do with it.” ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/56 "2023-02-22T15:47:00Z")
Memorable, if not necessarily in the way the makers would have expected : “Watch out for Sodomite patrols!” (From the movie _Sodom And Gomorrah_) ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/57 "2023-02-22T15:55:28Z")
Good. Bad. I’m the guy with the gun. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/58 "2023-02-22T17:09:02Z")
Here’s a fresh one. A great description of NYC from yesterday’s _Night Court_: > Your whole life you hear about how magical New York is. And when you get here, it’s just scaffolding and weird puddles. ---
**Author:** ![motu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/motu/32/259_2.png) [@motu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/motu)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/59 "2023-02-22T17:34:27Z")
There’s one more kid that will never go to school Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool Neil Young-Rockin’ in the Free World ---
**Author:** ![anny\_m](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@anny\_m](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anny_m)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111/60 "2023-02-22T22:11:16Z")
A bit surprised no one has mentioned: You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia” but only slightly less well-known is this: “Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!” That whole movie has a lot of memorable lines. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-single-lines-of-dialogue-from-artistic-works/980111.md?page=4)