Favorite dark-comedy quotes

Cafe Society
1

Prizzi’s Honor:

Irene Walker: Charley, I’ve been doin’ three to four hits a year for the past couple of years, most at full pay.

Charley Partanna: That many?

Irene Walker: Well, it’s not many when you consider the size of the population.

Very Bad Things:

Laura: You left a dead prostitute alone in the desert?

Kyle: She’s not alone…
Boyd: If you take away the horror of the scene, take away the tragedy of the death, take away all the moral and ethical implications that have been drilled into your head since grade one, do you know what you’re left with? A 105-pound problem that needs to be moved from point A to point B.

Eating Raoul:

Mary: At the store, can you buy a new frying pan? I’m a little squeamish about using the one we use to kill people.
Sex Shop Salesman: Le Orgy Gel comes in lemon, mint, cherry or trail mix.

Paul: Trail mix?

Sex Shop Salesman: I was making a joke.

Mary: Why should we give up any of that money? We had to kill two people to get it!

Raoul Mendoza: You killed two people for less than a thousand dollars?

Mary: …One of them shortchanged us.
Susan - Swinger in Fur: We’re into B&D but not S&M. We met at the A&P.

2

Repo Man:

Bud: Credit is a sacred trust, it’s what our free society is founded on. Do you think they give a damn about their bills in Russia? I said, do you think they give a damn about their bills in Russia?

Otto: They don’t pay bills in Russia, it’s all free.

Bud: All free? Free my ass. What are you, a fuckin’ commie? Huh?

Otto: No, I ain’t no commie.

Bud: Well, you better not be. I don’t want no commies in my car. No Christians either.

Duke: The lights are growing dim Otto. I know a life of crime has led me to this sorry fate, and yet, I blame society. Society made me what I am.

Otto: That’s bullshit. You’re a white suburban punk just like me.

Duke: Yeah, but it still hurts.

Debbi: Duke, let’s go do some crimes.

Duke: Yeah. Let’s go get sushi and not pay.

Miller: A lot o’ people don’t realize what’s really going on. They view life as a bunch o’ unconnected incidents ‘n things. They don’t realize that there’s this, like, lattice o’ coincidence that lays on top o’ everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you’re thinkin’ about a plate o’ shrimp. Suddenly someone’ll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o’ shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin’ for one, either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconciousness.

Otto: You eat a lot of acid, Miller, back in the hippie days?

Miller: I’ll give you another instance: you know how everybody’s into weirdness right now?..
Agent Rogersz: Good evening, Otto. This is Agent Rogersz. I’m going to ask you a few questions. Since time is short and you may lie, I’m going to have to torture you. But I want you to know, it isn’t personal.
Leila: What about our relationship?

Otto: What?

Leila: Our relationship!

Otto: Fuck that!

Leila: You SHITHEAD! I’m glad I tortured you!

3

Heathers:

Kurt: Hey Ram, doesn’t this cafeteria have a “No Fags Allowed” rule?
J.D.: Well they seem to have an open door policy for assholes though, don’t they?

J.D.: Wanna go out tonight? Catch a movie? Miniature golf?
Veronica: I was thinking more along the lines of slitting Heather Duke’s wrists open, making it look like suicide.
J.D.: Ah, now you’re talking. I can be up for that. I’ve already started underlining meaningful passages in her copy of Moby Dick, if you know what I mean.

Kurt’s Dad: My son’s a homosexual, and I love him. I love my dead gay son.
J.D.: Wonder how he’d react if his son had a limp wrist with a pulse.

J.D.: Football season is over, Veronica. Kurt and Ram had nothing left to offer the school except for date rapes and AIDS jokes.

4

Jennifer’s Body:

Needy: Jennifer’s evil.
Chip: I know.
Needy: No. I mean, she’s actually evil. Not high school evil.

Nikolai: Do you know how hard it is to make it as an indie band these days? There are so many of us, and we’re all so cute and it’s like if you don’t get on Letterman or some retarded soundtrack, you’re screwed, okay? Satan is our only hope. We’re working with the beast now. And we’ve got to make a really big impression on him. And to do that, we’re going to have to butcher you. And bleed you. And then Dirk here is gonna wear your face.
[Dirk gives him a look]
Nikolai: Relax, I’m kidding about the face thing. The rest is gonna happen.

Needy: I’ve been through the Occult section of the library five times.
Chip: Our library has an Occult section?
Needy: Yeah, it’s um, it’s really small.

5

The best line from Repo man is when Otto’s date (the UFO girl, can’t remember her name, it’s been years) is annoyed by his friends:

“Nice friends, Otto.”

“Thanks, I made them myself.”

6

“This is Howard W. Campbell, the last free American. Heil Hitler!”

“Deep down, I think people are basically good at heart.”

Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night

7

Yojimbo:
Young badass: “Try and kill me!”
World-weary killer: “It’ll hurt.”

Jackie Brown:
Ordell: “Is she dead? Is she dead? Yes or no.”
Louis: “Pretty much.”

Dark City:
Insp. Bumstead: “What’s that make so far, Husselbeck? Six hookers in all?”
Husselbeck: “I believe so, sir.”
Insp. Bumstead: “Give the man an ‘A’ for effort.”

Aliens:
Hudson: “Hey, Vasquez, you ever get mistaken for a man?”
Vasquez: “No. Have you?”

Alien: Resurrection:
Johner: “Hey, aren’t you dead?”
Ripley: “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

Charlie Wilson’s War:
Joanne: Why is Congress saying one thing and doing nothing?
Charlie: Well, tradition mostly.

8

Blackadder Goes Forth:
**Captain Blackadder: **You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war two great super-armies developed. Us, the Russians and the French on one side, Germany and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea being that each army would act as the other’s deterrent. That way, there could never be a war.
Private Baldrick: Except, this is sort of a war, isn’t it?
Captain Blackadder: That’s right. There was one tiny flaw in the plan.
Lieutenant George: O, what was that?
Captain Blackadder: It was bollocks.

9

You rarely get to hear the full version of Chevy Chase’s increasingly cracked-up delivery of this because of network censorship on cable/network airings, but I can never not laugh at recalling his rant towards the end of National Lampoon’s Vacation:

I think you’re all fucked in the head! We’re ten hours from the fucking fun park, and you want to bail out. Well I’ll tell you something, this is no longer a vacation, it’s a quest! It’s a quest for fun! I’m gonna have fun, and you’re gonna have fun, we’re all gonna have so much fucking fun we’ll need plastic surgery to remove our goddamn smiles! You’ll be whistling Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah out of your assholes! I gotta be crazy; I’m on a pilgrimage to see a moose! Praise Marty Moose! Oh, shit!

And earlier, his eulogy for his wife’s not-very-dearly-departed “Aunt Edna”:
*
O God, ease our suffering in this, our moment of great despair. Yea, admit this kind and decent woman into thy arms of thine heavenly area, up there. And Moab, he lay us upon the band of the Canaanites, and yea, though the Hindus speak of karma, I implore you: give her a break.*

To which is wife adds: Lord, we loved this woman with all our hearts – [Daughter: “Let’s no overdo it, Mom!” “Shut up, Audrey!”] – but my husband wants to go to Wally World. May God have mercy on his soul. Amen.

10

I like this exchange from Blackadder Goes Forth:
George: If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?
Capt. Blackadder: Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump two hundred feet in the air and scatter oneself over a large area.

11

How can we not quote Gunny Hartman?

Full Metal Jacket

12

From Death to Smoochy

Randolph: Bastard Son of Barney! Die! Die, stuffed ball of fluff! Illegitimate Teletubbie! Die, you Muppet from hell! Die, you foam motherfucker!

I’m sure I have more, but that’s what comes to mind right away.

13

Planes, Trains & Automobiles:

Car Rental Agent: [cheerfully] Welcome to Marathon, may I help you?
Neal: Yes.
Car Rental Agent: How may I help you?
Neal: You can start by wiping that fucking dumb-ass smile off your rosy fucking cheeks! Then you can give me a fucking automobile: a fucking Datsun, a fucking Toyota, a fucking Mustang, a fucking Buick! Four fucking wheels and a seat!
Car Rental Agent: I really don’t care for the way you’re speaking to me.
Neal: And I really don’t care for the way your company left me in the middle of fucking nowhere with fucking keys to a fucking car that isn’t fucking there. And I really didn’t care to fucking walk down a fucking highway and across a fucking runway to get back here to have you smile in my fucking face. I want a fucking car RIGHT FUCKING NOW!
Car Rental Agent: May I see your rental agreement?
Neal: I threw it away.
Car Rental Agent: Oh boy.
Neal: Oh boy, what?
Car Rental Agent: You’re fucked!

14

Burn After Ready
CIA Superior: What did we learn, Palmer?
CIA Officer: I don’t know, sir.
CIA Superior: I don’t fuckin’ know either. I guess we learned not to do it again.

15

Death to Smoochy
When my brothers and I played cowboys and Indians, I was always the Chinese railroad worker.

In Bruges:
Ray: What’s going on over there? They’re filming something? <in the most childlike gleeful voice> They’re filming Midgets!!!

Ray: You two are weird. Would you like some cocaine?

Ken: Ray, you are about the worst tourist in the whole world.
Ray: Ken, I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn’t, so it doesn’t.

Natalie: Harry. Harry! It’s a inanimate fucking object!
Harry: You’re an inanimate fuckin’ object!

Ray: One gay beer for my gay friend, one normal beer for me because I am normal.

Ken: We shall strike a balance between culture and fun.
Ray: Somehow I believe, Ken, that the balance shall tip in the favor of culture, like a big fat fucking retarded fucking black girl on a see-saw opposite… a dwarf.

16

True Lies:
Doris (with dawning horror): Honey, what are you saying? Do you mean you’ve… you’ve killed people?
Boris (earnestly): Yes, but they were all bad.

18

From The Hospital (written by Paddy Chayefski):

Herbert Bock: I mean, where do you train your nurses, Mrs. Christie - Dachau?

And the introduction (by voice over):

On Monday morning, a patient named Guernsey…
male, middle 70s, was admitted to the hospital complaining of chest pains.
He had been referred by a nursing home…
where the doctor had diagnosed his condition as Angina pectoris.
It is axiomatic…
that nursing-home doctors are always wrong.
The intern who admitted Mr. Guernsey, however…
accepted the diagnosis and prescribed morphine…
a drug suitable for angina, but not at all suitable for emphysema…
which is unfortunately what the old man actually had.
Within an hour, the patient became unresponsive and diaphoretic…
and was raced up to Intensive Care, with an irregular pulse of …
blood pressure over respiration rapid and shallow.
The resident on duty in Intensive Care compounded the blunder…
by treating the old man for pulmonary edema.
He gave him digitalis, diuretics and oxygen.
This restored the old man’s color.
He was sent to his room in the Holly Pavilion…
ruddy-complected and peacefully asleep.
But the patient was in CO narcosis, and died at : that evening.
I mention all this only to explain how the bed in Room became available.
The intern involved was a prickly young buck named Schaefer…
who had a good thing going for him with a technician in the Hematology Lab.
In the haphazard fashion of hospital romances…
Dr. Schaefer had been zapping this girl…
on wheelchairs, stretchers, pantry shelves…
in the kitchen, in the morgue, in the dark corners of corridors…
standing up, sitting down…
So you can imagine what an available bed meant to him.

19

“You fought these things before, right?”
“Yes”
“So what did you do?”
“I died;)”
Fight Club
"You’re Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Jackass! "

Role Models
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Mr. Bullshit and Dr. I’m-full-of-shit?”
"In what way are we full of shit? "
“And which one of us has the Ph.D?”

20

I love the “not even give a reach-around” line because it’s the most vulgar possible implementation of the “when did you stop beating your wife?” sort of question. There is no good affirmation or denial of that comment possible without more than a yes or no.

21

It’s not a dark comedy, but I think this quote from My Man Godfrey (1936) would fit right in.

Man at Bar: Take a look at the dizzy old gal with the goat.
Mr. Bullock: I’ve had to look at her for 20 years. That’s MRS. Bullock.
Man at Bar: I’m terribly sorry!
Mr. Bullock: How do you think I feel?